Survivors urge Vatican to globalise zero-tolerance abuse policy approved in US

Dave West, left, and his brother Larry West, both of Fort Worth, Texas, demonstrate outside the hotel where the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (Charlie Riedel/AP)

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse have urged the Vatican to expand the zero-tolerance policy it approved for the US Catholic Church in 2002 to the rest of the world, arguing that children everywhere should be protected from predator priests.

The US norms say a priest will be permanently removed from church ministry based on a single act of sexual abuse that is either admitted to or established under church law.