© The Independent, UKThe rule was passed at a conference on Friday.
The Italian Bishops' Conference said the guidelines published on Friday reflected suggestions from the Vatican's office that handles sex abuse investigations.
Victims have denounced how bishops systematically covered up abuse by moving priests while keeping prosecutors in the dark.
Only in 2010 did the Vatican instruct bishops to report abuse to police - but only where required by law.
Italian guidelines cite a 1985 treaty between the Vatican and Italy stipulating that clergy aren't obliged to tell magistrates about information obtained through their religious ministry. The guidelines remind bishops, however, they have a ''moral duty" to contribute to the common good.
The ruling comes less than a week after Pope Francis appointed a former child victim as one of the first members of a new commission to help the Catholic Church put an end to clerical sexual abuse.
A UN report published in March blasted what it called the Vatican's code of silence" around abusive priests.
UN children's rights experts estimate "tens of thousands of children worldwide" have been sexually abused by predatory clerics as a result of moving, rather than reporting, paedophiles.
Speaking to Il Corriere della Sera, Pope Francis said at the time: "The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility.
"No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked."
Additional reporting by Associated Press
The Vatican has an office that deals with sex abuse investigations? WHAT?! That's the most ridiculous thing I've heard this year. No wonder they pushed this atrocious rule through. A treaty between the Vatican and Italy just sounds to me like Italy is the lapdog of a law-unto-itself state. These are the REAL Mafioso in that part of the world. It wouldn't surprise me if there were to be information surfacing pointing to them having some kind of M.I.C. (military industrial complex) thing going on there, probably underground too, Italy's got loads of underground tunnels, catacombs and whatnot.
It is 2014 and people still follow these institutions even in the light of all the revelations over the years. When these multiple abuse cases began in earnest, I seriously held hope for the future of the human race. I wrongly assumed that people would "wake up" since all of the activities called into question everything that followers/believers held dear, like a bucket of ice-cold water dumped on the sleeping masses. What happened? Why, the masses believed in them even more!
Silly me eh? I don't know if it was my naivety or just wishful thinking that annoyed me. Right now, I'm almost out of hope for humanity.