THE VATICAN has cleared the way for lay involvement in canon law trials, in its first major review for nine years of church law governing how it deals with clerical child sex abuse.It has doubled the statute of limitations period over which investigations of such abuse can take place and, for the first time, has included provisions for dealing with the abuse of disabled adults.
It also cleared the way for dealing rapidly with abuse, branded possession of child pornography as a “grave crime”, and made “cardinals, patriarchs, legates of the Apostolic See and bishops” subject to the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on child sex abuse matters.
Yesterday’s Normae de gravioribus delictis document, published by the CDF, is an updated version of the Vatican’s 2001 Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela document.
It was a response to what Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi described yesterday as “the vast public echo” which has followed the clerical child sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church over recent years.
He underlined the requirement that civil law must be complied with by church personnel in all instances where the clerical child sex issue is concerned.
Welcoming the document, the Irish Catholic communications office noted last night that “this has been the stated policy in the Irish church since 1996”.
More controversially, yesterday’s Vatican document linked its procedures for addressing clerical child sex abuse with disciplining those who ordain women priests or celebrate the Eucharist with Protestant ministers. In contrast, the 2001 document Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, in contrast, dealt only with the issue of clerical child sex abuse.
Yesterday’s document extended the statute of limitations for sex abuse cases from 10 to 20 years, dating from a victim’s 18th birthday. And for the first time, it directed that the same penalties for the sexual abuse of minors will apply to the abuse of disabled adults.
In particularly severe cases, the disciplinary process may be fast-tracked and the pope will have the right to dismiss an offending priest from the clerical state without trial.
The document also provides for the involvement of lay people in the canon law trial process and has directed that a doctorate in canon law will no longer be required for those engaged in conducting that process.
Regulations concerning the secrecy of canon law trials are to be maintained, to ensure fair procedures are complied with before a conclusion is reached.
Procedures for disciplining those involved with “the attempted ordination of a woman” have been introduced in the document, as established by decree of the CDF in December 2007.
It also addresses procedures for dealing with those who concelebrate the Eucharistic “with [Protestant] ministers of ecclesial communities which do not have Apostolic succession nor recognise the sacramental dignity of priestly ordination”.
At a Vatican briefing yesterday, Msgr Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, explained that the inclusion of clerical child sex abuse and ordination of women in the same document in no way equated the two issues. Illicit ordination was a “sacramental” crime whilst child abuse was a “moral” crime, he said.
Yesterday’s updated revisions to Catholic Church law also touch on other serious canonical crimes such as apostasy, heresy, schism, violation of the seal of the confessional, and desecration of the Eucharist.
Referring to the 2001 Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela document yesterday, Fr Lombardi said that “over the nine years since then, experience has naturally suggested that these norms be integrated and updated, so as to streamline and simplify the procedures and make them more effective, and to take account of new problems”.
He repeated that “it is necessary to comply with the requirements of law in the various countries, and to do so in good time, not during or subsequent to the canonical trial” where child abuse is concerned.
He said “the norms being published today are part of the penal code of canon (church) law, which is complete in itself and entirely distinct from the law of states”.
SIC: IT