Pope changes Vatican law to criminalize sexual abuse of adults by priests

New Delhi, June 02: Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office can be sanctioned for similar sex crimes. The new provisions, released Tuesday after 14 years of study, were contained in the revised criminal law section of the Vatican’s Code of Canon Law, the in-house legal system that covers the 1.3-billion strong Catholic Church.

 

The most significant changes are contained in two articles, 1395 and 1398, which aim to address major problems and shortcomings in the church’s handling of sexual abuse. The law recognizes that adults, too, can be victimized by priests who abuse their authority, and said that laypeople in church offices can be punished for abusing minors as well as adults.

 

The revised section, involving about 90 articles concerning crime and punishment, incorporates many existing changes made to Church law by Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI. It introduces new categories and clearer, more specific language in an attempt to give bishops less wiggle room.

 

 

In a separate accompanying document, the pope reminded bishops that they were responsible for following the letter of the law. One aim of the revisions, Francis said, was to "reduce the number of cases in which the imposition of a penalty was left to the discretion of authorities". Archbishop Filippo Iannone, head of the Vatican department that oversaw the project, said there had been "a climate of excessive slack in the interpretation of penal law," where some bishops sometimes put mercy before justice.

 

 

 

Sexual abuse of minors was put under a new section titled 'Offences Against Human Life, Dignity and Liberty', compared to the previously vague 'Crimes Against Special Obligations'. The new section was expanded to include crimes such as 'grooming' of minors or vulnerable adults for sexual abuse and possessing child pornography. It includes the possible defrocking of clerics who use 'threats or abuse of his authority', to force someone to have sexual relations.

 

 

While the Church has historically prohibited the ordination of women and the ban has been re-affirmed by popes, the 1983 code says only in another section that priestly ordination was reserved for 'a baptised male'. The revised code specifically warns that both the person who attempts to confer ordination on a woman and the woman herself incur automatic excommunication and that the cleric risks being defrocked.

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