AS IT desperately tries to come to terms with the clerical sex abuse crisis, the Holy See is reportedly about to issue an updated set of norms relative to ecclesiastical sanctions to be imposed on abuser priests. Media reports claim the Vatican’s Congregation For the Doctrine Of The Faith (CDF) will release the new guidelines within days.
The norms represent an updating of John Paul II's 2001 motu proprio, Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, codifying a series of changes to that document, known as "special faculties" and secured by the then prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.
The new document will introduce norms that consolidate existing practice rather than instigating a dramatic new approach on how clerical sex abuse should be handled.
Among the issues expected to be touched on by the updated norms, prepared by the current prefect of the CDF, US Cardinal Joseph Levada, are: the extension by 10 years of the statute of limitations; an accelerated laicisation process; the formalisation of the requirement for bishops to report priestly paedophile crime to police or civic authorities; and sanctions for priests found in possession of pornographic material.
Vatican commentators yesterday suggested that this was another case of the Holy See shutting the door long after the horse had bolted, and not even shutting it properly.
US based “BishopAccountability.org” commented: “At a time when bold action is desperately needed, the Vatican is choosing to take tiny steps that will have little impact. It’s time for Benedict to declare an end to the statutes of limitation for child sexual abuse or to impose a universal ‘one strike and you’re out’ policy. Instead the Vatican’s reported new rule package is mostly administrative tinkering.”
Ironically, the updated guidelines would appear to address an issue that has long generated negative criticism of the Holy See, namely the lack of a uniform, universal church policy on the handling of clerical sex abuse. Until now, various national bishops’ conferences have drafted and adopted their own, often similar, guidelines to deal with the problem.
Reports of the new norms come at a moment when the Holy See is still shaken by the Belgian police raid on archdiocesan residences near Brussels two weeks ago.
On that occasion, the Belgian bishops were held for nine hours as the police not only confiscated files, computers and mobile phones but also drilled into the tombs of two dead cardinals, apparently in search of hidden documents.
On Tuesday, as part of the same investigation into paedophile crime, former Belgian primate Cardinal Godfried Daneels was questioned for 10 hours. Indicative of the Belgian “climate” were media reports suggesting that during their raid police had discovered a dossier on notorious Belgian paedophile Marc Dutroux. Belgian church sources were quick to dismiss these reports.
The US Supreme Court last month denied the Vatican’s claim to sovereign foreign state immunity from potential liability for the actions of an Oregon-based priest accused of sexual abuse.
In declining to stop a lawsuit that accuses the Vatican of conspiring with US church officials to cover up sex abuse, the court took a rare step towards bringing the Holy See into a US courtroom.