As expected, the MSM - typified by AP - are presenting these revised norms as 'new', despite the clear statements made in the revised texts themselves and Fr. Lombardi's accompanying statements that these represent faculties introduced by special decree and followed over the past nine years that are now formally incorporated as modifications into the original documents of 2001 that made the CDF the lead Vatican agency for the 'most serious crimes' in canon law.
Vatican issues new sex abuse norms
By NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY, July 15 (AP) —
The Vatican issued a new set of norms Thursday to respond to the worldwide clerical abuse scandal, cracking down on priests who rape and molest minors and the mentally disabled.
[The MSM intention, of course, is to make it appear that the Vatican framed these 'new' norms in response to media pressure in the past few months! In fact, if the Vatican correspondents had been doing their job properly all these years - after the US scandals erupted and peaked in 2002- they should have been able to keep track of these changes as they were made, since all they had to do was ask, or check regularly into with officials of the CDF.
It is obvious they failed to follow up at all after the hue and cry over the US 'scandals' had faded - and only revived their interest again when the similar revelations about decades-old abuses surgfaced in January last January. Not even the two official Irish government reports in 1009 on even older abuse cases in Ireland prompted a single reporter to check with the CDF how it had dealt with sex abuse cases since the US 'long Lent' passed into history.]
The norms extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse and also codify for the first time that possessing or distributing child pornography is a canonical crime.
But the document made no mention of the need for bishops to report abuse to police and doesn't include any "one-strike and you're out" policy as demanded by some victims' groups.
[On the first point, Fr. Lombardi makes it clear that reporting to civil authorities is part of the practice recommended by teh CDF to all bishops as part of preliminary procedures to canon law proceedings - the CDF texts published today are all about canon law, not about civil law. And on the second, 'one strike and you're out' is not even followed in the criminal law of civilized countries because it is a summary principle incompatible with due process.]
The document also listed the attempted ordination of a woman as a "grave crime" to be handled by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, just as sex abuse is.
Critics have complained that including both in the same document implied equating them.
[Which is stupid to repeat simply as is, without pointing out that all the 'grave crimes' encompassed by these documents are "the more grave delicts ommitted against morals and in the celebration of the sacraments" over which the CDF is given jurisdiction equal to what it has over 'delicts against the faith', its primary concern. Ordination of women is clearly a crime against 'celebration of the sacraments' - of Holy Orders, in this case. By thet facile illogic of victims' advocates that Winfield cites in her report, any criminal code covering the whole spectrum of crimes equates every crime to each other!]
The congregation's norms marked the first major document to be issued by the Vatican since the clerical abuse scandal erupted earlier this year with hundreds of new cases coming to light of priests who molested children, bishops who covered up for them and Vatican officials who turned a blind eye for decades.
The Church's internal justice system for dealing with abuse allegations came under attack because of claims by victims that their accusations were long ignored by bishops more concerned about protecting the church and by the congregation, which was headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger from 1981 until he was elected pope in 2005. [YADA, YADA, YADA... Anything to repeat same old, same old...]
The bulk of the new document merely codified the ad hoc norms for dealing canonically with pedophile priests that have been in use since the first major overhaul of norms came in 2001 and subsequent updates in 2002 and 2003, making them permanent and legally binding. [Ah, so, finally! But why call them 'new' in the headline and lead paragraph????]
"That is a step forward because the norm of law is binding and is certain," said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor.
But Barbara Dorris of the Survivors' Network for Those Abused by Priests, a leading group representing victims of clerical sex abuse, said the new guidelines "can be summed up in three words: missing the boat.
"They deal with one small procedure at the very tail end of the problem: defrocking pedophile priests," she said.
"Relatively few kids have actually been sexually assaulted because predator priests weren't defrocked quickly enough," she said. "Hundreds of thousands of kids, however, have been sexually violated (by) many other more damaging and reckless moves by bishops and other church staff." [More YADA, YADA... from people for whom nothing the Church says and does will ever be enough in sempiternum!]
The 10-year statute of limitations, for example, has routinely been extended on a case by case basis and will continue to be even beyond the new 20-year limit set forth in the document, the text said.
Acquiring, selling or possessing child pornography has also been considered a grave canonical crime for several years, Scicluna has said.
New elements in the text, as first reported last week by The Associated Press, include treating priests who sexually abuse an adult who "habitually lacks the use of reason" with the same set of sanctions as those who abuse minors. Punishments can include being dismissed from the clerical state.
The Vatican in 2007 issued a decree saying the attempted ordination of women would result in automatic excommunication for the woman and the priest who tries to ordain her. That is repeated in the new document, adding that the priest can also be punished by being dismissed from the clerical state.
At a briefing Thursday,
Scicluna said that including the two canonical crimes, sex abuse and ordination of women, in the same document was not equating them but was done to codify the most serious canonical crimes against sacraments and morals that the congregation deals with.
For example, in addition to sex abuse, the document also includes crimes against the sacraments including desecrating the Eucharist, violating the seal of the confessional and for the first time, apostasy, heresy and schism. Attempting to ordain a woman violates the sacrament of holy orders and was therefore included, Scicluna said.
"They are grave, but on different levels," he said.
From the other MSM reports I have seen online, apart from perpetrating the lie that the revised norms are 'new' (i.e., recent and therefore a response to 'pressure' in recent months), the other 'herd line' is that 'the norms do not go far enough', which the AP story also carries in its report of victim advocacy reaction.
Damian Thompson's instant - and yes, I will use the word this time, 'hysterical' - reaction to the Vatican statements today is one I do not share at all.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100047421/vatican-issues-new-penalties-for-sex-abuse-and-ordaining-women-im-sick-of-these-ow...
His main preoccupation is the supposed PR fallout from bringing up the question of women's ordinations along with sex abuses by priests. As we have seen, there is a perfectly logical reason for that - they both have to do with crimes against a sacrament, that of Holy Orders, which pederast priests clearly violate, in addition to the direct carnal sin they commit.
AP reported the inclusion of women's ordination prominently in its anticipatory report last week, and it drew little flak. And so what if it draws more flak now that the formal document is out? How does the ire of liberals and misguided feminists weaken the position of the Church in any way?
Besides, you have to report a news item integrally. How does reporting the sex abuse part of the document separately from the provision on women's ordination make it more 'palatable' or advisable, PR-wise? On the contrary, you would be giving the negative fallout an extended shelf life!
As much as one knows the Vatican has made serious errors of omission and commission in its communications strategy in the recent past, it would be very sad, indeed, if PR considerations were allowed to prevail over a straightforward declaration of principles or facts, as today's documents are. It would be sheer conformism to the whole incorrect 'politically correct' mode - and doing so to a ridiculous extreme!
It is most disappointing that the first reaction of someone like Thompson to the Vatican texts today is to try to preempt an anti-Catholic barrage by elements offended that the Church does not allow women to be priests. They will attack the Church whenever they wish, anyway - they do not need an occasion to be used as a pretext, and they never have.
The following, on the other hand, is the kind of reception properly deserved by the Pope's amendments to canon law:
The METER slogan reads, "If you are offending a child, shame on you!'
'Thank you, Pope Benedict!
Now no one in the Church
can have any more excuses'
Avola, Italy, July 15 (Translated from ASCA) - "Now, no one can say they 'do not know' or pretend they do not know. In the Church or outside it! Thank you, Pope Benedict!"
This was the first reaction of Fr. Fortunato Di Noto, the priest who founded the non-profit Italian child protection group called Meter, after the publication today of the Vatican's revised norms regarding serious crimes against the sacraments.
The revised text codifies and spells out the faculties and procedures extended by special decree to the CDF
since 2001 to strengthen its vigilance and adjudication of such crimes, which include child pornography.
"Now, all who have insulted and defamed the Pope, accusing him of having covered up the most for erring priests and bishops, should apologize. Canon law, its authority and centuries-long experience formally reinforced, can now better confront and combat abuses against children," Don Di Noto said.
[Di Noto, born in 1963, was educated at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and taught church history at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce before choosing to take on parish duties. As parish priest in Avola in Sicily, the deaths of two children in 1996 due to sexual abuses committed against them led him to set up METER (from the Greek word for womb, that also means protection andrefuge) in order to combat abuses of all forms against children. Meter's multifaceted campaigns include a partnership with the Italian postal system to monitor and prevent the dissemination of child pornography through the mails, and actively reporting on child pornography sites on the Internet. He has written three books on the subject of child abuse. I have to look for an English article that does justice to Don Di Noto and the work that Meter does.]
It took the NYT correspondent in Rome quite some time to try and hone her hatchet before filing her oh-so-predictable and rather toothless report, of which I will simply post the first few paragraphs, as we know the drill well enough. The article quotes much more from the instant detractors of the revised rules than from the revisions themselves. And, BTW, Damian Thompson can say, "See?' for all I care...
Vatican issues new rules
on responding to sex abuse
By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: July 15, 2010
VATICAN CITY — In its most significant revision to church law since a sex abuse crisis hit the United States a decade ago and roared back from remission in Europe this spring, the Vatican on Thursday issued
new internal rules making it easier to discipline priests who have sexually abused minors.
But in a move that infuriated victims’ groups and put United States bishops on the defensive, it also codified “the attempted ordination of women” to the priesthood as one of the church’s most grave crimes, along with heresy, schism and pedophilia...
The revision fell short of the hopes of many advocates for victims of priestly abuse: It does not contain measures to hold bishops accountable for abuse by priests on their watch, nor does it require mandatory reporting of sex abuse to civil authorities even in countries where it is not required by civil law...
www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/world/europe/16vatican.html
In his commentary on the revised norms published today, Father Z underscores this fact, easy enough to ignore when a reporter is obsessed with sex crimes and overlooks the primary mission of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
Keep in mind that the norms deal with crimes against morals, but also of faith.
In addition to the sexual abuse of minors crimes – which will probably be the sole focus of much of the press – the norms also cover heresy, apostasy, schism, not just direct but also indirect violation of the seal of Confession, recordings of a sacramental confession done with malice, the attempted ordination of a woman to Holy Orders, and the acquisition, possession or distribution of pornographic images of minors under the age of 14, a clerico turpe patrata [shamefully accomplished by a cleric], in any way and by any means.”
The following graviora delicta – more serious crimes – are reserved to the CDF:
•throwing away, taking or retaining the consecrated species for a sacrilegious purpose, or profaning the consecrated species (Tell that to priests and others who know better when they pout the Precious Blood down sacristy sinks and sacraria!)
•attempting the liturgical action of the Eucharistic sacrifice or the simulation thereof [citing Canon 1378, this norm applies to persons who have not been ordained priests] (Read: pretending to say Mass)
•concelebrating the Eucharistic Sacrifice together with ministers of ecclesial communities which do not have Apostolic succession nor recognize the Sacramental dignity of priestly ordination (what has been called communicatio in sacris)
•consecrating one matter without the other in a Eucharistic celebration or both outside of a Eucharistic celebration
•absolution of an accomplice in the sin against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue
•solicitation to sin with the confessor against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, in the act of, context of or pretext of the Sacrament of Penance
•direct violation of the Sacramental seal
•the violation of the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, committed by a cleric with a minor under the age of 18.
All of these things are sins again faith and/or morals. Sometimes one, sometimes both.
John Allen has his say...and NCReporter has a correct headline:
Vatican revises Church law on sex abuse
By John L Allen Jr
July 15, 2010
Rome -- In the latest chapter of the Vatican's attempt to come to grips with the sexual abuse crisis, Pope Benedict XVI has approved a set of revisions to Church law which are
touted by the Vatican as a major contribution to "rigor and transparency," while derided by critics as "mere tweaking."
The Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, stressed July 15 that these revisions affect only the Church's internal discipline, and are not intended to supplant reporting sex abuse by priests to the police and other civil authorities – a step the Vatican endorsed in a procedural guide published last April.
Unrelated to the sexual abuse crisis, the revisions also add several other offenses to the list of "grave crimes" subject to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (and thus to the expedited penalties the congregation can hand out).
They include crimes against the faith, such as heresy, apostasy and schism; recording or broadcast of the sacrament of confession; and the attempted ordination of women.
The last point ratifies a December 2007 decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which stipulated that anyone attempting to ordain a woman, as well as women who claim ordination, are subject to excommunication.
That decree appeared in the wake of several events around the world in which organizers claimed to ordain women priests in defiance of church authorities.
[Allen then summarizes the major changes as he sees it.]
At a Vatican briefing this morning, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, an official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, denied that the Vatican equates women's ordination with the sexual abuse of children. An illicit ordination, Scicluna said, is a "sacramental" crime, while abuse is a "moral" crime.
The church's current law in sex abuse cases was laid out in a 2001 document from Pope John Paul II,
known as a motu proprio [???? It is a motu proprio] and titled
Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela.
Most of the revisions presented today 15 were originally approved by John Paul in 2002 and 2003 as "special faculties," or exceptions to his own motu proprio, at the urging of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
Vatican insiders have long pointed to the special faculties as an example of Ratzinger's commitment to resolving the sexual abuse crisis.
When the motu proprio was first released, it generated concern among some bishops and canon lawyers, especially in the United States, who read it to mean that virtually every charge of sexual abuse had to be handled through a canonical trial, which many regarded as cumbersome, expensive, and uncertain.
[A surprising 'concern' since basically what the motu proprio did was to transfer the competence for adjudicating sex abuse crimes by priests to the CDF rather than to the local bishops!]
The norms also required that the key personnel in those trials be priests, even though many canonists in America are laity. The statue of limitations in canon law also seemed to bar action in many cases.
That criticism came to a head in early 2003, when the promoter of justice in the doctrinal congregation, Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, was set to travel to the United States to brief American canonists on how the norms laid out in
Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela were to be followed. Just ahead of Scicluna's departure, Ratzinger secured the special faculties from John Paul II to address the most serious concerns...
In addition to permission to waive the statute of limitations, the special faculties include:
•Allowing one judge on a church tribunal to be a lay person, and eliminates the requirement of a doctorate in canon law;
•By-passing trials in grave cases, removing abuser priests on the basis of a decree;
•Giving the doctrinal congregation power to "sanate" the acts of lower courts, meaning to clean up procedural irregularities;
•Establishing that an appeal in abuse cases goes to the doctrinal congregation rather than the Signatura, the Vatican's highest court.
All those faculties have now been formally written into church law.
Lombardi called the revisions "a contribution to clarity and certainty … in a field in which the church is strongly committed today to proceeding with rigor and transparency."
However, a spokesperson for the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests, the most prominent advocacy group for sex abuse victims said the Church's approach needs "massive overhaul, not mere tweaking." [Once and for all, the Church does what it has to do because it is right, not because she wants to please these victim advocates - who really advocate 'victimism' (a sort of masaochism that revels in the condition of being a victim), rather than the legitimate concrete causes of actual victims.]
Vatican sources also told NCR in early July that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is preparing "guidance," as opposed to binding rules, for bishops' conferences around the world as to how to coordinate their directives on abuse cases. The lack of a coherent global policy has long been a bone of contention for critics of the Church.
[Who completely ignore the great autonomy that bishops enjoy, by tradition and by right, within their own diocese! That autonomy is why many bishops - ignoring Vatican-II's repeated admonition of being 'in communion with the Bishop of Rome' - have thumbed their noses at implementing Summorum Pontificum, and why certain specific rules such as the CDF contemplates can only be 'guidelines' rather than 'binding' on the bishops.]
That guidance is not expected to appear soon.
[Which shouldn't stop any bishop from following the one commonsense rule no one needs to spell out: 'When in doubt about what to do, e-mail the CDF!" I should imagine that by now, Mons. Scicluna will have provided some sort of hotline e-mail address for bishops to use in such contingencies. They can't rely on snail mail even when (and probably especially not when) sent through their Apostolic Nuncio's diplomatic pouch. There's many a slip twixt the do-gooding eager-beavers or alternatively too laidback mail openers at the Secretariat of State and the CDF.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 16/07/2010 01:06]