Vatican City (AP) — Pope Francis changes canon law to explicitly criminalize sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse authority, and civilians in church positions are also sanctioned for similar sex crimes Said that it can.
A new provision released on Tuesday after 14 years of research was included in the revised criminal law section of the Vatican’s Canon Law, an internal legal system covering 1.3 billion Catholic churches.
The most important changes are contained in two articles, 1395 and 1398, aimed at addressing the major shortcomings of the Church’s treatment of sexual abuse. The law recognizes that adults can also be sacrificed by priests who abuse their authority, and the general public in church offices, such as school principals and parish economists, are minors. He states that he may be punished for abusing adults as well as those who are.
The Vatican also criminalized priests for “grooming” to engage minors and vulnerable adults in pornography. Canon law officially recognizes criminals as the methods used by sexual predators to build relationships with victims and to sexually exploit them.
The law also removes many of the discretionary powers that bishops and religious chiefs have long allowed to ignore or conceal abuse, and to properly investigate and sanction negligent priests. Clarifies that we can be held liable for inaction or negligence.
According to the law, if the bishop does not report “potential negligence” or a sexual offense to the church authorities, he may be released from his job, but if he does not report the offense to the police, the church The law states that it is not expected to be punished by law.
Since the code was first published in 1983, lawyers and bishops have argued that it was completely inadequate to deal with sexual abuse of minors because it required time-consuming trials. .. Meanwhile, the victims and their defenders claimed to leave too much discretion for the bishops interested in concealing the priests.
The Vatican has made fragmentary changes over the years to address problems and loopholes, most importantly requiring all cases to be sent to the Holy See for review and priests. Allowed for a more streamlined management process to exempt more priests if the evidence for is overwhelming.
Recently, Francis passed a new law to punish bishops and religious bosses who failed to protect the herd. The new criminal law incorporates these changes and goes beyond them, allowing accused priests to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.
According to the new law, priests who have sex with anyone, not just minors and irrational ones, can be dismissed if they engage in sexual activity using “power, threats authority, abuse of authority”. There is sex.
Vatican City Justice Secretary Monsignor Juan Ignacio Arieta said that if the priest could prove that he used force or abused his powers, he could target general members of the church who were sexually abused by the priest. It was.
The provisions are contained in a section detailing breach of the priest’s duty to maintain abstinence. Another section of the law concerns priestly crimes against the dignity of others, including sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.
The law does not clearly define the target adults and is only intended for adults who are “habitually incompletely used for reasons” or “the law allows equal protection”.
The Vatican has long considered the sexual relationship between a priest and an adult to be sinful but consensus-based, and believes that adults can offer or refuse pure consent depending on the nature of their age. In the MeToo movement and scandals of theological schools and nuns being sexually abused by their bosses, the Vatican realized that an imbalance in relationships could cost adults as well. It was.
Its dynamics were most clearly recognized in the scandal over Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Washington. The Vatican knew for years that he was sleeping with a seminary, but McCarrick was tried after someone claimed to have abused him when he was young. Francis finally fired him in 2019.
New legislation aimed at dealing with sex crimes committed by the general public in church positions, the founders of common religious movements, and even the general public, who are even parish accountants and administrators, If the general public abuses their authority to engage in sex crimes, the general public can be punished as well.
These laymen cannot be stripped of their jobs, so there are penalties such as losing their jobs, paying fines, or being excluded from the community.
The need for such provisions is evident in a scandal involving Luis Figari, the founder of the Peruvian-based Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a conservative movement with 20,000 members and branches in South America and the United States. became.
An independent study concluded that Figari was a paranoid narcissist obsessed with libido and saw his men endure pain and humiliation. However, the Vatican and the local church were wondering how to sanction him for years and eventually decided to exclude him from Peru and isolate him from the community.
The new law will come into effect on December 8.
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