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	Mexican Clergymen, Experts Debate Punishments for Priests Who Sexually Abuse Children Associated Press, carried on MSNBC January 21, 2008 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22771799/ MEXICO CITY - Clergymen and religious law experts on Monday began debating how to prevent sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and what punishment such crimes should carry. The talks were part of a four-day symposium organized by Mexico's Pontifical University, or UPM, and the Mexico City Archdiocese. The symposium seeks to examine sexual abuse by priests with an academic eye and to discuss punishment and prevention strategies. Such crimes violate the Ten Commandments and "have devastating consequences for the victims, their families as well as for the Church and clergyman," Mexico City Cardinal Norberto Rivera said in a statement read at the talk. Story continues below �« "Ecclesiastical law and civil law should therefore punish them severely," he said. Father Mario Medina Balam, of the UPM's canonical law program, said the purpose of the symposium, which ends Thursday, was to find solutions not point fingers. In November, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit that accused Rivera of conspiring with Roman Catholic officials in the United States to shelter a suspected pedophile priest.
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