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	Vatican Tightens Laws Dealing with Sex Abuse and Other Crimes Earth Times July 15, 2010 http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/news/335008,dealing-sex-abuse-crimes.html Vatican City - The Vatican published Thursday an updated, stricter set of norms governing how the Catholic Church deals internally with priests and other religious figures linked to crimes such as the sexual abuse of minors and mentally handicapped people. The measures come amid a series of scandals and widespread criticism of the church's handling of abuse cases in several countries, including Pope Benedict's XVI's native Germany. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the new provisions would speed up procedures to deal with the "most urgent and serious situations more effectively." The Norms also admit lay people into the staff of church tribunals appointed to judge suspected offenders; extend the statue of limitations from 10 to 20 years; establish parity between the abuse of mentally disabled people and that of minors, and introduce the crime of "paedophile pornography," Lombardi said in a statement. "The Norm concerning the secrecy of trials is maintained in order to protect the dignity of everyone involved," he added. The new norms apply to cases of sexual abuse, but also other crimes deemed by the church as "most serious" such as heresy, apostasy and schism, as well as the malicious recording and disclosure of what the faithful reveal to priests in the confession booth. It also lists as a "most serious" crime, attempts to ordinate women as priests, something which is forbidden by Catholic Church teaching. Lombardi stressed that the norms apply to canon law and thus are only concerned with internal Church judicial processes which are mostly conducted by the Vatican's chief disciplinary body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. As far as co-operation with civil authorities is concerned, Lombardi referred to a set of guidelines issued in April to help clarify a controversial 2001 church document which, the Vatican has insisted, specified that bishops who become aware of abuse cases in their dioceses should co-operate with local civil authorities investigating such cases. But critics, many of whom have accused clerics of covering up abuse in a bid to save the church's reputation, said the 2001 document stopped short of clearly ordering bishops and other church officials of reporting all suspected paedophilia cases to the police. In Ireland, where hundreds of cases of abuse of minors by priests were detailed in a report by a government-appointed commission, some bishops reportedly understood the 2001 rules to mean they should not tell police about abuse.
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