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	New Vatican Laws Could Be "Church Pr Disaster" Radio Netherlands July 15, 2010 http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/new-vatican-laws-could-be-church-pr-disaster The Vatican has published new rules against child sex abuse in the Catholic church, after a worldwide scandal badly damaged its reputation. The laws will increase the number of years after which priests can face punishment from their superiors, but victims' groups say they don’t go far enough. The new measures come in response to a deluge of complaints that the Vatican isn’t doing enough to investigate abuse claims in the church. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the measures include “more rapid procedures to deal with the most urgent and serious situations more effectively”. ÞOut of touch But while the move has been welcomed as an attempt to take the issue of child sex abuse more seriously, some say the church isn’t in touch with public opinion. The decision to class possession of child pornography in the same category as the ordination of women priests was described as “clumsy” by Vatican expert and history professor Peter Nissen from Radboud University in the Netherlands: “They don’t show very much awareness of how the public opinion will view things, they don’t show any feelings for the seriousness of complaints concerning sexual abuse and child pornography by dealing with it in the same way as cases of the ordination of women.” Time delay Another area of concern is the canon law statute of limitations. Until now, victims could only pursue complaints against priests for ten years after their 18th birthday – this has now been doubled to 20 years. But a raft of cases uncovered earlier this year by Radio Netherlands Worldwide revealed many victims don’t report abuse until years after the event. Bert Smeets from the Mea Culpa United victims’ group said there shouldn’t be a statute of limitations at all: “Sexual abuse is a lifetime thing. This is escapism by the church. They’re trying to mislead you – they give you a few extra years, but the problem will be the same… Even if you get 20 years after the 18th birthday, most of the cases are still on the statute of limitations.” The new rules update a 2001 document signed by Pope Benedict’ XVI’s predecessor John Paul II and don’t deal with handing abusers over to state criminal authorities. Internal church investigations will continue to be held behind closed doors “to protect the dignity of everyone involved,” says Lombardi. Even worse Rather than repairing any damage done to the Vatican’s reputation by the child abuse allegations, the laws may actually make the situation worse, says Professor Nissen: “I fear it will be the next PR disaster. We’ve seen a number of them so I don’t think these changes will really convince the critics of the way the church has up to now dealt with cases of sexual abuse, and again it shows some kind of clumsiness in dealing with public opinion.”
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