By Mary Elizabeth Williams
Salon
July 15, 2010
http://www.salon.com/news/catholicism/?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/07/15/vatican_sex_abuse_guidelines
The church's tougher new stand on the issue still disappoints -- and manages to insult women
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On Thursday, the Vatican issued its first new policy statement since a torrent of sex abuse cases around the world began last year. That's good news coming from an institution that has played it so amazingly wrong in so many different ways: from repeatedly transferring sex offenders to new parishes to ignoring complaints from victims to just plain spouting ignorant, insensitive nonsense -- and indeed, the new guidelines take a much-needed harder line on terrible behavior.
The rules, which define "delicts against faith ... and morals," now condemn the possession of child pornography and/or sexual conduct "by a cleric with a minor below the age of eighteen years" or "person who habitually lacks the use of reason is to be considered equivalent to a minor" as crimes to be handled by the Vatican’s doctrinal office and grounds for dismissal. They also double the statute of limitations for the church to intervene in sex abuse complaints, from 10 to 20 years after the victim's 18th birthday. Thanks, Rome!
But what the new guidelines could have done but failed to was require churches to report complaints of sexual abuse to law enforcement. Nor do they set up any chain of accountability for church hierarchy who may abet sex abusers. The Vatican did state that "Civil law concerning reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed" in its April statement on sex abuse, but why not put it in its formal norms? And why not make reporting crimes mandatory even in places it's not legally required?
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