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	Church to Respect Local Law on Abuse Sydney Morning Herald July 17, 2010 http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/church-to-respect-local-law-on-abuse-20100718-10fhp.html The Catholic Church must respect local laws when handling child abuse cases, the Vatican's chief spokesman said on Saturday, two days after the Holy See issued new rules against pedophile priests. The new rules "represent an indispensable guide for a large community, like the Catholic Church, which must have common standards autonomous of those of the countries in which its is present", Federico Lombardi was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency. "However, it is obvious that in these countries just civil laws must be respected and applied to men of the church, as on the part of each citizen, equally in regard to crimes of abuse," said Lombardi. The new set of Vatican rules published on Thursday promised an acceleration of internal investigations and extension by a decade of the statute of limitations in abuse cases. But they do not deal with handing abusers over to civil criminal authorities, a key demand of advocacy groups. After the publication, Lombardi said compliance with civil law was already contained in guidelines published in April at the height of the abuse scandals sweeping the church. The new rules mainly update a 2001 document dealing with "serious crimes" that was prepared by Pope Benedict XVI, who as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was at the head of the Vatican's chief moral enforcer, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Pedophile priest scandals and allegations of high-level cover-ups that swept Australia and the United States in 2004 have surged again since 2009 and rocked the Catholic Church in Europe and the United States. The pope himself has faced allegations that, as archbishop of Munich and later as the head of the CDF, he helped to protect predator priests.
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