UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
POSTED BY BARBARA BLAINE ON JULY 12, 2013
To many, the headlines sound wonderful. To me, they’re heartbreaking:
“Pope Tightens Rules on Child Sex Abuse”
“Vatican broadens child abuse crimes in legal reform”
“Pope widens criminal punishment for child abuse in Vatican”
“Pope issues first penal laws for Vatican, criminalizes leaks of Vatican info, child sex abuse”
How can this be bad news?
It’s bad news because it’s deceptive. It will lead to inaction, not action, and to false security, not real security.
A closer look reveals a troubling truth: this “reform” affects .0000000007174% of the earth’s surface – the actual, physical grounds of the tiny, tiny 0.2 square mile Vatican state. That’s what it covers. Nothing more.
And like almost every other so-called Vatican “reform” about abuse, it’s words, not deeds. It’s a possibility, not a reality. I strongly suspect this “tiny tweak” (as we in SNAP have called it here) will never be used even once to punish a single wrongdoer.
Other popes have tweaked the church’s internal “age of consent” and statute of limitations on abuse.
The results have been negligible.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.