Catholic Church reviews criminal law on sexual abuse

Pope Francis announced the reforms of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law on Monday. With these changes, he continues a revision begun by his predecessor Benedict XVI. According to the BBC, it is the most significant overhaul of the criminal code for nearly forty years.

The new laws make sexual abuse, grooming minors for sex, possessing child pornography and covering up abuse a criminal offence under Vatican law.

“To respond appropriately to the needs of the Church throughout the world,” explained Pope Francis, “it appeared evident that the penal discipline announced by St. John Paul II on January 25th, 1983 in the Code of Canon Law needed to be revised, and that it required modification in a way that allows pastors to employ it as a more agile salvific and corrective tool, to be applied promptly and with the pastoral charity to avoid more serious evils and to soothe the wounds caused by human weakness.”

The main difference between the new and the former text is that the new one is much more precise in terms of how and when to punish, says Jakob Egeris Thorsen, associate professor of theology at Aarhus University to Danish daily Kristeligt Dagblad.

Murder

Church superiors are no longer free to choose whether or not to punish proven offences. Sexual abuse is no longer listed as a violation of the duty of celibacy, but, like murder or abortion, counts as a crime “against the life, dignity and freedom of man”, reports the Austrian Catholic news agency.

Andreas Rude, a commentator on Catholic affairs, is happy with the reforms. In Kristeligt Dagblad, he calls the change in the law “necessary top management” of the Vatican. “Now, it is no longer up to the individual bishop how he will react. Now he knows he will get the Vatican after him if he does not do what is required.”

Czeslaw Kozon, the bishop and supreme leader of the Catholic Church in Denmark, is also welcoming the changes. However, according to Kristeligt Dagblad, he does not immediately see that they will have great significance for the church in Denmark: “It is clear that we must comply with the rules that exist, but fortunately we have not had so many cases of abuse lately. So in practice, I do not see that it will immediately mean a big change in this country.”

The work on the criminal law reform took a good twelve years. Pope Benedict XVI gave the formal impetus for this in 2009. Bishops’ conferences worldwide, religious superiors, the curia and individual church lawyers were involved in the work. The law enters into force on December 8th, 2021.