Although some news reports say that the Vatican has toughened rules on handling sex abuse cases, the changes are miniscule and will make no real difference.  In fact, the pope has continued to deny a real role for women in the Church by saying that ordaining women priests is not only "not up for discussion" but would be a grave sin.  As many have pointed out, this makes such a role for women a sin just like child abuse is a sin.  And there is no mention of relaxing the rules on celibacy.  It is clear that the pope thinks the celibacy requirement is not absolute since he recently invited married Anglican priests to become Catholic priests.

So what has he done with the latest update of the rules?

• He's declared that abuse of mentally handicapped people is equivalent to abuse of children
• The statute of limitations on an internal investigation  has been increased to 20 years from 10.
• He's made it a little easier to discipline abuser priests - specifically stating that a priest could be "defrocked" for such a crime
• Possession of child pornography is now a grave sin (see article on Bishop Lahey).

In addition, the same document declares:

• These rules are supplementary to civil law - but the rules do not spell out that abuser priests and evidence against them must be turned over to the police.
• Ordination of women is a grave sin and would result in excommunication  - but it's a sacramental sin and not a moral sin.   But any grave (mortal) sin means hell and it seems to me, hell is hell - or are we now told there are different degrees of hell?

As  reported in the media, this "update" does not do enough to help and has "missed the boat":

Media Reports

Toronto Star:

"The idea that women seeking to spread the message of God somehow defiles the Eucharist reveals an antiquated, backwards church that still views women as unclean and unholy," said Erin Saiz Hanna, executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference, a U.S.-based organization that works to ordain women. [Also quoted in other media].

Barbara Dorris, of Survivors' Network for Those Abused by Priests, said the new guidelines "can be summed up in three words: missing the boat." "They deal with one small procedure at the very tail end of the problem: defrocking pedophile priests," she said.

National Post

Christopher Bellitto, a professor of Church history at Kean University in New Jersey, believes the new document fell down on two main issues: oversight of bishops and including the issue of female ordination of women in the same document, a move he called "bizarre."

BBC News

The Vatican's decision to declare the attempted ordination of women a "grave crime" has been fiercely condemned by women's church groups in the UK.  Pat Brown, of the group Catholic Women's Ordination, said she was deeply shocked and called the change to Church law "a slap in the face to women". She said of the Pope: "He is not doing himself any favours"

The Sydney Morning Herald

Catholics around the world were shocked after the Vatican listed both the ordination of women and paedophile abuse by priests as "grave crimes".

"They've just stuffed it up again," a senior Melbourne Catholic, who did not want to be named, said. "It's a very long list of things that are not permissible, and we knew what they were, but to put women and paedophiles in the same document is ridiculous."

Washington Post

The Vatican issued long-anticipated rules Thursday dealing with clergy sex abuse, putting Catholic priests who molest the mentally ill or use child pornography in the same category as pedophile priests, and formally lengthening the number of years that canonical charges can be brought against transgressors.

But critics called the new rules weak because they include few substantive changes to the church's approach.

The worldwide church has yet to adopt a "zero-tolerance" policy similar to one created by U.S. bishops that force priests out of ministry after a single case of pedophilia. The new rules also do not mention mandatory reporting of abuse to police nor establish sanctions to deal with bishops who cover up abuse.

The Vatican did, however, institute a policy that angered women's groups: a provision that labels any attempt to ordain women as a grave crime, the same words used to describe sex abuse. Some Catholic women's rights activists accused the Vatican of equating the ordination of a woman to the molestation of children.

NY Times - Maureen Dowd

Rome Fiddles, We Burn
If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact, issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women doesn't really do that.
The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse, rules that the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with "rigor and transparency."

The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary. It thinks it's making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it's taking baby steps.

The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened.

There is no moral awakening here. The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition. All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive. Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution.

Stupefyingly, the new Vatican document also links raping children with ordaining women as priests, deeming both "graviora delicta," or grave offenses. Clerics who attempt to ordain women can now be defrocked.

Letting women be priests - which should be seen as a way to help cleanse the church and move it beyond its infantilized and defensive state - is now on the list of awful sins right next to pedophilia, heresy, apostasy and schism.

(Above are extracts of the full articles available through links on the media name)

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