Protest outside Westminster. Photo credit: Simon

How a new set of rules issued by the Vatican puts two sacramental offences on a par

The Vatican has issued a new set of rules making it easier to discipline sex offenders. The “Norms regarding graver sins” extend from 10 to 20 years the statute of limitations on priestly abuse. They also make the possession and distribution of child pornography a canonical crime. “The revisions consolidate existing practice rather than marking a dramatic new approach,” commented The Tablet.

BishopAccountability.org, a data centre for sexual abuse in the Church, called the changes mere “administrative tinkering of a secretive internal process” and said the statute of limitations should have been eliminated instead of extended.

Most of the media was, however, far more interested in the fact that the new rules also put the ordaining of women as priests on a par with paedophilia in its gravity. The situation is this: serious “offences” have been divided into moral and sacramental ones – with both priestly paedophilia and ordaining women priests being categorized in the latter category. “One can see how this happened,” commented Andrew Brown in The Guardian. But ”it’s a conjunction that really isn’t going to play very well in the outside world. A body which had any grasp of public relations would publish the revisions in two batches.”

Many commentators were far less generous in their assessment. Brown’s paper reported comments by Ceri Goddard, chief executive of women’s rights group the Fawcett Society, who said: “We are sure that the vast majority of the general public will share in our abject horror at the Vatican’s decision to categorise the ordination of women as an ‘offence’ in the same category as paedophilia – deemed to be one of the ‘gravest offences a priest can commit’. Pope Benedict XVI’s “attempt to cool the scandal over Catholic cover-ups of child abuse” had “the appearance of an own goal,” said The Daily Mail. Feminist theologian Mary E. Hunt criticised the links between the “offences,” reported Reuters: “Mixing the two issues, even under the same legal umbrella, is a profoundly perverse proposition.”

“The decision to link the issues appears to reflect the determination of embattled Vatican leaders to resist any suggestion that pedophilia within the priesthood can be addressed by ending the celibacy requirement or by allowing women to become priests,” remarked The New York Times.

The Herald Sun in Australia gave some cursory biblical instruction to its readers: “Many respected scholars argue that Mary Magdalen was an Apostle but her role in the early Church was downgraded by male writers with an agenda of promoting the all-male priesthood.” The paper also noted that “pop star Sinead O’Connor is among a number of Catholic women who were illicitly ordained priests”.

Meanwhile, the Anglican General Synod has decided to push ahead with ordaining women bishops. “Relations between the Church of England and the Catholic Church could suffer,” said The Tablet. The Telegraph noted that the Vatican’s “unexpected ruling” on “graver sins” follows the Pope’s “open-armed welcome to Anglican clergy dissatisfied with General Synod attempts to compromise over calls for the ordination of women as bishops”.