By Nicole Winfield, December 17, 2019<\/p>\n
VATICAN CITY (AP) \u2014 Pope Francis abolished the use of the Vatican\u2019s highest level of secrecy in clergy sexual abuse cases Tuesday, responding to mounting criticism that the rule of \u201cpontifical secrecy\u201d has been used to protect pedophiles, silence victims and prevent police from investigating crimes.<\/p>\n
Victims and their advocates cheered the move as long overdue, but cautioned that the proof of its effectiveness would come when the Catholic hierarchy is forced to respond to national inquiries, grand jury subpoenas and criminal prosecutors who are increasingly demanding all internal documentation about abusers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe carnival of obscurity is over,\u201d declared Juan Carlos Cruz, a prominent Chilean survivor of clergy abuse and advocate for victims.<\/p>\n
In a new law, Francis decreed that information in abuse cases must be protected by church leaders to ensure its \u201csecurity, integrity and confidentiality.\u201d But he said the rule of \u201cpontifical secrecy\u201d no longer applied to abuse-related accusations, trials and decisions under the Catholic Church\u2019s canon law.<\/p>\n
The Vatican\u2019s leading sex crimes investigator, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, said the reform was an \u201cepochal decision\u201d that will facilitate coordination with civil law enforcement and open up lines of communication with victims.<\/p>\n
While documentation from the church\u2019s in-house legal proceedings will still not become public, Scicluna said, the reform now removes any excuse to not cooperate with legitimate legal requests from prosecutors, police or other civil authorities.<\/p>\n
Francis also raised from 14 to 18 the cutoff age below which the Vatican considers pornographic images to be child pornography. The reform is a response to the Vatican\u2019s increasing awareness of the prolific spread of online child porn that has frequently implicated even high-ranking churchmen.<\/p>\n
The new laws were issued Tuesday, Francis\u2019 83rd birthday, as he struggles to respond to the global explosion of the abuse scandal, his own missteps and demands for greater transparency and accountability from victims, law enforcement and ordinary Catholics alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reforms are long overdue but symbolize an important step in the right direction,\u201d said SNAP, the victims advocacy group. \u201cStill right now they are only words on paper and what needs to happen next is concrete action.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new norms are the latest amendment to the Catholic Church\u2019s in-house canon law \u2014 a parallel legal code that metes out ecclesial justice for crimes against the faith \u2014 in this case relating to the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable people by priests, bishops or cardinals. In this legal system, the worst punishment a priest can incur is being defrocked, or dismissed from the clerical state.<\/p>\n
When he was a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI had persuaded St. John Paul II to decree in 2001 that these cases must be handled by the Vatican\u2019s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and be dealt with under the \u201cpontifical secret\u201d rule. The Vatican had long insisted that such confidentiality was necessary to protect the privacy of the victim, the reputation of the accused and the integrity of the canonical process.<\/p>\n
However, such secrecy also served to keep the scandal hidden, prevent law enforcement from accessing documents and silence victims, many of whom often believed that the \u201cpontifical secret\u201d rule prevented them from going to the police to report their priestly abusers.<\/p>\n
While the Vatican has long tried to insist this was not the case, it also never mandated that bishops and religious superiors report sex crimes to police, and in the past it has also encouraged bishops not to do so.<\/p>\n
According to the new instruction, which was signed by the Vatican secretary of state but authorized by the pope, the Vatican still doesn\u2019t mandate reporting the crimes to police, saying religious superiors are obliged to do so where civil reporting laws require it.<\/p>\n
But it goes further than the Vatican has gone before, saying: \u201cOffice confidentiality shall not prevent the fulfillment of the obligations laid down in all places by civil laws, including any reporting obligations, and the execution of enforceable requests of civil judicial authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vatican has been under increasing pressure to cooperate more with law enforcement, and its failure to do so has resulted in unprecedented raids in recent years on diocesan chanceries by police from Belgium to Texas and Chile.<\/p>\n
But even under the threat of subpoenas and raids, bishops have sometimes felt compelled to withhold canonical proceedings given the \u201cpontifical secret\u201d rule, unless given permission to hand documents over by the Vatican. The new law makes that explicit permission no longer required.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe freedom of information to statutory authorities and to victims is something that is being facilitated by this new law,\u201d Scicluna told Vatican media.<\/p>\n
Robert Hoatson, a survivor and founder of the clergy abuse advocacy group Road to Recovery, said the change was long overdue and a \u201chopeful sign that the church will finally hold itself accountable for the centuries-old scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vatican in May issued another law explicitly saying victims cannot be silenced and have a right to learn the outcome of their canonical trials. The new document repeats that and expands the point by saying not only the victim, but any witnesses or the person who lodged the accusation cannot be compelled to silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcellent news,\u201d tweeted prominent Irish survivor Marie Collins, a founding member of Francis\u2019 sex abuse advisory commission who noted that the reform was one of the first proposals of the commission.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt last a real and positive change,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for victims and accused priests have also advocated for a change to the pontifical secret rule, since it restricted their access to documentation from the case. Scicluna said the reform now facilitates making documents available to \u201cinterested parties\u201d in a penal case, although it is not clear if these lawyers will still only be able to view the documents \u2014 as is currently the case \u2014 or can now make and keep copies of them, under the understanding that they remain confidential.<\/p>\n
In recent years, individual abuse scandals, national inquiries, grand jury investigations, U.N. denunciations and increasingly costly civil litigation have devastated the Catholic hierarchy\u2019s credibility across the globe, and Francis\u2019 own failures and missteps in dealing with particular cases have emboldened his critics.<\/p>\n
In February, he summoned the presidents of bishops\u2019 conferences from around the globe to a four-day summit on preventing abuse, where several speakers called for a reform of the pontifical secrecy rule. Francis himself said he intended to raise the age for which pornography was considered child porn.<\/p>\n
The move is significant and an indication that Francis has learned a lesson after one of his Argentine proteges, Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, was accused of inappropriate conduct with seminarians after gay porn \u2014 said to involve youngsters but not boys \u2014 was found on his cellphone.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo date, the church has been especially lenient towards priests who offend against older children\u201d with pornography, said Anne Barrett Doyle of the online resource BishopAccountability. \u201cExtending the pornography ban sends a message that this vulnerable group of minors must be protected too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Vatican\u2019s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, said the new law is a \u201chistorical\u201d follow-up to the February summit and a sign of openness and transparency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe breadth of Pope Francis\u2019 decision is evident: The well-being of children and young people must always come before any protection of a secret, even the \u2018\u2019pontifical secret,\u2019\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Also Tuesday, Francis accepted the resignation of the Vatican\u2019s ambassador to France, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, who is accused of making unwanted sexual advances to young men.<\/p>\n
Ventura turned 75 last week, the mandatory retirement age for bishops, but the fact that his resignation was announced on the same day as Francis\u2019 abuse reforms didn\u2019t seem to be a coincidence.<\/p>\n