"Delicta graviora" : The Most Serious Sins:

New Vatican norms on ‘serious sins’ expected soon, reportedly include sex abuse by priests, ordination of women

Vatican City, Jul 7, 2010 (CNA/EWTN News) -- Updates to canon law on the gravest sins in the Church can be expected in the coming days, Vatican sources report. The modifications are expected to give "greater clarity" to the Vatican protocol for suspending and laicizing priests. 

The last time the law was modified was in 2001 when Pope John Paul II, together with the then-head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, defined which offenses were the delicta graviora, or the most serious sins. Those cases were then placed under the sole jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

The modifications made in 2001 were published in themotu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela, which defined the most serious sins as those against the Sacrament of Penance, against the Eucharist, and against the sixth commandment when committed by a priest against a minor under 18 years of age. 

Until 2001, the regulations on these violations, including sexual abuse, were provided in the 1962 document Crimen sollicitationis. According to the Italian news agency APCOM, the old regulations delegated intervention to the bishops' conferences and a variety of Vatican dicasteries, "thus creating and elevating the risk of cover-ups." 

The soon-to-be-released Vatican document will include wording that will clarify the procedures "for the suspension of a pedophile priest and his reduction to the lay state" and an extension of the statute of limitations, currently set at 10 years after the victim's 18th birthday, said the APCOM report. 

The Italian news agency stated that "the question of the relationship between canonical justice and civil justice, on the other hand, should not enter into the modifications in the process of being published, because it's beyond the scope of... the strictly canonical material of the delicta graviora." 

But other news reports disagree. Various articles say that the coming canonical changes will establish a more concrete protocol for guidance from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to bishops, suggesting that they should follow civil procedures in reporting crimes to the appropriate authorities. 

Editor's Note: Multiple news agencies have also reported that, in addition to sex abuse crimes, the document will include the attempted ordination of women as a "grave canonical crime.” In 2007, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a decree declaring that anyone who attempts to ordain a woman -- and the woman seeking to be ordained -- incur automatic excommunication. The provisions of the 2007 decree are expected to be included in the new instruction.

From http://www.calcatholic.com/

Posted via email from deaconjohn's posterous