Vatican City, Jul 7, 2010 / 12:31 pm
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 head of the Congregation for the Doctrine (CDF) of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, defined which offenses were the "delicta graviora," or most serious sins. Those cases were then placed under the sole jurisdiction of the CDF.
The modifications made in 2001 were published in the motu 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 that date, the regulations on these violations, including sexual abuse, were provided by 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."