Pope's New Guidelines Change Nothing

Once again the Pope and the Catholic Church are trying to paint a good face on the church scandal involving priests who sexually abuse children and the church hierarchy that protects them. The church has announced "new" rules which it says would make it easier to defrock priests convicted of child sexual abuse and would extend the canonical statute of limits in such crimes.

There is a slight problem with the scenario painted by the church with this announcement. It seems that these are not really new rules since the church is already operating under these "new" guidelines, and has been for a while now. This is little more than another feeble attempt at public relations. The church wants to be patted on the back for doing something it has been doing for a while (and should have been doing for many decades).

Worse still is the fact that the church's self-congratulatory new guidelines still don't include two real changes that are needed if the church is to get serious about eliminating child sexual abuse among priests. The guidelines still don't require the church to notify civil authorities of a sex abuse accusation against one of its priests. It only says notification must be made if civil law requires it. In areas where notification is not required by civil law, it is still perfectly OK for church authorities to keep the accusation a secret from the police and other civil authorities.

The guidelines also do not require that Bishops or other higher-ups in the church be punished for covering up and keeping secret the heinous crime of child sex abuse. This comes as no surprise since the Pope himself is guilty of covering for at least one German priest accused (and later convicted of) child sex abuse. Those who cover up these sort of crimes should be punished, but if they made that a policy then they would have to start the punishments with the Pope himself.

The church is trying to pass the new rules off as reform, but it isn't. It's just more of the same and falls far short of any real reform. I get the distinct feeling that the church hierarchy still doesn't think they have done anything wrong. They still think their efforts to protect the reputation of the church was more important than the children who were being sexually abused or punishing the criminals doing that abuse. That view robs them of any moral authority.

One of those left without any real moral authority is the Pope himself. If he was an honest person he would have resigned months ago.

The guidelines do one other thing. It makes the ordination of a woman as serious a crime according to canonical law as sexually abusing children. That is a slap in the face not only to Catholic women but to all women. The church is still willing to relegate over half the world's population to the status of second-class personhood.