Extend US bishops’ zero-tolerance policy to universal Church, survivor advocates urge
November 21, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: Members of the abuse prevention institute at the Pontifical Gregorian University, joined by the organization Ending Clergy Abuse, have called for the extension of the US bishops’ zero-tolerance policy for the sexual abuse of minors to the universal Church.
The US bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, in effect since 2002, provides that “for even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor— whenever it occurred—which is admitted or established after an appropriate process in accord with canon law, the offending priest or deacon is to be permanently removed from ministry and, if warranted, dismissed from the clerical state.”
In contrast, the new Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, promulgated by Pope Francis in 2021, states that a cleric who sexually abuses a minor is “to be punished with deprivation of office and with other just penalties, not excluding, where the case calls for it, dismissal from the clerical state” (Canon 1398)—thus allowing some clerics who have sexually abused minors to resume active ministry in a different office.
(See also CWN editor Phil Lawler’s commentary, “Here’s why the ‘zero tolerance’ policy is going nowhere.”)
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