A Jesuit On Canonical Justice

“They must be severely punished”
Church in Mexico working on standards for dealing with clerical sexual abuse
Late last month, a symposium was held at the Pontifical University of Mexico on how to use canon and civil law to sanction clerics who commit wrongdoing. A major goal of the symposium was to formulate a code of conduct to prevent sexual misconduct -- especially the sexual abuse of children and adolescents -- by clergy of the Catholic Church in Mexico. “We expect to have a code of conduct and a strategy to prevent the committing of crimes and to safeguard the physical and spiritual integrity of the faithful, especially of minors,” said Fr. Mario Medina Badam, dean of the canon law faculty at the university. “It would be very helpful if the Mexican Conference of Bishops establishes clear norms to regulate the ethical and professional conduct of clerics and other Church personnel.” More than 100 specialists, lawyers and clerics with expertise in canon law analyzed Church documents relevant to solving the sex-abuse problem at the Jan. 22-24 conference.

Jesuit Fr. José Luis Sánchez-Girón, professor of canon law at the Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid, Spain, presented an exhaustive analysis of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” published in June of 2002 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In addition, Fr. Sánchez-Girón reviewed the Essential Norms derived from the Charter, with the objective of adapting the documents to the circumstances and necessities of the Church in Mexico. Another document considered as a foundation for the new code was “Criteria in Relation to Inappropriate Conduct, especially toward Minors, by Clergymen,” published in 2003 by the Secretariat for Ordained Ministers of the Archdiocese of Mexico. Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, Prime Archbishop of Mexico, said in a speech at the outset of the meeting that violations of the Sixth Commandment, including

“corruption of minors, sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape committed by a cleric, must be considered very grave crimes because they provoke loss of confidence in human relations and have devastating consequences for the offended person and his or her family, for the Church and for the offender himself.

” For that reason, said the cardinal, priests guilty of such conduct “must be severely punished, by the ecclesiastical as well as the civil law.” Cardinal Rivera warned, however, of falling into a rigid, persecutorial attitude when dealing with the problem, illustrating the Christian way to understand the application of disciplinary norms by quoting an exhortation of the Council of Trent: “Bishops should remember they are pastors and not executioners, and they must treat their subjects with love as their children and brothers… but if punishment is unavoidable, then they must use rigor with mildness, justice with mercy and severity with softness.” (Council of Trent, Session XIII, Chapter 1.)

Link to the California Catholic Daily article (here)