New Vatican laws for sex-abuse claims

VATICAN CITY — Pledging that clerical sexual abuse should “never happen again,” Pope Francis on Thursday issued a sweeping new law aimed at holding leadership more accountable while overhauling how the Roman Catholic Church deals with accusations of abuse and coverup.

The rules, which are in place for a three-year trial run, are a mix of common-sense requirements and more technical provisions.

When the rules come into force June 1, priests and nuns will be required for the first time to report abuse accusations to church authorities. Dioceses will be given a year to set up offices or other systems for receiving abuse complaints while offering protection for victims and whistleblowers. And perhaps most significant, a new method will be used to probe complaints of abuse or coverups against bishops and other higher-ups — an attempt to address one of the church’s longstanding trouble spots.

“We must continue to learn from the bitter lessons of the past,” Francis (photo) wrote in the introduction to the edict.

The rules are Francis’ latest attempt to contend with a crisis that has eroded the reputation of the church and his papacy. They come nearly three months after Francis hosted a clerical-abuse summit in Rome and pledged action to address the scourge.

“This is a very strong signal,” said Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta, a Vatican official who has probed abuse cases. “Nobody in the leadership is above the law.”

But some watchdogs said the rules fall short because they keep handling of cases in-house.

“It is a good thing that the church is continuing to work on this,” said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. But he said the church erred in thinking it could handle abuse internally, changing laws but still relying on the same “structures that have been receiving and routing abuse allegations for years.”

The rules also do not address punishment of clerics convicted in church trials. It is also unclear how the church will safeguard whistleblowers and whether an institution known for protecting its own can alter a culture through legal changes.

Predictions among experts ranged widely over which aspects of the law, if any, would be most transformative.

One aspect, though, regards the policing of bishops. Bishops are answerable only to the pope, and for decades they have been able to escape rigid oversight.

The provisions outline a way in which bishops can help police their own, the first time such a system has been put in place.

The rules lean on a miniature de facto hierarchy within regions. If a bishop is accused of abuse or cover-up, a so-called metropolitan bishop — the figure who heads the largest regional diocese — can begin looking into the case with the backing of the Holy See.

But there are exceptions. If a metropolitan bishop himself is accused, another bishop in the region is chosen to investigate. And the Vatican may choose somebody else entirely. In all cases, lay experts can be involved, though it is not a requirement.

The guidelines cover cases of sexual abuse not only against minors, but also against vulnerable adults and seminarians.