{"id":95529,"date":"2021-06-02T05:55:23","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:55:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=95529"},"modified":"2021-06-02T05:55:23","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T10:55:23","slug":"pope-francis-makes-sweeping-changes-to-canon-law-to-combat-sexual-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/06\/02\/pope-francis-makes-sweeping-changes-to-canon-law-to-combat-sexual-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Francis makes sweeping changes to canon law to combat sexual abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"RFI \u2014 Pope Francis has made an extensive revision to the Catholic Church’s canon law specifically addressing those found guilty of sexual abuse, in a bid to improve the Vatican’s ability to combat the problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The changes will take effect on 8 December, when the Catholic Church<\/a> celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis incorporated into the new code changes that had already been made by himself and his predecessor.\u00a0Specifically,\u00a0the pontiff wanted\u00a0to ensure that anybody who commits sexual abuse, either against a minor or an adult, does not avoid punishment and that attention is given to the victims.<\/p>\n

The changes concern crimes committed by either a member of the clergy or a layperson working in offices.\u00a0While priests can by defrocked, laypeople who hold positions within the church will be made to pay fines for their crimes or lose their jobs or positions in the community.<\/p>\n

The pope has also made efforts to ensure greater transparency when cases come to light to end the practice of covering up, which has been common practice in the past: those who are found to be negligent will now also be held accountable.<\/p>\n

New crimes have also entered the code such as grooming\u00a0minors or vulnerable adults for sexual abuse and possessing child pornography.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis<\/a> has made a long-awaited and extensive revision of church law with specific attention to those who commit crimes related to sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

While abuse of minors was previously an offence under the title \u201cCrimes Against Special Obligations\u201d, it has now been moved to \u201cOffences Against Human Life, Dignity and Liberty\u201d.<\/p>\n

Archbishop\u00a0Filippo Iannone<\/a>, head of the department charged with the project, explained that the legislator\u2019s aim was to re-affirm the gravity of this crime and the attention that must be reserved for the victims.<\/p>\n

Iannone further explained that there was the need to strengthen the criminal code because of some existing situations of irregularity in communities, but above all because of \u201crecent scandals with disconcerting and very serious episodes of paedophilia\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also said there has been \u201ca climate of excessive slack in the interpretation of penal law\u201d, where mercy was sometimes put before justice.<\/p>\n

He concluded saying that justice requires that the order that has been violated be\u00a0re-established, that victims be eventually compensated and that offenders be punished and pay for their crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RFI \u2014 Pope Francis has made an extensive revision to the Catholic Church’s canon law specifically addressing those found guilty of sexual abuse, in a bid to improve the Vatican’s ability to combat the problem. The changes will take effect on 8 December, when the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Immaculate Conception. Pope […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":95530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95529"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95532,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95529\/revisions\/95532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}