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CNA Staff, May 11, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican has told the bishops of England and Wales that it is amending the Code of Canon Law so that “crimes against minors are considered under a different title than crimes against the obligations of celibacy on the part of clerics.”

The Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts shared the information in a letter dated April 19, responding to the English and Welsh bishops’ request for adjustments to canon law concerning clerical sexual abuse.

In the letter, addressed to bishops’ conference president Cardinal Vincent Nichols, it said: “After review of the information and recommendation Your Eminence submitted to this Pontifical Council, I am pleased to inform you that the concerns you have expressed have already been taken into consideration in the revision of Book VI of the 1983 CIC [Code of Canon Law], which is currently in process.”

“In the revised Book VI of the 1983 CIC, crimes against minors are considered under a different title than crimes against the obligations of celibacy on the part of clerics. The revised title will be ‘Crimes against the life, dignity and freedom of man’ and will include a canon that is specific to crimes against minors.”

The letter, received by Nichols on April 23, was signed by the Pontifical Council’s president Archbishop Filippo Iannone and secretary Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta.

The English and Welsh bishops made their request to the Vatican in a letter dated March 15.

The correspondence between the bishops and the Vatican was published on the bishops’ website on May 9. It was included in a 21-page document detailing how the Catholic Church has responded to the seven recommendations of a highly critical independent report on child abuse within the Church in England and Wales.

In the report, published on Nov. 10, 2020, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) urged the bishops to “request that the Holy See redraft the canonical crimes relating to child sexual abuse as crimes against the child.”

The recommendation related to Canon 1395 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Under the subheading “Delicts against special obligations,” the second part of the canon says: “A cleric who in another way has committed an offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the delict was committed by force or threats or publicly or with a minor below the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.”

The English and Welsh bishops raised detailed concerns about the phrase “against the sixth commandment” — “contra sextum” in Latin — in their letter to the Vatican.

The letter, signed by Cardinal Nichols and bishops’ conference general secretary Canon Christopher Thomas, said that while the term “contra sextum” was part of canonical tradition, “it is no longer adequate to meet the demands of a contemporary canonical approach to sexual offenses against minors and their equivalent in law.”

The bishops suggested that the term was difficult to reconcile with other aspects of canon law, was only recently used by the Eastern Catholic Churches, and was a source of confusion for civil authorities.

Referring to a vademecum “on certain points of procedure in treating cases of sexual abuse of minors committed by clerics,” issued by the Vatican last year, the letter said: “It seems reasonable that the categories delineated in Section I of the Vademecum of 16 July 2020 could be used to formulate a delict [a crime in canon law] without making use of the term ‘contra sextum.’”

“The Bishops’ Conference feels that this would be a significant step to rectifying the very real problems and consequent misunderstandings that its officers are faced with when engaging with colleagues in the civil authorities.”

The English and Welsh bishops also asked that the “reformulated delict” be placed “into a discrete category of offenses against minors, and their equivalents in law, and their dignity.”

In their 21-page document, the bishops outlined how they were responding to IICSA’s six other recommendations, which included mandatory safeguarding training for those working with children or abuse victims and the publication of a national complaints policy related to safeguarding cases.

The document, dated April 30, was prepared by the Catholic Council for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

In an introduction to the text, council chair Nuala O’Loan, wrote: “The Catholic Church is committed to this work and will continue to develop its structures and processes so that the Church is a safe place for all who worship in, or engage in any way with, it.”

“This report marks a significant step on the continuous journey of improvement.”

[…]

Lisbon, Portugal, Feb 19, 2021 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- Portugal’s president on Thursday requested a constitutional review of a recently-passed bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in the country.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa wrote Feb. 18 to the country’s Constitutional Court, laying out concerns that the proposed law, passed late last month, is vague enough as to not be in accord with the Portuguese constitution, which describes human life as “sacrosanct.”

The bill would apply to patients over 18 who are “in a situation of extreme suffering, with an untreatable injury or a fatal and incurable disease.”

He pointed to the bill’s provision that allows terminally ill adults experiencing “intolerable suffering” to end their own lives, and noted that it “seems to inculcate a strong dimension of subjectivity” and wondered how physicians were expected to measure pain as “intolerable.”

The question is not over the constitutionality of euthanasia, he wrote, but whether the specific regulation is in conformity with the constitution.

“It does not seem that the legislator provides the physician involved in the procedure with a minimally secure legislative framework that can guide his performance,” Rebelo de Sousa wrote.

“This insufficient normative densification does not seem to comply with the constitutional requirement regarding the right to life and human dignity, nor with the certainty of the Law.”

Rebelo de Sousa, a Catholic who was reelected in a landslide vote Jan. 24, is a former law professor who helped to draft Portugal’s constitution in 1976.

Portugal’s parliament passed the bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide Jan. 29 by a vote of 136-78-4.

Upon a bill’s passage the president has three options: giving the bill assent, sending it for review to the constitutional court, or employing his veto. Parliament can override a presidential veto by backing legislation a second time.

Portugal’s bishops expressed “sadness and indignation” at the bill’s passage.

They criticized both the content and the timing of the bill; the bishops were recently forced to suspend public Masses amid a surge in COVID-19 deaths.

“It is a contradiction to legalize death in this context, rejecting the lessons that this pandemic has given to us on the precious value of human life, which the community in general and health professionals in particular are trying to save with extraordinary efforts,” the bishops said Jan. 29.

If the bill is signed into law, Portugal will become the fourth country in Europe to legalize euthanasia, alongside the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Around 81% of Portugal’s 10 million population are baptized Catholics.

The bishops said that accepting the law would “convey the erroneous idea that life marked by illness and suffering no longer deserves protection and becomes a burden to oneself, to those around them, to health services and to society as a whole.”

They added: “The response to illness and suffering should rather be the protection of life, especially when it is more fragile, by all means, and especially by access to palliative care, which the majority of the Portuguese population is still deprived of.”

Portugal, while still a Catholic-majority country, has legalized same-sex marriage and abortion in the past several decades.

The Socialist Party, one of the left-of-center parties leading the charge to push the euthanasia legislation in Portugal, also led proposals to permit same-sex marriages and abortion in Portugal, the AP reports.

Portugal’s parliament failed to pass several proposals to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in mid-2018.

When lawmakers began debating five pieces of legislation in February 2020 to decriminalize euthanasia and assisted suicide, doctors in the country joined with the Catholic Church in opposing the potential change.

The Portuguese Doctors’ Association says the legislation violates key principles of the medical profession.

“Doctors learn to treat patients and save lives. They are not prepared to take part in procedures leading to death,” PDA president Miguel Guimaraes said after meeting with President Rabelo de Sousa.

Pro-life groups protested the euthanasia bills in the weeks leading up to the vote in Lisbon, where they held signs saying, “We demand palliative care for ALL” and “Euthanasia is a recipe for elder abuse.”

[…]