Pope Francis expands Catholic Church sexual abuse regulation to include lay leaders | News
Rome, Italy
News
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Pope Francis has updated a 2019 church legislation governing clerical sexual abuse and prolonged it to consist of accountability for Catholic lay leaders of Vatican-authorised spiritual businesses.
Lay leaders are people today other than clergy associates who are on the expert rosters of the church.
The norms ended up to start with outlined by Francis in an Apostolic letter, Vos estis lux mundi, in 2019 and were being initially mandated for a 4-year time period.
Francis has now manufactured small alterations to that document and created it long term, powerful April 30, in accordance to a doc introduced by the Vatican on Saturday.
For many years the Catholic Church has been plagued by a sequence of intercourse abuse scandals in international locations around the planet.
The new norms depict Pope Francis’ pledge to give “concrete measures” to overcome sexual abuse.
A single of the alterations includes provisions for keeping lay leaders of Vatican-accepted associations accountable for deal with-ups of sexual abuse. The norms earlier only connected to bishops and spiritual superiors.
Another alter requires the definition of abuse victims, which previously referred to “minors and susceptible individuals.”
The up to date doc now specifies “a minor, or with a person who habitually has an imperfect use of purpose, or with a vulnerable grownup.”
