Pope Francis updates 2019 law cracking down on sex abuse coverups

Pope Francis also reaffirmed that vulnerable adults and not just children can be victims of abuse when they are unable to freely consent.

Pope Francis on Saturday updated a 2019 church law aimed at holding senior churchmen accountable for covering up sexual abuse cases, expanding it to cover lay Catholic leaders and reaffirming that vulnerable adults and not just children can be victims of abuse when they are unable to freely consent.

With the update, Francis reaffirmed and made permanent temporary provisions that were passed in a moment of crisis for the Vatican and Catholic hierarchy. The 2019 law was praised at the time for laying out precise mechanisms to investigate complicit bishops and religious superiors.

But implementation has been uneven, and abuse survivors have criticized the Vatican for a continued lack of transparency about abuse cases.

The new rules conform to other changes in the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse that were issued in the last four years. Most significantly, they are extended to cover leaders of Vatican-approved associations headed by laymen and women, not just clerics.

The expansion is a response to the many cases that have come to light in recent years of lay leaders abusing their authority to sexually exploit people under their spiritual care or authority, most recently the L’Arche federation of Jean Vanier.

The new law also reaffirms that adults such as nuns or seminarians who are dependent on their bishops or superiors can be victims of abuse. Church law had long held that only adults who “habitually” lack the use of reason could be considered victims in the same sense as minors.

The 2019 law expanded that definition and it is retained in the update, making clear that adults can be rendered vulnerable to abuse as situations present themselves. The inclusion is significant given resistance in the Vatican to the #MeToo pressure to recognize rank and file parishioners who are abused during spiritual direction by a priest as possible victims.

The definition reads that a victim can be “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense.”