After almost four years of experimentation, Pope Francis announces procedures to prevent and combat the phenomenon of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The new version of the Motu Proprio “Vos estis lux mundi” was published today and will come into force on April 30th. The most significant innovation is the extension of the norms on the responsibilities of bishops and religious also to lay people, in particular to “those who are or have been supreme directors of institutes of consecrated life or societies of apostolic life of pontifical right and monasteries sui iuris for during acts committed during the munere” and “lay believers who are or have been facilitators of international associations of the faithful recognized or established by the Apostolic See for acts committed during the munere”.
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The new provisions repeal the previous ones of 2019, reaffirm the will to continue the fight against abuse and, in relation to victims, in addition to minors, designate “any person in a state of physical or mental infirmity or deprivation of personal liberty who actually, even occasionally, limits the ability to understand or want, or at least to resist, the crime”.
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The document explains the investigation procedure, according to which “the metropolitan receiving the report immediately requests the competent dicastery the task of opening the investigation”. Subsequently, “the dicastery shall deliver without undue delay and in any event within thirty days of receipt of the first notification”. The metropolitan, having received the mandate from the competent dicastery “in person or through one or more appropriate persons”, collects the relevant information on the matter; he accesses the information and documents necessary for the purposes of the investigation and kept in the archives of the Church offices; if necessary, seeks the cooperation of other Ordinaries or Hierarchs; seeks information, when it deems appropriate and in accordance with regulations, from persons and institutions, including civilians, able to provide useful elements for the investigation”. “These regulations – concludes the instrument – are without prejudice to the by State laws at each location give rise to rights and obligations, in particular any reporting obligations to the responsible civil authorities.”