A respected former member of Pope Francis’ commission on clergy sexual abuse has expressed disappointment in the recent revision of the criminal section of the Catholic Church’s canon law, saying the changes do not go far enough to protect children and vulnerable adults from possible predators.Marie Collins, an Irish survivor who resigned in frustration from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in 2017, pointed during a June 15 webinar to the fact that the new provisions do not mandate that a priest found guilty of abuse be removed from any office he may hold, or from the priesthood.
Instead, the provisions, published June 1, say that a priest found guilty of abuse can be deprived of office or dismissed from the clerical state “where the case calls for it.”
“They had the opportunity to nail it down in black and white,” Collins told the webinar, hosted by the Cleveland-based reform group FutureChurch. “They haven’t done that.”