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	Ordination of Women As Bad As Child Abuse in Vatican's Eyes By Ruth Gledhill The Australian July 16, 2010 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/ordination-of-women-as-bad-as-child-abuse-in-vaticans-eyes/story-e6frg6so-1225892551761 THE Roman Catholic Church elevated the ordination of women to one of the most serious crimes in Canon Law yesterday. The ordination of women is now on the same level as child abuse in the eyes of the Church. A sweeping revision to the laws on sexual abuse of children by priests includes the "attempted ordination of a woman" to the priesthood as a "grave delict" subject that can lead to immediate excommunication at the hands of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the disciplinary body once headed by the present Pope. Catholic women who have illicitly become priests include the pop star Sinead O'Connor, who was ordained by the breakaway Latin Tridentine church in 1999. The Catholic Church says that it cannot ordain women as priests because Christ chose only men as His Apostles. However, many respected scholars argue that Mary Magdalene was an Apostle but that her role in the early Church was downgraded by male writers keen to promote an all-male priesthood. The new "substantive norms" on "delicts against the faith" come days after the Church of England's General Synod voted in favour of legislation to consecrate women bishops. An amendment by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York that would have created a woman-free parallel zone was backed by a majority of bishops and laity but fell because the clergy voted against it. Catholic traditionalists denied that the new norms put women's ordination on a par with child abuse because, although elevated to a grave delict under the auspices of the Congregation, the new norms do not specify levels of gravity. The norms also include new legal procedures to deal with priests who abuse children. "This gives a signal that we are serious in our commitment to promote safe environments and to offer an adequate response to abuse," said Monsignor Charles Scicluna, a Vatican doctrinal official. The statute of limitations for sexual abuse cases has been increased to 20 years after the victim's 18th birthday from 10 years, meaning that victims will be able to file charges until they are 38. This is significant because many people who were abused by priests as children do not find themselves able to step forward until they are well into adulthood. In other changes, sexual abuse by a priest of a mentally disabled adult will be treated as if the victim were a minor and could lead to dismissal from the priesthood. The revisions also allow bishops to defrock priests without ecclesiastical trials where evidence of sexual abuse is clear, speeding up the process and removing one of the main criticisms of discipline of paedophile priests. The norms come as Benedict struggles to control the damage that a sexual abuse scandal in the United States and several European countries has done to the Catholic Church's image.
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