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	Uproar over Vatican's Grave Crimes List By Barney Zwartz The Age July 17, 2010 http://www.smh.com.au/world/uproar-over-vaticans-grave-crimes-list-20100716-10e7t.html Catholics around the world were shocked after the Vatican listed both the ordination of women and paedophile abuse by priests as "grave crimes". The Vatican made some changes to the way it deals with clergy sexual abusers, which it said would promote rigour and transparency, but the same document of "grave crimes" now lists the attempted ordination of women as in the same category as a matter for excommunication. "They've just stuffed it up again," a senior Melbourne Catholic, who did not want to be named, said. "It's a very long list of things that are not permissible, and we knew what they were, but to put women and paedophiles in the same document is ridiculous." Charles Scicluna, the Vatican official who oversees abuse investigations, said the Vatican did not equate women's ordination with the sexual abuse of children. He said an illicit ordination was a "sacramental'' crime, while abuse was a ''moral'' crime. But in linking them as it did, the Vatican ensured that the world's focus was not on the minor but laudable changes to its abuse protocols. The changes make it easier for the Vatican to remove abusers from the priesthood, make bishops more accountable, allow lay people to serve on church tribunals dealing with sex abuse cases, extend the statute of limitations on abuse cases from 10 to 20 years, and add possessing child pornography to the list of grave crimes. "The Vatican is living in a parallel universe," the Australian Catholic commentator Paul Collins, a former priest, said yesterday. "They live in a cosseted world isolated from ordinary Catholics and their actions, thoughts and feelings, and ordinary priests who are dealing with this issue all the time. "It's spectacularly stupid and inopportune to link these two issues that have nothing to do with each other.'' Joelle Battestini, the co-convener of the Movement for the Ordination of Women, said it was ''shocking that in this day and age the Vatican could be so violent and public'' in its ''systemic sexism''. The US-based Roman Catholic Women Priests wondered ''how answering a spiritual call to serve through priesthood could possibly be in the same category of 'sin' as paedophilia''. ''Instead of the many excommunications and condemnations the Vatican issues against women priests and their supporters, it would be better to take responsibility for the damaging behaviours of patriarchy especially the abuse of spiritual power.'' The Melbourne Archbishop, Denis Hart, said ordaining women was on the same document as clergy abuse because the second section dealt with offences against the sacraments, heresy, schism and apostasy. He said the document detailed what the church regarded as serious and added the ordination of women . ''The church is merely clarifying its position.'' The National Council of Priests, which finished its annual meeting in Parramatta yesterday, held a reconciliation service on Thursday to express the shame Catholic priests felt over priests who abused, the council president, Ian McGinnity, said. Father McGinnity, the parish priest at Quakers Hill, Parramatta, said the council discussed clergy abuse in depth, and the priests were very disappointed with the response of some Catholic leaders. However, he had not heard the Vatican announcement. The spokeswoman of Survivors of Clergy Abuse Australia, Nicky Davis, criticised the "glacially slow rate" of progress and said the changes were a big disappointment and a "PR stunt".
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