ROME
Vatican Information Service
Vatican City, 8 February 2012 (VIS) – Cardinal William Joseph Levada, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, delivered a lecture before the international symposium “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held in Rome’s Gregorian University from 6 to 9 February. The event brings together bishops and religious superiors from all over the world and aims to relaunch the Church’s commitment to protecting minors and vulnerable people from abuse.
Speaking English, Cardinal Levada affirmed that for Church leaders the question under examination “is both delicate and urgent”. It is “important not to lose sight of the gravity of these crimes” as we seek “to form the priests of today and tomorrow to be aware of this scourge and to eliminate it from the priesthood”.
Cardinal Levada recalled how Blessed John Paul II’s Motu Proprio “Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela” clarified and updated the list of canonical crimes, explicitly including the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as one of the most serious crimes, or “graviora delicta”. Benedict XVI, then prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “was instrumental in implementing these new norms” and supported “approving the Essential Norms for the United States”. In 2010 Pope Benedict also approved and ordered the promulgation of stricter revised norms.
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