VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent
NICK SQUIRES IN ROME – 12 JULY 2013
Pope Francis has toughened up the Vatican city state’s laws on child sex abuse, in the latest demonstration of his determination to overhaul the Holy See after years of damaging intrigue and scandal.
But the measures were dismissed by anti-abuse campaigners as little more than administrative tinkering because they applied only to the tiny city state and would have no impact in protecting children in the rest of the world from predatory priests.
The new laws about the sexual abuse of minors came just two days after the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child demanded that the Vatican divulge documents about its treatment of abuse victims around the world and its leniency towards predatory priests.
The new laws represented “a broader definition of the category of crimes against minors, including the sale of children, child prostitution, the recruitment of children, sexual violence and sexual acts with children, and the production and possession of child pornography,” the Vatican said.
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