LOS ANGELES (CA)
Angelus News from Catholic News Agency
September 15, 2017
[Note: Provides a more detailed list of Vatican regulations than a version previously posted.]
The Vatican announced Friday that after being informed by U.S. officials of a possible breach of child pornography laws on the part of a Holy See diplomat, it has recalled the priest in question and an investigation has been opened. According to a Sept. 15 Vatican communique, on Aug. 21 the U.S. State Department notified the Vatican Secretariat of State, “through diplomatic channels, of a possible violation of laws relating to child pornography images by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington.”
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The priest will likely face a canonical proceeding, overseen by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and a criminal trial overseen by the courts of the Vatican City State. The possession of child pornography is considered a “canonical crime” in the Church, and in 2010 Benedict XVI added it to the list of “most grave delicts,” meaning crimes dealt with directly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and can result in dismissal from the clerical state. According to Article 4 of Law 8 of the Vatican City State, which was instituted by Pope Francis in 2013, child pornography is defined as “any representation, by whatever means, of a minor engaged in real of simulated explicit sexual activities as well as any representation of the sexual parts of a minor for primarily sexual purposes.”
Vatican law establishes six possible penalties, including hefty fines and jail time, for those found guilty of either staging, trading or offering child pornography to others:
1. Whoever stages pornographic shows using a minor, produces child pornography, or recruits or induces a minor to take part in pornographic shows, is punished with six to twelve years imprisonment and a fine from 25,000 to 250,000 euro.
2. The same penalty applies to whoever trades in child pornography.
3. Whoever, outside the cases foreseen in the preceding paragraphs, distributes, disseminates, transmits, imports, exports, offers or sells child pornography, through any means, even electronically, as well as whoever possesses child pornography for those purposes or otherwise distributes or disseminates knowledge or information directed at grooming or exploiting minors for sexual purposes, is punished with one to five years imprisonment and a fine from 2,500 to 50,000 euro.
4. Whoever, outside the cases foreseen in the preceding paragraphs, offers or supplies others, even free of charge, child pornography, is punished with up to three years imprisonment and a fine from 1,500 to 15,000 euro.
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