Adjustment at the margins or deep reform of canon law to better fight against child crime? Since Wednesday, December 8, the Catholic Church has applied a new version of its canon law, the internal legislative code which brings together the equivalent of our criminal, civil and administrative rights. In particular, it instituted a new offense characterizing more precisely the sexual crimes committed within it. If the institution boasts that these issues and victims are better taken into account, certain groups of the faithful believe that it should have gone further.
In fact, the modifications to the Code of Canon Law, enacted in June, mainly concern the part which defines the offenses – there is no crime in canon law – and the sanctions. Some of these changes had already been made by Pope Francis. They are now enshrined in Catholic criminal law. In French law, this would amount to going from a decree taken by the government to a law enshrined in the penal code.
A new offense has therefore appeared in canon law to condemn child crime in particular: it is a “offense against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, with a minor or a person habitually affected by an imperfect use of reason or with a person to whom the law recognizes similar protection“. The “sixth commandment” of the Bible in question is that which prohibits adultery (“Thou shalt not commit adultery”). Canon law has also legislated to prohibit the creation and possession of child pornography images. These prohibitions apply to religious but also to lay people who hold a position in the Church, such as a Catholic school director or a deacon for example.
Why did you choose to refer to the commandment prohibiting adultery to define sexual crimes? “You have to find a source, an origin in a command to establish a ban!”, replied Mr. Antoine Plateaux, lawyer at the Nantes bar immediately. He is also an ecclesiastical lawyer, that is to say, he can intervene in trials conducted by the Catholic Church.
However, the reference to adultery in the offense condemning sexual crimes makes some victims jump. “It’s a mixture of genres and a serious confusion”, denounces Olivier Savignac, himself the victim of a pedophile priest and today president of the collective of victims Parler et revivre. “It’s an offbeat choice because pedophile cases have nothing to do with adultery.” “It creates a kind of confusion between sexual morality and a sex crime”, abounds Catherine Boulanger, teacher and member of the collective Agir pour notre Église, a group of Catholic faithful which was formed in the wake of the revelations of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) and calls for transformations .
“We are therefore going to have rape and masturbation on the same level! The gravity scale is not suitable.”
Catherine Boulanger, teacher and member of the Agir pour notre Eglise collectiveto franceinfo
“The important thing is not where the standard comes from but what it says and what it allows or prohibits”, annoys Antoine Plateaux. He believes that adultery should not be understood in its contemporary sense but as the act of “to deceive his commitment to God, the law and its prescriptions”. Father Cédric Burgain, vice-dean of the faculty of canon law of the Catholic Institute of Paris, explains to him that “any breach of chastity is penalized with reference to the sixth commandment”. However, he assures that he “We must not put everything on the same level. We must learn to distinguish between matters of the heart, child abuse and rape. Where, before, there was only one crime on the breach of chastity which creates scandal, today this specific canon allows us to make the distinction. “ He highlights the fact that this new offense is also included in a chapter devoted to offenses “against human life, dignity and freedom”. “Before, these offenses were considered offenses against the chastity of the cleric. It is a symbolic but important shift because it testifies to a real consideration of the experience of the victims”, he pleads.
In addition to the inclusion of these new offenses in its criminal law, the Church has strengthened its component of sanctions, the objective being according to the Pope to “to reduce the number of cases in which the application of a sanction was left to the discretion of the ecclesiastical authorities”. Thus, a scale of measures was defined: ban on residing in the same parish as the victim, ban on wearing the religious habit … The strongest sanction being dismissal from the clerical state, that is to say say a reference to secular life. “Before, you had to give ‘a fair sentence’, which was very subjective. Now, there are examples of sentences on which to rely.”, congratulates Master Plateaux.
However, these examples are purely indicative: it is then for the ecclesiastical judge to choose which sentence will be pronounced. “The grid is not clear, deplores Catherine Boulanger. At the same time, the offenses and the associated sanctions must be defined. “ Like Olivier Savignac, she denounces “opacity” of the justice of the Catholic Church. “There is a between oneself which remains, which is perilous even dangerous”, Olivier Savignac alert. “It is linked to the interpretation of one and the other”, he believes, pointing “a lack of transparency in the procedures”.
In French criminal law, for each offense corresponds a maximum penalty (the quantum), which is then left to the discretion of the judge. Why not apply the same principle in the canonical code? “The quantum is ultimately of little use because it is a maximum that is rarely applied”, sweeps Antoine Plateaux, recalling moreover that canon law applies to the Catholic Church throughout the world, thus requiring flexibility to be compatible with all legal regimes. “There is a form of quantum, abounds Father Cédric Burgain. We set a maximum, dismissal from the clerical state, and the judge decides whether to apply this maximum penalty or not. “
The magnitude of the possible sanctions for similar cases does not seem incongruous to him. “There is a double standard, two measures”, protested for his part Olivier Savignac, recalling the resignation of the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Aupetit, accused of having maintained an intimate relationship with a woman, which he denies. “Adultery calls for very heavy penalties while for pedophiles, such penalties do not fall.”
All these modifications divide the various actors of the Catholic world. “It is encouraging because the Church is seldom quick to transform”, underlines Catherine Boulanger, “but the seriousness of the conclusions of the Ciase gave hope for a more energetic grip. It is a first step; others must follow.” Olivier Savignac is much more severe: “It’s window dressing”, he says, expressing concern about the “passage from theory to application”.
For him, “the Church and its intellectuals begin to move when there is a fire to be put out”. An argument refuted by all interlocutors contacted by franceinfo. “This is not an element that has found its cause in recent news”, assures Master Plateaux, relying on the fact that this reform of canon law was initiated in 2007. “The time of the Church is not always the time of men, but the Pope is aware of what is happening”, he says. Catherine Boulanger confirms: “It is not like a government which, for each problem, draws a solution. When we make canon law evolve, it is because there is a real reflection.”
All agree, however, that the Church has really evolved in the denunciation of sexual crimes committed within it. “Today, the bishops must warn the local authorities and the Church no longer leaves the files lying around, recognizes Olivier Savignac. It moved with the forceps but it moved. “ The bishops of France indeed committed in October to put in place agreements with the prosecution to denounce the facts of which they are aware, where only 13% of the dioceses had taken this type of measures before. “Today, there is not a bishopric in which there is no investigation in the event of testimony”, Olivier Savignac advances.
However, if this device is being put in place in France, canon law does not oblige the bishops to denounce pedophiles to the judicial authorities. This obligation only prevails if required by local law. “You can’t expect everything from Rome, shade Catherine Boulanger. There must also be changes on the ground, certain things must start from every Catholic. “ Same positioning for Father Burgain: “If a bishop receives the testimony of a victim, it is his responsibility to prosecute.” With, from now on, possible sanctions in the event of failure.
The real end of the silence and impunity sometimes at work in the Catholic Church in France will perhaps come with the creation of a national canonical criminal court, announced in March by the bishops of France. It is therefore not implemented through the reform of canon law, which applies to Catholics around the world, but will still require Vatican approval. “We will be able to demand accounts from a bishop who has not brought proceedings against the perpetrator of an offense but also to disorientate the trial in another diocese. We should find greater objectivity in ecclesiastical justice”, explains Father Cédric Burgain, who sometimes works as an ecclesiastical judge.
The initiative, which is supposed to be in place from April 2022, could meet the needs expressed by the Agir pour notre Église collective: “We must go much further, with a precise apparatus to judge these offenses. Otherwise, we risk continuing in the double standards, two measures”, calls Catherine Boulanger.