Roger-Luc Chayer
Did you know that in Roman canon law, there are no pedophile or sexual crimes in general and that representatives of the Catholic Church, priests, priests, bishops, cardinals and the Pope are all absolved from their sins as soon as they confess them to their colleagues?
According to Wikipedia, Canon Law or canon law (Jus canonicum in Latin) is the set of laws and regulations adopted or accepted by the Catholic authorities for the government of the Church and its faithful. These norms have the force of law and must be respected because, for some of them, there is the validity of the sacrament.
Canon Law is a kind of civil and criminal code that frames the life of all Catholics and foresees or imposes consequences in everyday life. The canon law is applied by the Ecclesiastical Tribunal that Rome can set up to hear civil matters such as the annulment of marriages, the obtaining of damages resulting from faults committed. This Tribunal even judges, through its disciplinary division, criminal issues by imposing penalties and penitences on persons found guilty. There is however a major « catch », some common crimes in society in general are not recognized by the code.
Take the example of pedophilia or sexual crimes perpetrated by religious among themselves or on the faithful. The code does not provide for any crime in this area. This means, in theory, that any religious can rape a child, without having to, in theory, assume the consequences of his action. That begins to explain the silence of the Church on this question!
Worse, in the Code of Canon Law which can be consulted in its entirety at http://www.vatican.va/archive/FRA0037/_INDEX.HTM, a pedophile religious could receive an exemption if he confesses his aggression to a member of the clergy. According to Article 85 of the Code, « The dispensation, or relaxation of the purely ecclesiastical law in a particular case, may be granted, within the limits of their competence, by those who hold the executive power, and also by those to whom the the power to dispense belongs explicitly or implicitly, by virtue of the law itself or of a legitimate delegation. »
It is exactly this article that explains that bishops or cardinals around the world are silencing the actions of their priests and priests when everyone is wondering why. The bishops are just applying a code that was designed to protect them, and that’s not new. The first articles of the Canonical Code date from the fourth century in Rome.
It is for this reason that states should look very seriously at these rites and practices of both the Catholic Church and all other religions that use equivalent codes. One can not live in a secular, democratic society without paying extra taxes, and brandish a code that is not subject to any legislative control, to exonerate perpetrators of crimes that are unacceptable in these societies. The abolition of religions is a huge but possible concept. Perhaps we could start by setting up legislative committees that would at least ban these codes and parallel courts and remove those privileges from people who think they are above the law. Food for thought!