Tighter regulations on handling abuse can contribute to more public confidence in the Church writes Michael Kelly

The Vatican's rather foolish decision to include the punishment for attempting female ordination in the same document governing new rules for dealing with abusive priests rather overshadowed the importance of the tightening of the rules.

Given the Church's teaching on the inadmissibility of women to the priesthood, attempted female ordination is, of course, a grave abuse of the sacrament of Holy Orders. It was unwise, however, to give a hostage to fortune and allow some commentators to suggest that the move means the Vatican equates female ordination with child sexual abuse. As Bishop John McAreavey pointed out at the weekend, this is unfounded. ''The former offence relates to the sacraments, the latter to immorality.

''The fact that a variety of issues are dealt with in one document does not imply in any context that all these issues are equivalent,'' Bishop McAreavey said. Nonetheless, it was avoidable confusion that the Vatican ought to have foreseen.

Not new

But back to the substantive issue: in a sense, some of the norms in relation to child abuse are not new. Many of the rules have been in place since 2001 when the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) convinced John Paul II of the seriousness of sexual abuse by priests. However, what last week's decree by Pope Benedict XVI ensures is that the norms are now no longer guidelines or advice: they are the law of the Church and must be obeyed.

Since his election in 2005, and indeed beforehand as leader of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, Benedict XVI has been struggling to get his senior officials and advisers to accept the gravity of the crisis. By insisting that the guidelines be codified as parts of Church law, Benedict is ensuring that the norms will be followed - and underlining the punishment that will be meted out if senior bishops fail to obey.

Of course, it is for the State and the civil law to deal with child abusers in the first instance. Briefing journalists on the legislation, Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi (pictured right) was at pains to point out that the revisions affect only the Church's internal discipline and are not indented to replace reporting sex abuse by priests to the police - a legal requirement on everyone, lay or cleric, Fr Lombardi insisted.

The Vatican has been hit by somewhat of a tsunami of controversy over the issue of abuse in recent years and has often appeared helpless to act. Priests accused of abuse, senior canon lawyers frequently argued, had an absolute right to due process. This due process often allowed abusers to thwart punishment and cynically use procedural mechanisms to evade censure. One Dublin priest-abuser even tricked a canon lawyer into hearing his confession, ensuring that the evidence of the canon lawyer would no longer be admissible in a Church court.

The new laws allow for the wholesale bypassing of the Church's complicated court system in extreme cases, allowing the Church to dismiss an abuser from the priesthood without appeal. In some cases where a trial will still be used, lay people will be allowed to act as a judge in the case for the first time. This move in particular appears aimed at jettisoning the clericalism mindset that allowed an old boys' network to swing in to action to protect an abuser. The logic appears to be that allowing lay people, particularly parents, to sit in judgement over an abusive priest, will ensure that the full extent of the damage caused to children by abuse will be considered rather than just legal principles.

Maximun time

Gone too is the ten-year statute of limitation - the procedure that sets forth the maximum time after an alleged crime that legal proceedings can be instigated. The time-period will now be set at twenty years, and in the most-serious cases, it can be waived altogether.

Bishops can also apply to the Pope to dismiss a cleric accused of abuse instantaneously. A major criticism from many bishops - particularly in Ireland - has been that the Vatican routinely slowed their action against a priest guilty of abuse.

The Vatican's cumbersome Supreme Court - known as the Apostolic Signatura - is also now excluded from the equation. It is the doctrinal watchdog - once headed by Cardinal Ratzinger - that will have sole responsibility.

The revisions also take account of some more modern sins too. The acquisition, possession or distribution of child pornography is now described as a ''grave crime'' under Church law and will be treated in the same fashion as actual child abuse itself.

The Vatican described the revisions as ''a contribution to clarity and certainty in a field in which the Church is strongly committed today to proceeding with rigor and transparency''. Crucially, the revisions address an issue that has long generated negative criticism, namely the lack of a uniform, universal Church policy on the handling of abuse. Until now, various national bishops' conferences have drafted and adopted their own, often widely different, guidelines. The new legal status of the Vatican's norms ensures a long-awaited 'one Church' approach worldwide.

It will take a long time for the Church to restore the credibility lost as a result of the mishandling of abuse. The new tighter legal regime may well contribute to more public confidence.

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