Everybody relax. As widely expected, Rome is about to issue new rules for handling priests who sexually abuse minors, including those who view child pornography and abuse adults with mentally disabilities, classifying such acts as grave canonical crimes. Oh, and the new document will include those who try to ordain women and women who try to get ordained.

Over to you, John Thavis:

The revisions were expected to extend the church law’s statute of limitations on accusations of sexual abuse, from 10 years after the alleged victim’s 18th birthday to 20 years. For several years, Vatican officials have been routinely granting exceptions to the 10-year statute of limitations.

The revisions also make it clear that use of child pornography would fall under the category of clerical sexual abuse of minors. In 2009, the Vatican determined that any instance of a priest downloading child pornography from the Internet would be a form of serious abuse that a bishop must report to the doctrinal congregation, which oversees cases of sexual abuse.

In addition, the revisions will make clear that abuse of mentally disabled adults will be considered equivalent to abuse of minors. In the law on the sexual abuse of minors, the term “minors” will include “persons of who suffer from permanent mental disability,” sources said.

And about those already self-excommunicated attempted ordainers of women and women who try to be ordained:

Pope John Paul’s 2001 document [adding sexual abuse to the list of delicta gravoria and giving the CDF jurisdiction over such crimes] distinguished between two types of “most grave crimes,” those committed in the celebration of the sacraments and those committed against morals. Among the sacramental crimes were such things as desecration of the Eucharist and violation of the seal of confession.

Under the new revisions, the “attempted ordination of women” will be listed among those crimes, as a serious violation of the sacrament of holy orders, informed sources said.

It will be interesting to see how the new norms and their accompanying documentation handle the issue of women’s ordination. Footnote? Bullet point? Boldfaced and highlighted? Whatever the case, why now? To fuel the suspicion that in the 1980s and ’90s the CDF was more interested in disciplining “liberal” doctrinal abusers than it was abuser priests?

(More from David Gibson here.)

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn of Vienna surprised many of us when he called for an “unflinching examination” of mandatory clerical celibacy as a response to the sexual-abuse scandals. He stunned even more people when he went after former Vatican Secretary of State Angelo Cardinal Sodano for having “deeply wronged the victims” of sexual abuse by apparently dismissing news reports of the scandal as “petty gossip.” Making matters more heated, Schoenborn then accused Sodano of blocking an investigation of allegations against Austrian Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, who resigned in 1995 after he was accused abusing seminarians (he never admitted guilt). The cardinal who wanted to investigate Groer? Joseph Ratzinger–one-time professor of Christoph Schoenborn.

How interesting, I thought at the time, that Schoenborn was going out on those limbs. He is, after all, supposedly close to the pope–and played a major role in Ratzinger’s election. Had he consulted with anyone in Rome before publicly airing his concerns about celibacy, about Sodano’s bad behavior? Apparently not.

Today, the Vatican press office released an unusually detailed statement (Italian only) describing a meeting between Schoenborn and the pope, who were eventually joined by Sodano and the current secretary of state, Tarcisio Bertone. Usually by this time Monday, the Vatican issues its English press release via e-mail. That hasn’t happened yet, so for the time being we’ll have to rely on Rocco Palmo’s translation (feel free to offer your own in the comboxes):

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Michael Sean Winters continues to call down shame on the secular press for its coverage of the latest phase of the sexual-abuse crisis. Winters doesn’t see why anyone should be too troubled by how the CDF handled the case of Stephen Kiesle: “This, we are led to believe, is the smoking gun. Raztinger signed the letter in 1985. That is HIS signature. Case closed.”

In 1978 Kiesle was convicted of molesting two boys and was sentenced to three years’ probation. (Later he was convicted of molesting a girl.) As Winters points out, the priest sought to be released from celibacy and returned to the lay state. The bishop of Oakland and others who knew Kiesle sent letters to Rome–along with Kiesle’s file–in support of the request. (Read the documents here.) Winters writes:

The first document posted at the Times is a 1981 letter from a parish priest who worked with Kiesle. It says that Kiesle lacked “maturity and responsibility and spirituality” and says he only became a priest to please his over-bearing mother.

That’s not all it says. Read it for yourself: Fr. Dabovich writes that Kiesle worked mostly with teenagers and children in the parish CCD program. “They liked him and cooperated with him. Yet he acted as one of them: played ball with them; took them to outings and shows and spent time in their homes.” He continues: “I was somewhat concerned, but never received any unfavorable comments. Only some years after he left this parish did I learn of some improprieties that were going on while he was here.” An experienced Vatican official would know how to read between those lines.

Winters:

The second document, also from 1981 and also from a priest who worked with Kiesle, says that Kiesle’s family was opposed to his becoming a priest and claims that Kiesle was irresponsible and had trouble relating to adults. The letter refers to “the eventual difficulty that Father Kiesle had with the law because of his relationship to young children” but there are no details.

So what? The letter writer, Fr. George Crespin, then chancellor of the diocese, may have felt squeamish about detailing Kiesle’s crimes. He may have wanted to stick to the protocol of understatement when communicating with Rome. Note, too, that before euphemistically mentioning that Kiesle ran into trouble with the law because of his “relationship to young children,” Crespin also notes that Kiesle showed interest in “ministering” to no one else but young people. Does Winters expect us to believe that CDF officials couldn’t connect those dots?

What’s more, in the same letter Crespin says that “a sufficient description of the nature of the difficulties” was included in the Acta, which had already been sent to Rome. Later in the post Winters–still ignoring the unpublished Acta we know was sent to the CDF–repeats the claim that Ratzinger was never informed of the full extent of Kiesle’s crimes. That assumption is unsupported by the record.

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Today the Boston Globe published a curious op-ed by the head of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ National Review Board, Judge Michael Merz. The occasion for the piece is the release of the film Doubt, adapted from John Patrick Shanley’s Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning 2004 play about an accused priest, set in 1964 (I reviewed it here).

The movie’s plot is largely fictional. Sadly, too many stories that surfaced since 2002 were not fictional. The clergy sexual abuse crisis is the greatest crisis in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States, something that caused the downfall of one of the most powerful bishops in this country, Bernard Cardinal Law; moved hundreds of abuse victims to step forward; and resulted in the payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in legal settlements by various dioceses, prompted apologies from the highest levels in the church, and led to an extraordinary meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and abuse victims from Boston just last April.

Merz is right. The abuse crisis is the greatest scandal in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. But note the strange construction of the last sentence in that paragraph. The scandal, Merz writes, “caused” Cardinal Law’s “downfall.” It also “caused” victims to come forward. It “resulted in” financial settlements for victims ($1 billion and counting, not “hundreds of millions of dollars”). It “prompted apologies from the highest levels in the church.” And it “led to” an unprecedented meeting between Pope Benedict and victims from Boston. When you put it that way, the sexual-abuse crisis almost sounds like a positive thing.

Of course, that is absurd. Merz has it entirely backward. The scandal did not cause Law’s downfall. Law was responsible for a large part of the scandal. That is why he resigned (twice, apparently–the first time John Paul II refused). Likewise, it is bizarre to speak of the scandal as having caused financial settlements for victims. According to the John Jay report, about 4 percent of U.S. Catholic priests (4,392) were credibly accused of molesting more then ten thousand minors. Presumably Merz would acknowledge that the courage of victims may have had something to do with “causing” the settlements. And what really “prompted” apologies from bishops? The media’s unsparing reports? The staggering costs? Sheer embarrassment? Finally, yes, Pope Benedict’s meeting with victims was  impressive. It’s too bad his predecessor had not done the same.

Merz writes to reassure Catholics and the wider public of “the intention of the nation’s bishops to address this problem forcefully.”

These intentions have been translated into strong actions by the bishops. For example, any priest or member of a religious order against whom a credible accusation has ever been made is no longer working with children; many have been removed from the priesthood.

Merz helpfully details the significant progress made by the bishops’ conference: nearly 2 million clergy and laypeople trained in safe-environment programs; nearly 6 million trained to recognize predators; backround checks on more than 1.5 million church voluneers, workers, educators, clergy, and seminarians. Such achievements should not be minimized.

But neither must the failures of bishops–even “the bishops.” The way Merz uses the term reminded me of the many times I’ve seen it in articles submitted to Commonweal. Editors have to be mindful of nuance; the term “the bishops” can be accurately used in some instances. And many defenders of “the bishops” rushed to point that out as the Globe and other news outlets churned out story after story on priest-abusers and their enablers. They had a point. One shouldn’t judge the entirety of the bishops’ conference by the actions of an individual bishop, even Cardinal Law.

Yet Catholics have good reasons to remain vigilant. Last year the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a $660 million settlement, yet the public is still waiting for the clergy records the archdiocese promised it would release as part of that settlement. In April, during the pope’s visit to the United States, the cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seemed to minimize the actions of bishops who failed to protect children from abusers. Then in August, a deposition of Cardinal Francis George of Chicago revealed his serious failures and confusions with respect to the case of a priest-abuser who molested children as recently as 2005. The cardinal is now president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Merz acknowledges that “many Catholics expect more,” and that they wonder why more bishops haven’t resigned. Not Merz, apparently. “I, on the other hand, believe it is better for bishops to take responsibility for fixing the problem. This may not satisfy everyone.” In his op-ed, Merz offers no explanation for why he arrived at that conclusion. More troubling is that this way of thinking echoes Cardinal Law’s own response to calls for his resignation in early 2002. Obviously Catholics expect their bishops to take responsibility for their tragic failures. They know that sometimes accepting responsibility means going away.

There can be no doubt that the institutional church has made major progress in dealing with clergy abuse–those successes can’t be ignored. By the same token, no one should have any illusions about the nature, extent, and present status of the scandal. Least of all the chairman of the National Review Board.