Posted on 07/11/2013 6:29:58 AM PDT by servo1969
VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis overhauled the laws that govern the Vatican City State on Thursday, criminalizing leaks of Vatican information and specifically listing sexual violence, prostitution and possession of child pornography as crimes against children that can be punished by up to 12 years in prison.
The legislation covers clergy and lay people who live and work in Vatican City and is different from the canon law which covers the universal Catholic Church.
The bulk of the Vatican's penal code is based on the 1889 Italian code. Many of the new provisions were necessary to bring the city state's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Others were necessary to comply with international norms to fight money-laundering, part of the Vatican's push toward financial transparency.
One new crime stands out, though, as an obvious response to the leaks of papal documents last year that represented one of the gravest Vatican security breaches in recent times.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Civil laws internal to the Vatican State, not universal laws pertaining to the church.
Do you have a workable link?
What the heck was going on there before?
Oh, wait, we already know the answer to that one....
So....Yesterday, those things were legal in the Vatican???
This is my first departure from agreeing with this pope.
“Leaks” happen when there are things that need to leaked. How about criminalizing behavior that necessitates leaking it? the solution, Holy Father, is to END the behavior you want to avoid being leaked, not to criminalize leaking it.
Or, as I was taught in Sunday school all those years ago: “A clear conscience is the softest pillow”.
Reading the article always helps. They were illegal, they were just covered under general statutes and not mentioned specifically.
But if leaks are not criminalized, it remains too easy to let the world know when priests are being allowed to serially rape children.
The Vatican must punish whistle blowers.
Which begs the question, why take the effort to revise the laws and call them out specifically, when they were illegal already?
"Many of the new provisions were necessary to bring the city state's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. "
This is a problem familiar to those of us who actually do real work. You (or your company) may have perfectly workable safety and security policies, but when Fed.Gov issues a new set of regulations you (or your company) must often completely revise them to be in compliance with the new Fed.Gov dictates. It doesn't mean you (or your company) were unsafe or insecure under the previous policies and practices.
Of course, one who is actively looking for ways to smear those whom he does not like will always find them ... even if they are untrue or distorted.
It says right in the article you posted. The minimum penalty was raised and the criminal definitions clarified.
The laws were probably just generic ones dealing with obscenity, rape, and corruption of minors, which is largely what society had to deal with in the late 1800s.
The Internet opened up child porn to the monstrosity it is today—back then you’d have to find some like-minded (shudder) person to actually print it and distribute it for you—not very likely. As Tacitus once said, the more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
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