generalspeaking

Slightly Underdone and Overdue?

Anyone who takes it upon themselves to reveal or to receive confidential information or documentation in Vatican City can henceforth, with the tightening up of rules, anticipate severe penalties attached to the violation of trust. The risk may be six months to two years in prison. A fine of $2,500 further attests to the seriousness of the matter. The matter being betrayal of the "fundamental interests" of the Holy See -- or its diplomatic relations.

Is it remotely possible that Pope Benedict XVI was moved to abdicate the Throne of Saint Peter
in the despairing emotional turmoil of his betrayal by his butler, Paolo Gabriele who chose to purloin the pope's personal papers, handling them to a journalist to do as he might? Now pardoned, Paolo Gabriele stands as a symbol of unfortunate human fallibility. But can the Vatican survive too many similar aggravations?

Ugly in their revelations of the back-stabbing, the petty turf wars, the all-enveloping dysfunction, corruption and above all, homosexual liaisons besmirching the highest levels of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, the Holy See would far prefer to set aside the degradingly scandalous revelations that reflect how even the faithful regard the curia.

This is a new chapter in the book of the Vatican, presided over by a vastly different kind of overseer, humble in demeanour and stern in expectations that those who flaunt their station and preen themselves as representing an elite inner circle of the Holy Spirit's confidantes given leave to act as they will, cease and desist.

Pope Francis, much preferring a rude willow chair to a sumptuous throne, setting the stage for this new theatre of accountability and responsibility has taken his own initiative finally to re-write governing laws of the Vatican. And none too soon. Information leaks pertaining to sexual violence, prostitution and possession of child pornography; vicious crimes that have no place among the messengers of the spirit will be severely punished.

Ah yes, to be sure, the leaks of information may not be pursued without certain retribution by an offended Catholic Church. But the degrading and atrocious acts themselves? Completely extirpated, rooted out, those who indulged those fantasies of Sodom and Gomorrah, are they now to be constrained in the future, abiding by their oaths of office?

Clergy and the laity, those who live and work in Vatican City are all blanketed by this altered legislation. Pope Frances anticipates by this little bit of patchwork perhaps, that he can respond with prideful certainty that the Holy See under his tutelage can assure the United Nations the guarantee that no longer will priests abuse vulnerable children, nor the Church give them haven.

This is the Vatican catching up to its solemn pledge when it ratified and signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990. With the fresh new changes to a penal code based on the 1889 Italian code, the Vatican under Pope Francis' guidance has finally altered legislation to reflect some of the core provisions of the treaty it solemnly signed two decades ago.

Labels: Child Abuse, Crime, Human Relations, Sexism, Social-Cultural Deviations, Vatican

posted by Pieface @ Monday, July 15, 2013