Vatican to allow lay involvement in canon law trials

The Irish Times
Friday, July 16, 2010
PATSY McGARRY Religious Affairs Correspondent and
PADDY AGNEW in Rome

THE VATICAN has cleared the way for lay involvement in canon law trials, in its first major review for nine years of church law governing how it deals with clerical child sex abuse.

It has doubled the statute of limitations period over which investigations of such abuse can take place and, for the first time, has included provisions for dealing with the abuse of disabled adults.
It also cleared the way for dealing rapidly with abuse, branded possession of child pornography as a “grave crime”, and made “cardinals, patriarchs, legates of the Apostolic See and bishops” subject to the jurisdiction of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) on child sex abuse matters. the rest