VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican has released a long-awaited update to the criminal section of its Code of Canon Law, the internal legal system that regulates the life of the 1.3 billion-member Catholic Church. The code is the oldest continuously operating legal system in the Western world and it works independently of laws in secular legal systems. In this legal code, the stiffest penalties include being defrocked, excommunicated, fired or fined. Or being forbidden from living in a particular place. The aim of the punishments is to “repair the scandal, restore justice and reform the offender.” The revisions were released Tuesday.
