via March 25, 2010 on BBC Newsnight
Crimen sollicitationis : The document came to light because it was referenced in a footnote to a May 18, 2002, letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, to the bishops of the world regarding new procedures for sex abuse cases.
Crimen sollicitationis is a secret document issued by the Holy Office of the Vatican (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 1962, instructing bishops about how to handle cases in which priests were accused of using the privacy of the confessional to make sexual advances to penitents. The document also instructs bishops on how to handle cases of the “worst crime”, in which a priest is sexually involved with an animal, child, or man. Canon lawyers disagree about the extent to which the document is still in force.
The document calls for such cases to be handled in secret, and extends that secrecy to the document itself. The document imposes secrecy even upon victims of sexual abuse. Extreme penalties for violations of secrecy, including excommunication that can only be dismissed by the pope himself, are imposed. Perhaps as a result, some bishops claim not to have known of its existence.
Crimen sollicitationis came to light in 2002, in the context of new procedures for handling accusations that priests had sexually abused minors. Lawyers involved in cases against the church have argued that the document is evidence of obstruction of justice. In response, defenders of church policy have argued that the policy of secrecy extended only to Canon law actions up to and including defrocking of a priest, and would not have prevented a bishop from reporting accusations of child molestation to the civil authorities. They also argue that, because the document was a secret, it is unlikely to have influenced the actions of church officials.
via CRIMEN SOLICITATIONIS FULL ENGLISH TEXT
That Crimen Solicitationis was not designed to “cover up” sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, “lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls.”
via National Catholic Reporter.
Therefore, it is clear that the hierarchy of the Church knew about the abuses because to not bring these cases forward was punishable by excommunication. So those who claim they did not know are lying, and those who say they did not tell their superiors should be excommunicated according to this document. If the current Pope did not act on the cases brought to his attention, he too is subject to excommunication.
If the hierarchy of the Church did not bring these cases to law enforcement authorities, as they claim this document does not prevent them from doing so, then why didn’t they act in the interests of the children? That question should be asked of each of them, under oath, in a court of law, and all documents pertaining to child abuse that are possessed by the Vatican and any diocese within the Church should be turned over to prosecutors.
