Vatican Demands Silence on Sex Abuse Scandal
Posted in religion on January 18th, 2010
We all know that the Catholic church has done a miserable job when it comes to policing themselves. Decades of sexual abuse of children by priests attests to that. In the US, children in parish after parish were assaulted by priests and nuns while their superiors covered it up. We now find out that the orders for the cover-up came from the highest levels of the Vatican.
A secret document has been uncovered. The Crimen Sollicitationis, as it is titled in Latin, lays out church policy that calls for silence on the issue of sexual abuse by priests.
The policy, written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani and stored in the secret Vatican archives, focuses on crimes initiated as part of the confessional relationship and what it calls the “worst crime”: sexual assault committed by a priest” or “attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals.”
Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases
“in the most secretive way…restrained by a perpetual silence…and everyone (including the alleged victim) …is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office…under the penalty of excommunication.”
View an English translation of Crimen Sollicitationis (pdf)
Watch Sex crimes and the Vatican (BBC)
