A Houston attorney has alledgedly received a copy of a 1962 Vatican document in which priests are instructed not to report sexual abuse cases to civil authorities.

I have tried to locate a copy of this document on the web, but have been thus far unable to find it.

I checked the Vatican official homepage and searched in English and Latin but found nothing.

Does anyone have a copy or can direct me to a copy?

I want to read it for myself before jumping to conclusions.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 05, 2003

Answers

John,

Here's a link to a story about the document, but since the document was allegedly a secret and stored in protected archives, don't look for it on their website.

http://www.rentapriest.com/vatican_implicated_in_worldwide.htm

Dave

-- non-Catholic Christian (dlbowerman@yahoo.com), August 05, 2003.

I've read all I can on the paper and tentatively conclude the following:

1) If a priest or bishop receives information while under office as a confessor, that information MUST remain forever a secret. Otherwise, we lose the integrity of the confessional. A priest knows that. It makes you wonder if when confronted by a bishop, a sinful priest would immediately "confess" thus binding a bishop to secrecy.

Even if that did happen, a Bishop should have relieved the criminal priest of all duties.

But, I'm sure that some bishops were going by the best advise of some muddle-headed psychologist. 2) The Church operates under canon law, it's own set of rules. If a Church trial is used, it is under canon law. It could be debated that a Church trial is seperate from civil law and should be. Should information gained through an internal Church trial be shared with civil authorities? What would some governments do with such information? In the US, we're spoiled.

3) Should a priest be considered innocent until proven guilty?

All complicated issues.

God Bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 05, 2003.

The VICTIM is excommunicated if s/he fails to denounce the perp within 30 days ???

"Denouncing" not including complaint to the civil authorities, and followed by an oath of secrecy (?!), so that complaint to the civil authorities would be a violation of that oath ???

I hope I'm reading this wrong. Otherwise this is sick.

-- Stephen (StephenLynn999@msn.com), August 05, 2003.

Stephen, I still would love to read the paper but after careful reading of news reports:

I hope I'm interpreting this correctly:

The paper was an instuctional paper intended to give a priest directions on how to handle a situation when a person, during confession, told them they were harmed by another priest.

The confessor was bound by secrecy. Therefore, the confessor was to instuct the person to not say anything to anyone else, but go directly to the Bishop. In order to get the person to follow through, they were instuct to go to the Bishop within 30 days or face excommunication.

I'm sure that the excommunication threat was to push the person into going to the Bishop within a timely manner.

Now, the secrecy, I'm sure was to avoid scandal for the church and for the any priest who may be wrongly accused.

And, I'm sure that they did want the priest's authority to be destroyed by false accusations.

This is going to be very bad for the Church. This document could be used to say that the institutional church was in the coverup business. It could get a Bishop indicted.

With all the problems that Churches are experiencing right now, it really makes one wonder.

The Anglican communion needs our prayers at this time.

Maybe the conservatives in the Angican/Episcopal Churches will come toward the Roman Catholic Church, something that has been happening for several years.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 06, 2003.

On this subject: I've talked to several people (priests, etc.) that should be in the know.

None I have talked with know anything about this document other than what the news has reported.

Could be a hoax.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 07, 2003.

James Xwing just posted a link on another thread to a CBS news story about the document. It includes the full text of the document.

Here's the link

-- Stephen (StephenLynn999@msn.com), August 07, 2003.

Stephen, I just found the text on the link that Dave gave us.

I'm not sure about this, but the wording sounds off to me. If this is indeed a translation of the original Latin document, why is it made to appear old.

This just doesn't feel right.

No priest to whom I've talked, has ever seen it or heard of it.

This document seems to counter canon law in it's directives.

I have strong doubts about this, especially given the fact that it was delivered to a plantiff's attorney.

God bless,

-- john placette (jplacette@catholic.org), August 07, 2003.

Lay people were always free to go to the police.

But if you accuse a priest in confession to another, the policy kicks in because a) the confessor can't do anything about it - since he's bound by the seal of confession, and b) the bishop of the offending priest is the only person (apart from the cops) who has the authority to take investigative and disciplinary action!

Those who are twisting this into a "mafia" or "coverup" just don't follow either the logic of the words of the document themselves or the context.

The Bishop is the supreme head of the church community in a given diocese - so of course he should be informed of any crime or failing involving one of his priests!

If Freddy is abused by Fr Bob, he can go to the police. No Catholic policy is stopping him from this course of action.

If he goes to confession and tells Fr Sam about it, Fr Sam can't do anything about Fr Bob...so the Church commands Freddy to go to Fr Bob's Bishop - who should launch an investigation (and like a criminal investigation, the less people know about it, the more unbiased and unguarded will their answers be.)and if evidence warrants it, discipline the priest which can include de-frocking him. The document doesn't say the Bishop shouldn't go to the police should the PROVEN crime warrant it!

If Freddy instead runs off and tells the News Media or everyone he sees, scandal is raised, potential witnesses are biased and evidence is potentially jeopardized.

That's why, it's so much better to gather evidence quietly and then once your case is solid, go dump everything on the authorities who will then quickly settle justice.

But so many people have a vested personal interest in the Church being always WRONG, that they can't read the document for what it is or see its internal motives for anything but a nefarious, malicious hypocrisy.

But the Church doesn't say sex-abuse by priests is OK! It isn't preaching a double standard of "promiscuity is bad for laity but OK for clergy"!

One amazing twist in all this is the fact that the Church no longer has an "Inquisition" - an internal police force to enforce morality! That was pooh-poohed by everyone (thanks to British anti-Spanish propaganda during the 1700's and 1800's). But wouldn't an Inquisition be exactly the sort of court system we need now? They were the FBI of their time - Federal Bureau of Inquisition (Investigation).

I find it really curious that liberals howl with indignation about heretics getting slapped on the wrist 10 years after committing crimes against faith and the innocence of believers - yet demand instant capital punishment meted out to priests on the basis of a single, unproven accusation posted with the Media rather than the bishop or the police!

-- Withheld 2 (Withheld@yahoo.com), August 07, 2003.

Only fragments of sentences are posted. Big deal!! It means absolutely nothing. Any half-wit lawyer can take a few words out of context and make a federal case out of it.

This is nothing but an attempt by CBS to silence the mouth of the Homosexual Agenda's biggest opponent . . . the Catholic Church! Funny, isn't it, that this article came out about the same time as the Vatican's directive on homosexual marriages !!! Methinks me smells a rat!!

Gail

-- Gail (rothfarms@socket.net), August 07, 2003.

That's why, it's so much better to gather evidence quietly and then once your case is solid, go dump everything on the authorities who will then quickly settle justice.

With due respect, that doesn't seem to be the way things have been working, e.g., in the cases of Shanley and similar monsters.

john, Gail, yes, it could be a hoax, but so far there are no official denials from the Vatican or anyone else. Let's hope they give us an explanation soon.

-- Stephen (StephenLynn999@msn.com), August 07, 2003.

Here's the CNN story. It's more balanced than the CBS News version.

-- Stephen (StephenLynn999@msn.com), August 08, 2003.