BishopAccountability.org
	'Secret' Vatican Document Public Brunei Times [United Kingdom] October 5, 2006 http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=6697 A Claim by the BBC that Pope Benedict XVI was implicated in a coverup of child sex abuse by Catholic priests was based on a Vatican document described as "secret" in a weekend documentary that was published in the United States in 2003. American lawyers disclosed the 1962 document, "Crimen Sollicitationis" (the crime of solicitation), referred in the BBC's "Panorama" program, at a time when the US Roman Catholic Church was rocked by a scandal involving pedophile priests. The text dating from the papacy of John XXIII called on bishops to investigate "in the most secret way" cases of priests taking advantage of their position to commit sexual abuse. Silence was required of everyone, including victims. The rules remained in effect when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger now Benedict XVI became the chief doctrinal enforcer. Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz, who supervised Vatican legislation, said in 2003 that the instruction was "out of date" because it was superseded by new texts, a stance challenged by the American lawyers during trials in 2003. A BBC 2001 document was a letter to bishops by then Cardinal Ratzinger in which he set out norms for bishops and ecclesiastical courts in cases of pedophile priests.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.