1962 Vatican Policy: How to Cover Up Sexual Abuse

On the manner of proceeding in cases of the crime of solicitation. [This text is] to be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia* as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.

I find it particularly intriguing and disturbing to see such instructions worded as if the procedure was just a matter of taking care of business. Like i would imagine any district manager's training manual would give console on how to handle a customer who threatens to sue your company, accusing a manager at one of your stores of unfair treatment. Now if we look at the Pope as the CEO of the Catholic Church corporation, we can see the absence in morals as simply a rational plan/strategy for dealing with such "customer complaints".

*The Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Vatican and the central governing body of the entire Roman Catholic Church, together with the Pope. It coordinates and provides the necessary central organization for the correct functioning of the Church and the achievement of its goals.

[edit on 6-12-2008 by The All Seeing I]

I find this as disturbing as it is disgusting.

This is not a one liner. A one liner would be: A man walkes into a bar... Ouch!

reply to post by The All Seeing I

Oh boy. If that is legit and gets any amount of MSM coverage, the proverbial crap is going to hit the fan.

For those of you shocked by this;
these are MUST SEE videos by the BBC. (I hope they won millions of awards for producing them!)
It explains the HUGE PROBLEM of cremen sollicitationis.
It includes the modus operandi of at least 2 of the priest looking for victims and one of the American (former) Benedictine monks in charge of enforcing "cremen Sollicitationis"!
It's a 4 part series.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Sorry, but once again a person is attempting to use one thing to "prove" a completely different and unreleated thing.

There was no such policy in 1962, or later. Tis is a blatant lie on the part of the person that posted this thread. he is making it up.

Yes, the Curia does restrict access to its documents, while they are determining what course to follow.


This writer takes that policy, and attempts to apply it to something that never happened.

Just another smear job by someone that hates the Roman Catholic Church.

Originally posted by The All Seeing I

On the manner of proceeding in cases of the crime of solicitation. [This text is] to be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia* as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.

I find it particularly intriguing and disturbing to see such instructions worded as if the procedure was just a matter of taking care of business. Like i would imagine any district manager's training manual would give console on how to handle a customer who threatens to sue your company, accusing a manager at one of your stores of unfair treatment. Now if we look at the Pope as the CEO of the Catholic Church corporation, we can see the absence in morals as simply a rational plan/strategy for dealing with such "customer complaints".

*The Curia is the administrative apparatus of the Vatican and the central governing body of the entire Roman Catholic Church, together with the Pope. It coordinates and provides the necessary central organization for the correct functioning of the Church and the achievement of its goals.

1. Every diocese has a Curia, there is the central Curia of the Holy See and also the Curia "civil service" of each diocese. The instruction is that this document be kept in the secret archive in each diocese. The Ordinary (normally the bishop) has access to this archive.

2. The document is a legal document instructing the Ordinary how to proceed should such an accusation be made, the severity of the matter is proclaimed in the second paragraph when it is described as "this attrocious crime."

3. This second paragraph also enjoins the perpetrator, under the compulsion of their own conscience, to confess their crime themselves without being accussed.

4. Secrecy is enjoined on all involved as is necessary in such cases - civil law gives the same protection.

5. The penalty is:

61. He who has committed the crime of solicitation..., should be suspended from the celebration of Mass and from the hearing of sacramental confessions or even according to the gravity of the delict, should ha declared incapable of accepting them. He should be deprived of all benefices and dignities, of his active and passive voice, and be declared incapable, for all these (honours and capacities), and in the more grievous cases also be subjected to reduction (to the lay state]. Thus states the Code.

and note later:

73. To have the worst crime, for the penal effects one must do the equivalent of the following: any obscene external act gravely sinful, perpetrated in any way by a cleric or attempted by him with youths of either sex or with brute animals (beastiality).

The only thing scandalous about this document is that its injunctions were, it seems, not properly followed by many ordinaries. It is not about "customer complaints" it is about serious accusations with serious penalties if found to be true. It does not say "move them and hope". Reading the document itself would be a worthwhile exercise.

The BBC did indeed sensationalise this document suggesting that it enjoining and being secret was part of a cover up. It was not. It was a legal document which enjoined only upon the Church legal authorities and the accussed a secrecy whos purpose and intent was to protect the accussed and accusser.

Wiki does provide a good, well linked summary of the document: en.wikipedia.org...

hmmm that was quite a cherry picking skip and jump

as the proverbial saying goes "the devil is in the details"

for instance:

note... last sentence in 4th paragraph

"They will also be able to transfer him to another [assignment], unless the Ordinary of the place has forbidden it because he has already accepted the denunciation and has begun the inquisition."

... and i highly recommend reviewing the noteworthy paragraphs 11, 13, 21, 35, 42(a), 44, 52, 59, 70, 71, 73(read it again, but now within the context of a bigger more accurate picture as collectively set forth here within)

You will see, if you read more of this document that such direction in policy can not possibly be given the same protection in civil law.

go figure... latest example of this policy still in practice:

Catholic church will use police force to remove priest who gave communion to gays, and refuses to wear old robes. But keeps priest who molested 9 boys.

reply to post by Supercertari


I know the church included, "They MUST DO THIS" and so, but if they don't 'do it' and travel through monasteries and convents, NO ONE CAN touch them!

Each Roman catholic facility is considered an embassy of the Vatican.
So, it is only at the discretion of the Vatican that any measures are taken!
If they choose to forego legal prosecution, the priest is only moved to another parish.
Look at my BBC videos, it explains it!

Sex claims against US Church rise
A sign that the policy is still in practice or just a symptom of a struggling economy?

Apparently removing Bishop Williamsom from his post for questioning the holocaust is more important then weeding out the pedophiles. What other twisted international org can get away with such insanity? Message is clear to those within the ranks, free-thinkers stop thinking and molesters go on molesting.

Lookie what if found

A Pedophile Priest Island Proposal made just 10 years earlier,
by U.S. Catholic Servant General Rev. Gerald Fitzgerald.

Read Fitzgerald's correspondence with U.S Bishops and one Pope (pdf)

Your Excellency; Some years ago I was consulting with His Excellency, Archbishop Davis, then our Ecclesiastical Superior, about the possibility of securing an Island Retreat in the Caribean for the care of Priests who were so compromised in their case history and so habitually recedivi as to require, for their salvation and the minimizing of their scandal, a complete withdrawal from contact with the laity. To this end we have been searching for years for an island where, with essential medical and psychiatric care, the Paracletes might care for this type of problem.
...
It is for this class of rattlesnake I have always wished the island retreat -- but even an island is too good for these vipers of whom the Gentle Master said it were better they had not been born -- this is an indirect way of saying damned, is it not?
...
Personally I am not sanguine of the return of priests to active duty who have been addicted to abnormal practices, especially sins with the young. However, the needs of the church must be taken into consideration and an activation of priests who have seemingly recovered in this field may be considered but is only recommended where careful guidance and supervision is possible. Where there is indication of incorrigibility, because of the tremendous scandal given, I would most earnestly recommend total laicization.

Fitzgerald was eventually forced from leadership by a combination of factors, not least of which was a growing disagreement with the bishop and other members of the order over the direction of the Paracletes. After 1965, said McNamara, Fitzgerald "never again resided at Via Coeli Monastery, nor did he ever regain the power he had once had."
Nor did he get his island.

In 1965 Fitzgerald had put a $5,000 deposit on an island in Barbados, near Carriacou, in the Caribbean that had a total purchase price of $50,000. But the new bishop apparently wanted nothing to do with owning an island, and Fitzgerald, who died in 1969, was forced to sell his long-sought means for isolating priest sex offenders.

So as we can see the church decided it was best to play a shell game ... which has cost them and their flock a tremendous about of money and heart ache. Seems to me, as bizarre as it may sound, Fitzgerald's Pedophile Priest Island would have made a huge difference.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by The All Seeing I]