- The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world
to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.
The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the
secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception
and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims
has described it as 'explosive'.
-
- The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John
XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a
policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse
and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.
-
- They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy
at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the
instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the
Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor
added to with any commentaries.'
-
- The document, which has been confirmed as genuine by
the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, is called 'Crimine solicitationies',
which translates as 'instruction on proceeding in cases of solicitation'.
-
- It focuses on sexual abuse initiated as part of the confessional
relationship between a priest and a member of his congregation. But the
instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described as an
obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex or with
brute animals (bestiality)'.
-
- Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases 'in the
most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone...
is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret
of the Holy Office... under the penalty of excommunication'.
-
- Texan lawyer Daniel Shea uncovered the document as part
of his work for victims of abuse from Catholic priests in the US. He has
handed it over to US authorities, urging them to launch a federal investigation
into the clergy's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse.
-
- He said: 'These instructions went out to every bishop
around the globe and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves
there was an international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse
issues. It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint
for deception and concealment.'
-
- British lawyer Richard Scorer, who acts for children
abused by Catholic priests in the UK, echoes this view and has described
the document as 'explosive'.
-
- He said: 'We always suspected that the Catholic Church
systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims. This document
appears to prove it. Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks
out shows the lengths the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared
to go to prevent the information getting out to the public domain.'
-
- Scorer pointed out that as the documents dates back to
1962 it rides roughshod over the Catholic Church's claim that the issue
of sexual abuse was a modern phenomenon.
-
- He claims the discovery of the document will raise fresh
questions about the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head
of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.
-
- Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of covering up allegations
of child abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Instead of reporting
to the police allegations of abuse against Michael Hill, a priest in his
charge, he moved him to another position where he was later convicted for
abusing nine children.
-
- Although Murphy-O'Connor has apologised publicly for
his mistake, Scorer claims the secret Vatican document raises the question
about whether his failure to report Hill was due to him following this
instruction from Rome.
-
- Scorer, who acts for some of Hill's victims, said: 'I
want to know whether Murphy-O'Connor knew of these Vatican instructions
and, if so, did he apply it. If not, can he tell us why not?'
-
- A spokesman for the Catholic Church denied that the secret
Vatican orders were part of any organised cover-up and claims lawyers are
taking the document 'out of context' and 'distorting it'.
-
- He said: 'This document is about the Church's internal
disciplinary procedures should a priest be accused of using confession
to solicit sex. It does not forbid victims to report civil crimes. The
confidentiality talked about is aimed to protect the accused as applies
in court procedures today. It also takes into consideration the special
nature of the secrecy involved in the act of confession.' He also said
that in 1983 the Catholic Church in England and Wales introduced its own
code dealing with sexual abuse, which would have superseded the 1962 instructions.
Asked whether Murphy-O'Connor was aware of the Vatican edict, he replied:
'He's never mentioned it to me.'
-
- Lawyers point to a letter the Vatican sent to bishops
in May 2001 clearly stating the 1962 instruction was in force until then.
The letter is signed by Cardinal Ratzinger, the most powerful man in Rome
beside the Pope and who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith - the office which ran the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.
-
- Rev Thomas Doyle, a US Air Force chaplain in Germany
and a specialist in Church law, has studied the document. He told The Observer:
'It is certainly an indication of the pathological obsession with secrecy
in the Catholic Church, but in itself it is not a smoking gun.
-
- 'If, however, this document actually has been the foundation
of a continuous policy to cover clergy crimes at all costs, then we have
quite another issue. There are too many authenticated reports of victims
having been seriously intimidated into silence by Church authorities to
assert that such intimidation is the exception and not the norm.
-
- 'If this document has been used as a justification for
this intimidation then we possibly have what some commentators have alleged,
namely, a blueprint for a cover-up. This is obviously a big "if"
which requires concrete proof.'
-
- Additional research by Jason Rodrigues
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- http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1020400,00.html
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-
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- Comment
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- From CM Ross
8-18-3
-
- Dear Jeff,
-
- Regarding the article asserting the Vatican had covered
up the child rape scandals since 1962 because of a certain document bearing
the papal seal. Perhaps this happened, perhaps it didn't.
-
- Nevertheless, it may indeed be possible that that the
Vatican did cover up knowledge of sex crimes before the 1960s, and here's
why: Bella Dodd, former head of the Communist Party USA, testified before
the US Congress that hundreds of Communist agents had infiltrated the Catholic
hierarchy, and that they were poised to create a new church, one that would
appear Catholic, but was not in actual substance, Catholic.
-
- Former KGB agent Anatoliy Golitsyn also asserted that
the Catholic Church had been infiltrated by Communists in his book "The
Perestroika Deception." The anonymous Catholic priest author of "AA1025"
said he was the 1,025th Communist agent to infiltrate the Catholic Church;
that they already had a Catholic Bishop in the 1930s; and had been infiltrating
the Catholic Church since that time.
-
- Joe Douglass wrote in his book "Betrayed" that
the Communists were working to destroy Catholic confidence in their clergy
by the creation of sex scandals. So it should not come as a surprise that
the problem of child rape in the Boston Archdiocese goes back to the 1940s,
when the Communist / seminarian infiltrators would have had time to go
through seminaries and become ordained as Catholic priests.
-
- In the meantime, their comrades in Rome were working
hard with the Masons at boring away from the Church hierarchy from within
like termites. Which may explain why the Rosicrucian Pope John XXIII was
quite cozy with the Communists, too.
PS -- If these allegations are true, then I find it interesting that it
happened on Pope John XXIII's watch. He did, after all, take the name of
an anti-pope Pope John XXIII who ruled as Pope from 1410-1415 and was deposed
for immorality, heresy, and schism. (page 23, "What has Happened to
the Catholic Church?" Rev. Francisco Radecki, and Rev. Dominic Radecki).
-
- Kind regards,
Miss Ross
Comment
D.Palmer
8-18-03
Why should any of us be even remotely surprised by this? Those who run
to the defense of the Roman church are trying to obfuscate the real issue,
even suggest that this is all pre-1962 when we've seen it's been an ongoing
policy in the church not only for centuries, but right up to the present
day scandals. Right now another infamous "Christ Cult" (not the
true church) is under investigation for rampand child molestation/rape
going back more than 50 years, the Jehovah's Witnesses. It won't be long
before someone breaks the silence over the Mormon cult, too. Polygamy isn't
their only skeleton in the closet.
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