1962 Holy Office doctrine shows Church Policy was aiding and abetting, coverup, and secrecy, from the Vatican to Bishops, re sex crimes among priests

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By City of Angels lady

(This is a double length post:) Since so many sex crimes that will come up in jury trials the next months in civil cases against the LA Archdiocese took place from 1962 to 2001, plaintiff attorneys may want to enter the 1962 document Crimen Sollicitationis, the hierarchical blueprint written in Latin from the Pope to all bishops.

Directly underneath the title are instructions to hide the document in secret places and tell no one of its contents.

American Catholic bishops handled Sex Crimes in the American Catholic Church for the next decades as laid out in the 1962 Crimen Solicitationes document. The document makes it clear that the Catholics' mishandling of sex crimes was official policy and the result in Southern California was a network of pedophiles that operated free and unfettered within church confines. These 1962 “instructions” to bishops are at the heart of the Catholic Church’s nationwide mishandling of sex crimes among its priests.

California Was the Nation's Rural Grounds
So it bred generations of pedophiles within the church

In the 1960s and 1970s Southern California was like the nation’s rural district. As a result, the entire archdiocese, or the entire Southern California region was flooded with pedophiles. Indeed active predators worked as recruiters at Seminaries, so the pedophilia developed into a second generation network.

A quick read of documents regarding cases coming to trial in the next months shows that throughout Southern California, pedophilia took place out in the open in rectories and seminary dormitories. There are likely thousands of damaged people walking around California and the West. With the number of predator priests already identified in and around Los Angeles, it’s a good guess there are thousands of victims of predator priests who have never come forward.

In California priests raped children in the church behind the altars, in pre-Mass altar boy ceremonies, openly in the rectories -- and secrecy and covering up the crimes became standard operating procedure, as outlined in these instructions to the bishops Crimen Solicitationes.

Previous Attempts to Introduce Crimen Solicitationes as Evidence have been Shot Down.
No city is better than LA for introduction of Crimen Solicitationis as Evidence of Crimes Covered Up for the Sake of the Church

In Boston and Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court in Washington DC plaintiffs have tried to introduce Crimen Sollicitationis as evidence that the general practice of the Catholic Church was aiding and abetting in handling sex crimes committed by priests. It also came up in Louisville, Kentucky cases in 2003.

“A move in 2004 to get the document admitted in Massachusetts failed recently when a Springfield judge ruled the document was irrelevant to a civil lawsuit alleging clergy sexual abuse,” reported Kathleen A. Shaw in the Telegram & Gazette August 24, 2004.

In the case that went from Texas to Washington DC Crimen was ruled out as evidence as the plaintiffs were not Catholic as children when the crimes took place.

But with the rampant out of control pedophilia that festered in Southern California from the 1960s to the 1990s, in no other city could the document Crimen Sollicitatis be more relevant as evidence in the civil trials.

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BACK TO CRIMEN SOLICITATIONIS

When I’m cycling manic narcissist I think the pope and cardinals came up with Crimen Solicitationis in 1962 after the way the Chicago Archdiocese handled the case of me and my sister in 1955.

Don’t let anyone convince you that Crimen Solicitationis applies only to “Sollicitation” in the confessional although Catholic defenders argued that in 2004. The title is, I think, designed to give the impression the document is only about the Confessional, in just one more way to obfuscate the truth from the non-hierarchical Catholic.

The first page of Crimen Sollicitationis, before the text begins and directly underneath the title it reads “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.

Right in the 1962 document the church admits the permanent damage sex abuse by a priest can do in its own words. Paragraph 15 states in Latin that anyone who knows of such crimes and does not report them should be excommunicated --

"lest [the offense] remain occult and unpublished and always with inestimable detriment to souls." (Source National Catholic Reporter article August 7, 2003).

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A Boston Lawyer Discovers the 1962 Document
Still Rocking the Vatican in 2007

“Crimen Solicitationis” may have forever been a secret except it was referenced in a footnote to a May 18, 2002, in a letter from then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, (now Pope Benedict) head of the Vatican's doctrinal congregation. He was apparently giving direction to bishops of the world on new policy for handling sex abuse cases.

Boston Lawyer Daniel J. Shea unearthed the document and sent a copy to a U.S. Attorney in 2004. Immediately Church Attorneys argued that the document was irrelevant as most bishops didn't even know it existed.

Right. An entreaty from the Vatican in 1962 written in Latin with strictest instructions to store it in a secret place and tell no one about it, and none of the bishops knew it existed….

These are the same Church Attorneys who will try to argue Crimen is only about crimes in the Confessional.

Survivor priest Robert Hoatson’s original lawsuit in New York mentions the Crimen document : “In 1961, the Vatican issued a document entitled "Crimen Solicitationes" which ordered bishops to keep secreted documents and information relating to the sexual abuse of minors. The Church has had a long-standing regulation that crimes are not to be reported or adjudicated so as not to cause the church public scandal.”

Continued from Hoatson’s original complaint: “My attempts to report my own abuse and abuse of children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults were thwarted by a culture of secrecy, cover-up, and lying.”

Since publication in 2001 the document has been copied and posted on websites. In October 2006 the BBC program, "Sex Crimes and the Vatican," aired in England and this May it was finally broadcast in Italy on a show called “The Year Zero.” However in the weeks prior to the official Italian broadcast, Google video ran the show with Italian subtitles. So the truth about Crimen Solicitationis has now even reached residents of Rome.

NOTE: The Google Video of the BBC program with Italian subtitles in linked on the left.

*****Commercial Break*****
KAY: (In NPR Fund Raiser Voice) As you know City of Angels Blog carries no ads and takes no bribes. Just about the only place to find freedom of the press in America today is in blogs. So in that spirit, help keep the City of Angels Blog alive by putting a high five to five hundred on the Pay-Pal Account. Just click the “Make Donation” button in the top left corner. The money goes directly to me, Kay Ebeling, writer of this blog, and I report it as freelance income to the IRS, so everything is legal and above board.

I’m keeping alive an old American tradition, passing the hat. If I were a balladeer I’d be a street corner with my guitar, playing Beatles songs, then passing the hat for dollars and cents. So please put whatever cash you can on my Donate Button in the top left corner of this blog. If 350 people send me five dollars a month I can cover my rent and bills and work full time on this reporting.

Every little bit helps.

Kay Ebeling

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More on Crimen Sollicitationis:

“Exhibit A is a hitherto secret document called Crimen Sollicationis - Latin for "the crime of solicitation" - issued in 1962 by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), an office attached to the Vatican. Described as a "blueprint for deception and concealment" by lawyers investigating the worldwide sex-abuse scandals, Crimen Sollicationis contains strict instructions for dealing with what the Vatican calls the "worst crimes" - such as allegations of paedophilia and bestiality. Rather than report these offences to the civil authorities, the CDF instructs bishops to investigate them "in the most secretive way" or face the "penalty of excommunication".

From
'Everywhere I Turned, I Ran into Sexual Abuse'
The Guardian
May 4, 2006

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1766941,00.html

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Bishops still referred to Crimen Solicitationis in 2002
And thanks to Boston area reporter we know that about it

Some more reporting from Kathy Shaw this in 2003 from Worchester, Massachusetts: (The same Kathy Shaw who now produces Abuse Tracker as a daily blog for Bishop Accountability dot org.)

"The newsletters of the Canon Law Society show that officers met in Rome in February 2002, a time when the church-wide sexual abuse scandal broke open in Boston with new revelations about the extent of clergy sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese.

"In this meeting with representatives of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the newsletter said, "Our discussion at the Congregation focused on identification of certain aspects of procedures for clergy sexual misconduct, particularly the 1962 instruction "Crimen Sollicitationes" and the more recent instruction "Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela."

Sacramentorum Sactitatis Tutela "went on the Vatican Web site in 2002, and the English translation clearly shows that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who heads the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith, indicated that the 1962 directive was in effect "until now." Mr. Shea did not know the 1962 document existed until he saw it footnoted in the Ratzinger document."
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QUOTES FROM THE DOCUMENT ITSELF
Translated and available all over the internet today
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Here are direct quotes from a PDF File of Crimen Solicitationis translated from Latin into English. Since the Boston public uncovering of this document in 2001 it’s been copied and translated all over the web.

PDFs are available at bishop accountability dot org of course.

Centered
From the Supreme and Holy Congregation of the Holy Office

Centered
For all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, and Other Diocesan Ordinaries “Even of the Oriental Rite”

Centered Underlined:
Instruction:

Centered
On the Manner of Proceeding In Cases of Solicitation

Centered
The Vatican Press 1962

Instruction

Then the text begins:

‘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.

“the crime of solicitation takes place when a priest tempts a penitent.

It then specifies in several lines whether in the confessional or any number of other places

“The object of this temptation is to solicit or provoke the penitent toward impure or obscene matters.”

Whether by words, nods, touches, a three line list of ways --

Paragraph 2. The right or duty of addressing this unspeakable crime --

First and foremost the responsibility of the “ordinaries of the place”

“not to mention through proper law but also through a special delegation of the Apostolic See;

. . . “that they as soon as possible take care to introduce, discuss, and terminate these cases with their proper tribunal. . .

Hmm doesn't seem like the bishops stuck to that part. . .

“HOWEVER, because of particular and serious reasons these cases can be directly deferred to the Holy Congregation of the Holy Office or be so ordered.

Oh there it is in Paragraph 2, if it’s a really horrible crime, you can bypass the proper law and report it and deal with it at the level of the Holy Office. . . .

There are then several paragraphs explaining the hierarchy. . . to whom these crimes can be -- buck passed up and ways to avoid public knowledge of the crimes.

By paragraph 6 we're still talking about the “judges”

“6. Although as a rule, a single judge, by reason of its secrecy is prescribed for cases of this type.. .

In the middle of Paragraph 9:
“Because of the special nature of these procedures, however, it is necessary for the Ordinary to dispense from the presence of the notary.”

Paragraph 11:
“11. Because however, what is treated in these cases has to have a greater degree of care and observance so that those same matters be pursued in a most secretive way. And after they have been defined and given over to execution, they are to be restrained by a perpetual silence.”

Anyone who knows about these crimes is to “observe the strictest ++7++ secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office."

“. . . Under the penalty of Excommunication."

Several more paragraphs on why and how these crimes need to be “executed” and maintained in secret.

Paragraph 15.
“15. Since the crime of solicitation takes place in rather rare decisions, lest it remain occult and unpublished and always with inestimable detriment of souls. . .

Yes the Catholic Church admitted even then the permanent damage from this crime.
“19. The duty of denunciation is a personal one and is to be fulfilled regularly by the person himself who has been solicited.


Report it to the Holy Office. Don’t be anonymous.

RE PENALTIES conferred on priests
By this Internal Judiciary

The document goes on to Paragraph 62:

“penalties decreed against priests convicted of the crime of solicitation, with an equal regard for the mind of CANON 2218. . . for estimating the gravity of the crime, -- and their condition, as for example they are minors in age or especially consecrated. . .

64. c: Those who are in danger of falling back into their former ways and therefore becoming greater recidivists should be submitted to particular vigilance.

65. As often as it seems “necessary for the amendment of the delinquent, for the removal of the near occasion of soliciting in the future, or for the prevention of scandal or for the reparation for it, there should be added a prescription for the prohibition of remaining in a certain place.”

This is the part that Boston’s Daniel Shea said lead to the priests being sent places like The Servants of the Paracletes in New Mexico, what Shea described as “vacations"

The more I learn about this whole subject the more it seems it will take a federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation to bring the whole story out into the open and finally get justice.
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More to Come. . .