Pope: for sexual crimes, no pontifical secret and more collaboration with states

They will no longer be covered by the pontifical secret - the highest of the canonical order - reporting of cases, trials and the decisions concerning the cases of violence and sexual acts carried out by a cleric under threat or abuse of authority or abuse on minors and vulnerable people;  the cases of child pornography;  the cases of failure to report and cover up abusers by bishops and general superiors of religious institutes.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - From today, dennunciations of abuse, trials and decisions concerning cases of violence and sexual acts committed by a cleric under threat or abuse of authority or abuse of minors and vulnerable persons;  the cases of child pornography;  the cases of failure to report and cover up abusers by bishops and general superiors of religious institutes will no longer be covered by the pontifical secret - the highest of the canonical system.

Two "rescriptums" establish this, that is to say the administrative acts issued by the Pope with which it is also established that they belong to the "delicta graviora" - the most serious crimes - the detention and dissemination of pornographic images involving minors up to age of 18.

The purpose, states Msgr. Juan Ignacio Arrieta, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts is “to specify the degree of reserve with which the news or reports concerning sexual abuse committed by clerics or consecrated persons against minors and other persons determined here must be managed, as well as any conducts  of ecclesiastical authorities that tended to silence or cover them".  "The purpose of the new Instruction is to cancel in these cases the subjection to what is termed "pontifical secret", instead returning to the necessary level "of confidentiality, dutifully required to protect the good reputation of the people involved, to the normal "professional confidentiality".

Concerning the two acts, a "contribution" by Giuseppe Dalla Torre, former president of the Vatican City State Court, explains that "pontifical secret has general effect on the entire span of the history directed to the prosecution, in the canonical instance, of dishonest behavior "and concerns both the procedures that take place locally and those that take place in Rome".  "Understandably the professional confidentiality" remains, but "on the point the provision is clear: 'The professional confidentiality does not preclude the fulfillment of the obligations established in every place to state laws, including any reporting obligations, as well as to the  execution of the executive requests of the civil judicial authorities'.  This means that if the state law provides for an obligation to report by those who are informed of the facts, the disappearance of the pontifical secret and the specification of the limits of official secrecy calmly allow the fulfillment of the provisions of the law, thus favoring  full cooperation with civil authorities and avoiding illegitimate incursions of civil authority in the canonical sphere.  The same can be said when it is even a question of implementing provisions of the state judicial authority, the non-compliance to which it would subject - among other things - the competent ecclesiastical authority to serious penalties for violation of the criminal law ".

 "It should be noted that the statement now published is careful to point out that no constraint of silence regarding the facts of the case can be made, by any authority, to those who report abuses, to the person who claims to have been offended and to witnesses.  In this way the guarantee that the pontifical provision intends to secure is established".