www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Secret Document?

This will take some explaining:

Alleged Church Victims Deliver 'Secrecy Policy' To Feds
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/2368312/detail.html?type=print

More fruits of Vatican II?

I wonder if this document will prove to be true. It seems that this was the policy of the Church. The Sex Abuse Crisis in both the Latin and Eastern Rite Churches have proven this to be the case. Maybe this "Secret" document is what drove that secrecy.

It has to do with a crime of solicitation in the confessional, which falls under the seal. Due to the wicked nature of the crime, those to whom the solicitation is made had a grave responsibility to denounce the offending priest, so much so that if they didn't, they themselves incurred penalties.

It doesn't show any sort of conspiracy.

Dominic Bettinelli tackles this at his website: http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=1670_0_1_0_C

(I can't figure out how to make the link live. Just cut and paste the url into your browser.)

Dear All,

I readily admit that I am no expert on canon law, but from quickly skimming a copy of the supposed "document" at the Roman Catholic Faithful website I am a bit suspicious.

It is a terrible copy - reproduced from what appears to be a vintage type-written text. To my untrained eye it seems very sloppy and unprofessional to be genuine. However, the article Johan posted did mention something about a translation from the Latin, so this may be a very poor quality rendition.

One thing that caught my eye which is pertains to the Byzantine Forum (must stay on topic ) is the opening words :

From the Supreme and Holy Congregation of the Holy Office for all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Diocesan Ordinaries "even of the Oriental Rite" [quotation marks in the original]

I dunno about you, but this looked kinda fishy to me - not exactly what would appear on an official document. Again I suppose it could be a bad translation.

PAX

While I admit to being unfamiliar with the document (real or otherwise) in question, I would give this piece of advice: When in comes to the secular media, believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see with regard to reporting on the Church.

With the hullaballoo over the recent papal document regarding the legal status of homosexual relationships, the Chicago Sun-Times ran not only a HEADLINE that so badly misrepresented and maligned the Church that a secular celebrity could have sued for libel and probably won, but the story was equally either uninformed (naive but generous assumption) or malicious (more likely alternative). I DID read the document in question on this issue (thanks to Fr. Tom of Annunciation in Homer Glen), and I can tell you that the document and its description in the paper had nothing to do with each other. The moral of the story: Take big headlines about anything dealing with Christianity with a very big grain of salt.

Hi,

One of the first rules of sarcasm is that it has to be intelligent.

If the document really exists, and if it is dated in 1962, then the Council was either barely starting, or not even that. It'd be very hard to honestly consider that document a "fruit" of the council.

Shalom,
Memo.

Memo's point is very well taken. The Conciliar documents are Conciliar documents and are to be read as such.

Other supposed documents should be confirmed to be such by checking with Vatican Archives or with academic libraries in one's own country. Of course, the documents are generally in Latin, and this causes all sorts of problems since not too many are able to read the actual texts and understand them.

Blessings!