Hunt Henion in the Examiner brings news of the, “slowly emerging conflict between Catholic law and federal law[that] hit the fan today when Catholic clergy were ordered to refuse to enforce the church law called Crimen Sollicitationas.”
“Thousands of Catholic clergy and officials are being issued an Order to Comply with child protection laws this week, which requires that they publicly vow to uphold those laws and not collude in or enforce the criminal church statute known as Crimen Sollicitationas.”
This Order is being translated and distributed to clergy in twenty one countries, including Italy and the Vatican. Priests and other church officials have ten days, until Sunday, July 7, to comply with the Order or face banishment as public enemies and participants in crimes against children.
If you are wondering what Crimen Sollicitationis is and why Catholic clergy must refuse to enforce it, the Wikepdia definition is as follows. I’m going to assume the problem stems from the confidentiality of the documents.
Crimen sollicitationis (Latin: crime of solicitation) is the title of a 1962 document (“Instruction”) of the Holy Office codifying procedures to be followed in cases of priests or bishops of theCatholic Church accused of having used the sacrament of Penance to make sexual advances to penitents.
The 1962 document, approved by Pope John XXIII and signed by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Secretary of the Holy Office, was addressed to “all Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops and other Local Ordinaries, including those of Eastern Rite“. It gave specific instructions on how to carry out the rules in the Code of Canon Law:[5] on dealing with such cases, and directed that the same procedures be used when dealing with denunciations of homosexual, pedophile or zoophile behaviour by clerics. Dioceses were to use the instruction for their own guidance and keep it in their archives for confidential documents;[6] they were not to publish the instruction nor produce commentaries on it.
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