TRUST IN GOD

Secret Vatican paper ordered abuse cover-up

A secret Vatican paper which threatened to excommunicate bishops around the world if they did not cover up cases of sexual abuse has been published in Britain and the United States.
Lawyers acting for alleged victims of abuse say the document proves the existence of a systematic campaign by the Vatican to hush up sexual abuse in order to protect Catholic priests.
The document focuses primarily on priests accused of propositioning congregants during confession, the rite in which the faithful tell priests of their sins. But it also instructs bishops to treat cases of the "worst crime", defined as obscene acts with young people of either sex or animals, "in the most secretive way".
"Everyone . . . is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office . . . under the penalty of excommunication," instructs the document, which was obtained from secret Vatican archives by Daniel Shea, a Texan lawyer.
The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said yesterday the 1962 confidential Vatican instruction should be "put in historical context".