Crimen Sollicitationis - Applicability and Scope

Applicability and Scope

In line with the opening words of the document, 70 of the 74 paragraphs of which it was composed dealt with cases concerning sexual advances during the sacrament of Penance, repeatedly referring to the complainant or injured party as "the penitent" (the person confessing sins); the final four paragraphs laid down that its contents applied also to crimen pessimum (the foulest crime), namely a homosexual act, with which were equated, for penal effects, any perpetrated or attempted externally obscene act with pre-adolescent children or brute animals. Charges concerning these crimes also were to be handled according to the norms of the document, even if committed without any connection with Penance.

Media accounts sometimes presented the instruction as not concerned principally with sexual solicitation in Confession, but with denunciations of paedophilia. While it is true that such acts were covered by Crimen Sollicitationis, canon lawyers have argued that the secrecy provisions of the document "would not have tied the hands of a bishop ... who wanted to report a crime by a priest to the police."