Pontifical Secret - Sanctions For Violation

Sanctions For Violation

While violation of pontifical secrecy, if deliberate, is a grave sin, and while an automatic excommunication may sometimes be imposed for violation of secrecy on particular matters, the general rule is only that, if the violation becomes known outside of Confession, a penalty proportionate to the wrongdoing and the damage caused is to be inflicted.

An example of the imposition of automatic excommunication for violation of secrecy was found in the 1962 instruction Crimen sollicitationis (in force until replaced by new norms in 2001), which imposed this penalty on members of a Church tribunal trying a priest accused of making sexual advances to a penitent in connection with the sacrament of Penance, if they violated secrecy about developments in the course of the ecclesiastical trial. A person to whom such advances were made was, on the contrary, subjected to excommunication if that person failed to denounce the priest within at most one month.

Thus the procedures of the Church tribunal were covered by papal secrecy (called at that time secrecy of the Holy Office), but the crime of the priest was not: "These matters are confidential only to the procedures within the Church, but do not preclude in any way for these matters to be brought to civil authorities for proper legal adjudication. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of June, 2002, approved by the Vatican, requires that credible allegations of sexual abuse of children be reported to legal authorities."