Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela

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Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela is the title of a motu proprio that Pope John Paul II signed on April 30, 2001. It definitely replaced the provisions of Crimen Sollicitationis from 1922 and 1962 and serves as an instruction for all bishops and hierarchs of the Catholic Church who are equivalent to them to clarify further criminal law cases of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and other precisely defined, serious ones To cede crimes against faith or the celebration of the sacraments to the Vatican and there to the papal dicastery of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as a separate Apostolic Court. The central message serves to prevent the cover-up at a specific location. At the same time, the statute of limitations under church criminal law was increased to 10 years in the attached norms (20 years have been in effect since May 21, 2010), whereby the limitation period for minors does not begin until they are 18 years of age. Every Ordinary can also ask the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to dispense with the statute of limitations so that perpetrators can be ecclesiastically punished for longer.

In 2003, the Church from Below initiative criticized that the Vatican “uses its confidentiality clause to deceive the regulations on reporting under Article 44 of the Convention , it violates legal efforts to comply with the convention of other signatory states such as Germany, and it has its own new secret procedure circumvented Laws " . In the course of the general abuse discussion in Germany in 2010, the canon lawyer Alexander Pytlik said that the initiative was seriously confusing levels and asserted a direct influence of Catholic canon law on state and supranational laws: "Even if the individual criminal proceedings regulated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are traditional Subject to papal secrecy, the media and interested parties are in no way prevented from investigating publicly available information and traces and also from commenting on them. In addition, under certain circumstances, secrecy can also be a desired protection of individual victims of sexual abuse ” . The court staff is therefore primarily obliged to keep the secret.

On May 18, 2001, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith wrote Ad exsequendam or De delictis gravioribus to inform all ruling bishops and ordinaries of all rites within the Catholic Church about the new norms for the protection of the sacraments. This intra-Catholic tightening of the law is therefore not a "secret letter" or a "secret document". The respective report to the public prosecutor's office, which was and is not affected or hindered by either the old norms according to Crimen sollicitationis or the new ones according to the motu proprio "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela", is to be strictly distinguished from this canonical instruction, with the exception of everything below the secret of confession would fall. The Vatican Guide stipulates that national reporting laws are followed, and not only after a canonical criminal case. If a well-founded suspicion falls on the bishops themselves, the decision to report to the state authorities lies solely with the Pope or with the Roman Congregation for Bishops. In the case of internal church reports against priests regarding the abuse of the sacrament of confession, the reported priests may only be informed of the name of the reporter with their consent.

On July 15, 2010, the Holy See announced an update of the universal canonical norms ordered by the "Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela" 2001 for serious crimes that Pope Benedict XVI. on May 21, 2010, in order to achieve a systematic overview based on the experience of the last few years, the most recent discussion and to confirm various papal powers against abuse that have been granted in the meantime and to achieve greater legal certainty through the first complete publication of the amended norms.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Verena Mosen: Roman Catholic Church and Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Federal Republic of Germany. An NGO report on the obstruction of the Convention by Catholic Church Law using the example of sexual abuse. September 2003 ( online ; PDF; 236 kB)
  2. ↑ Alexander Pytlik: Improper allegations February 10, 2010 ( kath.net )

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