Confidential Vatican papers outline how Churches handle sex abuse allegations

By Anne Emerson
WCIV
August 27, 2018

https://abcnews4.com/news/local/confidential-vatican-papers-outlines-how-churches-handle-sex-abuse-allegations

Instructions from the Vatican detail how church officials should handle allegations of sexual abuse.

ABC News 4 learned more about these instructions when it was included as evidence in a new lawsuit here filed against the Catholic Diocese of Charleston.

The lawsuit accuses former Charleston Priest Fredrick Hopwood of sexually abusing a young boy.

Attorney Larry Richter, representing the anonymous plaintiff, did not hold back when discussing Hopwood:

“He is one if the worst, perhaps the worst abusers that we have uncovered. This is a violent allegation of violence against the child victim who was 12-years-old at the time."

An illuminating piece of evidence is Exhibit A from the lawsuit, instructions from the Vatican's secret archives giving confidential detailed instruction on how to handle sexual abuse allegations within the church.

According to the Vatican, the secret archives house documents dating back more than a thousand years, spanning 52 miles of shelving.

College of Charleston Professor Brian McGee says the guidelines are not unlike those created by an HR department:

“Just as any HR department at a business has procedures for how employees are given due process on wrong doing, or court has procedures for how to assure fairness to the accused and the person doing the accusing, the church has had the same thing."

One passage in the papers instructs church officials that allegations of sexual abuse are best kept secret, under secret of the holy office, and under penalty of excommunication.

Another passage says the oath of secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers, which can include the victim or victims.

The instructions to the judge say it is never right to bind the accused (who would be the priest) by an oath to tell the truth.

McGee says U.S. courts will have to tread lightly as they decipher how these Vatican edicts apply to the American justice system. Theological concepts including these instructions are property of the Pope:

“American courts are going to have to be incredibly careful not to misunderstand the meaning of this old fashioned language from a 50-year-old document, where the concepts are centuries old theological concepts,”