And yet you're here. Commenting.
All the Latin legalese in the world does not erase the fact that Crimen Sollicitationis was meant to silence the victims of priest pedophilia and threaten them with excommunication if they went to the police or family members.
And Ratzinger's letter decades later reiterated that threat.
St. Bernard might have better spent his time asking for prayers for the errant priesthood. Moreover.
Actually, by my understanding, they are threatened with excommunication if they do not report itthings off in the confessional to Church authorities. This sounds harsh, but because excommunication only applies if one has some knowledge of the law, it actually ends up compelling those who have knowledge of the law. These technicalities also applied only in the confessional, as they are directed at the sin of the priest violating the nature of this sacrament.
If your interpretation of the law is correct, and the canon lawyers’ interpretation is incorrect, you ought to be able to produce a case of some one who was excommunicated for going to the police on the subject.
You won’t find one, because it has spent most of its history as an obscure document dealing with an obscure portion of canon law. I went to a Catholic seminary that gave one of the most thorough educations in North America, and we never heard of the document or thought to much about the procedure to follow if one encountered some one who had been solicited in the confessional. That something was to be done was taught, and we were taught enough on the subject that we would be able to find the right guidance to offer guidance if the rare event came up—rare events don’t merit much time when there is so much to learn.
If you are really interested in grasping what the Church actually has to say on the subject of sex and the confessional, I would suggest looking at Canons 977, 979, 982, 983, 984, 1387, 1388, and 1390. Canon 1362 also shows that prescription in Latin legalese does not mean what you understood it to mean in your post 77. Here is a link to the code http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM
St. Bernard’s example backs up his words, in that he spent far more time in prayer than he did in anything else, and I am sure spent much time praying for the errant priesthood. However, the Saint you really want in this area is St. Peter Damien. May he pray for you. And may you pray for me (and dsc as well—perhaps at least an Our Father for each of us—and I will manage a Glory be for you).