“Rome has made it an excommunicable offense to go to anyone other than someone within the church hierarchy with accusations against a priest.”
Dr, either prove your words, or eat them. Respectfully. You may provide links to official Roman Catholic Church documents for me, and the rest of the readers. OR, retract those words. Your choice.
This has been posted dozens of times.
Read Crimen Sollicitationis.
And it’s still in force, as evidenced by Ratzinger’s letter to his bishops.
“Dr, either prove your words, or eat them. Respectfully. You may provide links to official Roman Catholic Church documents for me, and the rest of the readers. OR, retract those words. Your choice.”
http://www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/update/bn080703.htm
Look under the header of *Trial Confidentiality* at this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimen_sollicitationis
13. The oath of keeping the secret must be given in these cases also by the accusers or these denouncing [the priest] and the witnesses.
Ratzinger's 2001 letter to all the bishops clearly spelling out that the church's supposed jurisdiction and oath of secrecy run for 10 years beyond the victim's 18th birthday, regardless of the age of the victim when he was sexually molested by a priest...
...It must be noted that the criminal action on delicts reserved to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is extinguished by a prescription of 10 years.(11) The prescription runs according to the universal and common law;(12) however, in the delict perpetrated with a minor by a cleric, the prescription begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age...
The "prescription" is silence by all involved.
And finally, the dastardly Guardian article that dared to say it like it is...and was...
It orders that 'preliminary investigations' into any claims of abuse should be sent to Ratzinger's office, which has the option of referring them back to private tribunals in which the 'functions of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests'. 'Cases of this kind are subject to the pontifical secret,' Ratzinger's letter concludes. Breaching the pontifical secret at any time while the 10-year jurisdiction order is operating carries penalties, including the threat of excommunication... ...The letter states that the church's jurisdiction 'begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age' and lasts for 10 years.