Got it, thanks. http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/20090320_1.htm says that:
“Penal remedies in the 1983 Code
The 1983 Code of Canon Law reflects many of the insights of the Second Vatican Council, and particularly its emphasis on human dignity and rights. The Code Revision Commission sought to limit penal law to the external forum, abolished a series of vindictive and expiatory penalties, gave greater emphasis to the principle of mercy, and emphasised pastoral considerations (such that punitive measures did not damage the wider interests of the faithful) in the administration of sanctions.
The Code gives the reasons for sanctions: reform of the offender, restoration of justice, and the reparation of scandal (canon 1341). Several means for achieving the objectives are outlined in canon 1341, apart from the ‘correction’ and ‘repute’ mentioned in canon 1339.”
I guess I’m still puzzled as the claim of secrecy in the thread article and how it is claimed that it was hidden from clergy and the people.
The article makes reference to four documents. The first is mentioned in the opening sentences:
In 1922, the Vatican promulgated an instruction to do with what it called crimen solicitationis (the crime of solicitation within the confessional) and what it called the ‘‘worst crime’’ - the sexual abuse of children. The document was issued in Latin. No authoritative version was produced in English. The document was circulated only to bishops and under terms of strict secrecy.The second comes next in the article It is this document that is apparently cited in the Murphy Report:
A new version of the guidelines was produced in 1962, but this, according to the Murphy Commission, was unknown within the Dublin diocese until some time in the 1990s....The Murphy Commission commented on how ‘‘unusual’’ it was, ‘‘whereby a document setting out the procedure for dealing with clerical child sexual abuse was in existence but virtually no one knew about it or used it’’.The third is one drafted by the Irish bishops themselves:
In 1996, victims of clerical abuse hounded the bishops into devising a ‘framework document’, setting out guidelines for dealing with allegations of abuse. John Dolan said: ‘‘They [the authors of the framework document] did not feel Rome was supporting them in dealing with this issue ... they were meeting an onslaught of complaints, and Rome was pulling any particular solid ground that they had from under them’’.It's at this juncture that the fourth document - the previously debated Canon 1341 comes in - and the article gives no introduction to it, unlike the prior three. The article makes two sudden changes, first talking about the bishops' "framework document", then the 1922/1962 document, and then the Canon, without indicating why the latter is being raised.
The 1922 and 1962 Vatican instructions on dealing with allegations of clerical child sex abuse demanded absolute secrecy in the conduct of investigations. T he secrecy was so pervasive that, to some, it seemed to demand that the complaint also be kept secret from the state authorities.It would be easy for the reader to confuse the Canon with the 1922/1962 documents are as being a single work, from the way the article treats them. Presumably Canon 1341 is raised because it was either cited in the 1922/1962 document(s), or in the Murphy Report as being connected to the 1922/1962 document, or in the bishop's framework document.Cannon 1341 states that the bishop is to ‘‘start a judicial administrative procedure, for the imposition or the declaration of penalties, only when he perceives that neither by fraternal correction nor reproof, nor by any methods of pastoral care, can the scandal be sufficiently repaired, justice restored, and the offender reformed’’.