Sex Crimes and the Vatican

Sex Crimes and the Vatican (2006) is a documentary film (39 min) filmed by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a Catholic priest in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford in Ireland when he was 14 years old.

Crimen sollicitationis

It was filmed for the BBC's Panorama documentary series, and charged that the Vatican used a secret document, Crimen sollicitationis, to silence allegations of sexual abuse by priests and that Crimen sollicitationis was enforced for 20 years by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger before he became the Pope.^[1]

The Vatican refused repeated requests from Panorama to respond to any of the cases shown in the film.^[2]

Many Catholic Bishops, priests and laity expressed anger at what they perceived as a clear bias against the church. They state that the program made no effort to highlight the efforts made by the church in recent years to combat sex abuse, particularly the efforts taken by the English and Welsh Catholic Church under the leaderships of both Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor and Vincent Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, both of whom have significantly improved child protection procedures within the Catholic Church.

Colm O'Gorman

Sex Crimes and the Vatican was filmed by Colm O'Gorman, who was raped by a Catholic priest in the diocese of Ferns in County Wexford in Ireland when he was 14 years old. Father Seán Fortune was charged with 66 counts of sexual, indecent assault and another serious sexual offence relating to eight boys but he committed suicide on the eve of his trial. Colm started an investigation with the BBC in March 2002 called Suing the Pope which led to the resignation of Dr. Brendan Comiskey, the bishop leading the Ferns Diocese. Colm then pushed for a government inquiry which led to the Ferns Report.

See also

• Crimen sollicitationis
• De delictis gravioribus a letter sent from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by its prefect, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, to the bishops of the entire Catholic Church^[3]
• Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
• Roman Catholic priests accused of sex offenses
• Pontifical Secret
• Deliver Us from Evil (2006), a documentary about a sex abuse case in Northern California
• Twist of Faith (2005), an HBO documentary film about abuse in the Catholic Church
• Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012), another HBO documentary
• "Red Hot Catholic Love", a 2002 South Park episode about Catholic sex scandal
• Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests)
• Tarcisio Tadeu Spricigo - pedophile priest who was part of documentary

References

External links

• Sex Crimes and the Vatican at the Internet Movie Database
• Most Controversial Highlights in the 1962 Ottaviani Directive (English)
• (Italian) Avvenire on-line special - L’"inchiesta" Bbc su preti e pedofilia. Some articles trying to rebut alleged mistakes and bias inside the documentary.