Flittle known, clerical sexual violence gave rise, as part of the preparation for the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), to an important debate in which around a hundred bishops, including the future Pope Paul VI, participated in May 1962. This debate testifies to an awareness, from that time, of the seriousness of sexual violence against minors and the extent of the phenomenon.
The discussions, however, quickly turned towards the question of the very advisability of dealing with the subject at the council, in a context of growing media coverage. The concern to present a positive image of the Catholic Church thus ultimately led to an obscuring of the problem.
The reflection took its starting point in the wishes for the council expressed by the Pontifical Salesian University [une université catholique établie à Rome], which, in view of the emergence of a new “social sensitivity ”, called for more severe criminalization of sexual violence against minors. The university also demanded that the “violations of social justice” committed by clerics, a sign of an increased perception of various attacks on the dignity of people.
Risk of scandal
The university’s proposal, taken up by the commission for the discipline of the clergy, preparatory to Vatican II, then serves as a basis for the drafting of a diagram, of a legal nature and austere in style, entitled “Censors and their reservation », intended to be approved during the council. This is how sexual attackers, clergy or religious, would see themselves excommunicated, the most serious penalty that can be inflicted and which has a highly symbolic significance. This punishment also has an ancient origin, since it was already mentioned in the 4th century in connection with clerical child criminality – it then fell into disuse.
This sentence, unlike most of those traditionally imposed against sexual attackers, had the advantage of being able to also be pronounced against religious non-priests. The university was particularly concerned about sexual assaults perpetrated in a school context by members of teaching congregations. The plan, in line with the wish of the university, also provided for excommunication to be pronounced latae sentiaethat is to say that it has an automatic character, thus allowing a rapid reaction.
Before being proposed for discussion at the council, the plan was debated within the central preparatory commission, with a view to determining whether the examination of the document could be included in the conciliar agenda. The exchanges then reveal differentiated attitudes towards clerical sexual violence, which did not follow the usual “political” lines.
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