Kieran Tapsell’s essay, “Canon Law on Child Abuse Through the Ages.” Tapsell argues that from the time of Gregory XVI in 1842, popes increasingly made the handling of sexual crimes committed by clergy more secretive.: Pius X & Pius XII started sex abuse problem?: The First Code of Canon Law 1917 In 1904, Pope Pius X set up the Pontifical Commission for the Codification of Canon Law under Cardinal Gasparri. His assistant was Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII.56 The work of creating the first Code of Canon Law involved adopting, modifying or discarding decrees that the Church thought were relevant or irrelevant for the time...The Code provided that those who sexually abuse children were only to be dismissed in “more serious cases”.58
https://www.catholicsforrenewal.org/old_pages/documents/CanonLawOnChildAbuseThruTheAges.pdf
The First Code of Canon Law 1917 In 1904, Pope Pius X set up the Pontifical Commission for the Codification of Canon Law under Cardinal Gasparri. His assistant was Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII.56 The work of creating the first Code of Canon Law involved adopting, modifying or discarding decrees that the Church thought were relevant or irrelevant for the time.57 The Commission discarded the decrees of Innocent III, Leo X, Pius IV, St Pius V, the Third, Fourth and Fifth Lateran Councils and the Council of Trent, requiring priests guilty of serious crimes to be degraded and handed over to the civil authorities. The canon law and practice of handing over the priest for punishment in accordance with the civil law was officially abandoned everywhere, and not just for those countries ruled by “schismatics, heretics and Mohammedans”. The Code provided that those who sexually abuse children were only to be dismissed in “more serious cases”.58
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