Another consequence of the pontifical secret was the Church’s failure to develop case law jurisprudence over child sexual abuse, as it had done for marriage annulment cases. Quite apart from issues of transparency, case law jurisprudence is an essential tool for both civil and canon lawyers to know how courts will apply the law to particular facts. The Royal Commission recommended the publication of child sexual abuse decisions and their reasons while protecting the identity of the victim survivor.
In 2020, the Holy See responded to the Royal Commission’s recommendations. It pointed out that Pope Francis had abolished the pontifical secret, but retained what he called “office confidentiality” of canonical proceedings. The Holy See said the decision to publish its case law would be made on a case-by-case basis, bearing in mind its obligation to protect the reputation of all persons involved in canonical proceedings. “All persons” includes the perpetrators.
For the last five years, the case-by-case basis has meant no publication of disciplinary decisions unless the scandal has already hit the press. The decisions are forwarded to the bishop where they stay in the diocese’s secret archive. Not even bishops’ conferences receive them. An article published in 2020 by a former undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith states that “office confidentiality” may prevent publication for “the good of the Church”. The reputations of witnesses can be protected by anonymisation and redaction but, as the Australian Royal Commission found, the “good of the Church” in the avoidance of scandal was the mindset behind the imposition of the pontifical secret and the cover up imposed by canon law from 1922 to 2019.