1 1 Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Meets the Civil Law by Thomas P ...

meaning young adolescents, covered under the heading De Stuprum Pueri. 227 An activity
included in the category “stuprum pueri” was the abduction and corruption of boys, which
merited capital punishment if the offense was “perfectus,” but only banishment if it was
“imperfectus.” 228 Gratian also included a canon from the 1102 Synod of London stating that
clerics found guilty of sodomy, should either be deposed or excommunicated. 229 The law was
modified in 1179, the Third Lateran Council ruled that clerics guilty of sodomy must either leave
the Church or be perpetually confined to a monastery. Lay people committing similar crimes
received the harsher punishment of excommunication. 230
C. Later Responses to the Problem of Clergy Sexual Abuse
The Council of Trent (1545-1563) took place after the Protestant Reformation and is
regarded as a result of the need for moral and administrative reforms within Roman
Catholicism. 231 This council faced even more profound challenges than Vatican II. It enacted
legislation that was far more revolutionary, and made changes that were more fundamental. 232
Among the many reform canons passed, were several that dealt directly with clerical deportment.
One urged bishops to admonish and punish priests whose lives were “depraved and
scandalous.” 233 If this failed, such priests were to be deprived of their benefice, completely
227
Gratian, Decretum Pars Secunda, Causa XXXIII, de Poenitentia, Q. iii, dist. xv, in Friedberg Vol. 2 1161
(1140).
228
See Bullough, supra note 186, at 62. Sexual Practices and the Medieval Church 62 (1982). It is not clear if the
distinction between perfectus and imperfectus refers to acts which were performed and completed with ejaculation
or merely attempted and not completed.
229
Id. at 63.
230
See Boswell, supra note 163, at 277.
231
See Cross, supra note 179, at 1373-74.
232
See id. at 1392-93.
233
See id. at 148. “But, those who live shamefully and scandalously, they shall, after having first admonished them,
restrain and punish; and, if they shall still continue incorrigible in their wickedness, they shall have power to deprive
them of their benefices, according to the constitutions of the sacred canons, setting aside every exemption or appeal
whatsoever.”
40