Damaging the good reputation of accused persons by naming them is only legitimised if this would avert danger to people or the community.
However, this is not the case for deceased persons, according to a letter from the dicastery for legal texts which was published at the weekend. "It therefore does not seem permissible to justify the publication of such news for supposed reasons of transparency or reparation," the letter states.
The dicastery is responsible for interpreting church law and advising on legal issues. With the reply dated 5 September 2024, the authority confirms the legal opinion that it had already taken in 2016 but had not published itself.
At the anti-abuse summit in the Vatican in 2019, Pope Francis named a list of relevant points in his address, which also referred to the right of defence and the presumption of innocence.
The speech, to which the dicastery now refers, states that the publication of lists of accused persons, including by the dioceses, must be refrained from before the final judgement.
The Pope did not
specifically refer to deceased accused persons. The Pope did not
specifically refer to deceased accused persons.
The ecclesiastical law protects the good reputation of persons which must not be unlawfully damaged.
As reasons for refusing to name the accused, the dicastery cites the presumption of innocence, which continues to apply to deceased persons who have not been convicted, as well as the prohibition of retroactivity in criminal law with regard to acts that were only later criminalised. The dicastery cites omissions in the general duty of supervision as an example.
The right to information does not trump protection of reputation
According to the authority, these principles cannot be circumvented by a general "right to information".
In particular, it is not sufficient that an accusation is merely "substantiated". The Church in the USA in particular has published lists of "credibly accused" clergy in recent years.
According to the Curia, such designations are awarded on the basis of very low standards of proof, without the right to defence being safeguarded.
In Germany, the question of how transparently the names of unconvicted accused persons can and may be handled is the subject of controversial debate.
As a rule, most names are anonymised in abuse reports; only those accused in prominent positions such as bishops and vicars general are named.
The diocese of Aachen went particularly far in 2023 with a comprehensive disclosure of the names and professional biographies of 53 convicted and suspected perpetrators of abuse.
The publication was based on the wishes of those affected and the interest in coming to terms with the past.
Legally, the diocese secured itself through a procedure based on state jurisdiction on the personal rights of deceased persons. deceased.
So far, no church or state complaints against the Aachen procedure are known.