The Catholic Church has retailiated over claims that Pope Benedict XVI played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by its priests.
The BBC documentary broadcast last night examined a secret document that apparently sets out a procedure for dealing with child sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.
It claimed the document - Crimen Sollicitationis- was enforced for 20 years by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became the Pope. The 39-page document, written in 1962, apparently instructed bishops how to deal with claims of child sex abuse. This includes an oath of secrecy, enforceable by excommunication, which critics claimed could hinder an outside investigation and prosecution.
In Britain, one archbishop labelled the documentary as unwarranted, misleading and a "deeply prejudiced attack" against the Pope.
The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham, said the Panoramaprogramme misrepresented confidential Vatican papers to back up its claims.
Speaking on behalf of the Bishops of England and Wales, he said: "This aspect of the programme is false and entirely misleading. It is false because it misrepresents two Vatican documents and uses them quite misleadingly in order to connect the horrors of child abuse to the person of the Pope."
In the programme, Fr Tom Doyle, a canon solicitor sacked from the Vatican after he criticised its handling of child abuse, interpreted the document for the BBC.
He said it was an explicit written policy to cover up cases of child abuse that emphasised the total control of the Vatican and gave no mention to the victims.
But the Catholic Church said the document was not directly concerned with child abuse at all, but with the misuse of the confessional. It added that the second document, issued in 2001, clarified the law of the church and does not hinder the investigation of allegations of child abuse.
PA