The pontifical secret, pontifical secrecy, or papal secrecy is the code of confidentiality that, in accordance with the Latin canon law of the Catholic Church as modified in 1983, applies in matters that require greater than ordinary confidentiality: "Business of the Roman Curia at the service of the universal Church is officially covered by ordinary secrecy, the moral obligation of which is to be gauged in accordance with the instructions given by a superior or the nature and importance of the question. But some matters of major importance require a particular secrecy, called "pontifical secrecy", and must be observed as a grave obligation." Pontifical secrecy is the subject of the instruction Secreta continere of 4 February 1974 issued by the Secretariat of State. The text is published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 1974, pages 89–92. Its applicability in cases of accusations and trials involving abuse of minors or vulnerable persons and in cases of possession of child pornography by clerics was removed on 17 December 2019. Its use in such cases had been condemned by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx at the Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church held in the Vatican from 21 to 24 February 2019.

Matters covered by pontifical secret

The instruction Secreta continere lists ten classes of matters covered by the pontifical secret:

Matters excluded from the pontifical secret

The canon law instruction "On the confidentiality of legal proceedings" of 17 December 2019, excluded from the pontifical secret the accusations, trials and decisions in canonical investigations and trials involving: According to Archbishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, the purpose of the Rescript of 17 December 2019 was to: On its part, Prof. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, former president of the Vatican City State Tribunal, observed that the lifting of the Pontifical secret was due to the fact that: According to Archbishop Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the abolition of pontifical secrecy means that:

Sanctions for violation

While violation of pontifical secrecy, if deliberate, is a grave sin, and while an automatic excommunication may sometimes be imposed for violation of secrecy on particular matters, the general rule is only that, if the violation becomes known outside of Confession, a penalty proportionate to the wrongdoing and the damage caused is to be inflicted. An example of the imposition of automatic excommunication for violation of secrecy was found in the 1962 instruction Crimen sollicitationis (in force until replaced by new norms in 2001), which imposed this penalty on members of a Church tribunal trying a priest accused of making sexual advances to a penitent in connection with the sacrament of Penance, if they violated secrecy about developments in the course of the ecclesiastical trial. A person to whom such advances were made was, on the contrary, subjected to excommunication if that person failed to denounce the priest within at most one month. Thus the procedures of the Church tribunal were covered by papal secrecy (called at that time secrecy of the Holy Office), but the crime of the priest was not: "These matters are confidential only to the procedures within the Church, but do not preclude in any way for these matters to be brought to civil authorities for proper legal adjudication. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People of June, 2002, approved by the Vatican, requires that credible allegations of sexual abuse of children be reported to legal authorities."