It really is far too easy to blather on and on and perpetuate a myth just as JeannieGuzman has above. I suppose the old saying "Why let the truth get in the way of a good story" holds true for her as it did for Goebbels.
Anyway, back to the truth, The 2001 instruction1 was issued to clarify how reports of clerical sexual misconduct were to be handled. Cardinal Ratzinger's directive actually facilitated Church proceedings against clerical sex offenders by extending time limits that had previously hampered prosecutions. Limitations of action are not unique to Canon Law. They exist in secular legal jurisdictions, and can prevent prosecution of serious sex crimes.

The so-called "confidential" instruction was published and appeared in English in 2001. It has been 'discovered,' 'revealed' or 'exposed' by so many reporters since then that it might give pause to those who doubt the possibility of the resurrection of the dead. The issue was "raised" again by the now dead and soon to be forgotten Christopher Hitchens in the slate in 2010 in "The Slate" an on-line rag from the USA. Certainly, Mr. Hitchens' wild fabrication that Cardinal Ratzinger threatened to excommunicate anyone who revealed "child rape and torture" has trumped the rhetoric of his predecessors. However, lurid prose is hardly a substitute for sound research.

Bishops were not "reminded" by Cardinal Ratzinger of secrecy or excommunication. The passage quoted by Mr. Hitchens as 'proof' of his extravagant claim is not (as his readers might believe) from Ratzinger's instruction. It is from Crimen Sollicitationis, a 1962 instruction that Ratzinger merely noted had been under review.

Virtually all of Crimen Sollicitationis concerned the investigation and prosecution of complaints of sexual solicitation of penitents by priests in confession. Such procedures are difficult and sensitive because the seal of confession cannot be violated; a priest cannot break the seal even to defend himself against an accusation. The same policies and procedures were to be adapted and applied to the "worst crimes," including sexual aggression against minors.

Crimen Sollicitationis did not threaten excommunication of people who revealed "child rape and torture" by priests. On the contrary: it imposed not only a duty to denounce such crimes (and the lesser offence of solicitation) to the bishop, but the automatic excommunication of anyone who knowingly failed to do so.Officials investigating or involved in proceedings pertaining to these "unspeakable crimes" were required to take an oath of perpetual secrecy, on pain of excommunication. This was the passage perverted by Mr. Hitchens' selective quotation and extraordinary accusation. An oath of secrecy was also to be given to witnesses in the proceedings, but was not, it seems, to be backed by a threat of excommunication. Analogous oaths of secrecy and confidentiality are taken by secular professionals and officials. Confidentiality is usually maintained during secular investigations, and secular proceedings – Family Court hearings for example – sometimes proceed in secret.

But hey why bother with the truth when you can sit at a desk and spread garbage? Guzman take note!!!