The sexual crime between psychopatholgy and demonology. Some reflections from an expertise in canon law

Abstract

We present the case of a woman, in her fifth decade of life, an invalid, with a neuro-psychiatric history in developmental age and a history of repeated exorcisms in adulthood according to the Roman Catholic Apostolic rite. During these activities, the woman also reported episodes of sexual violence suffered during her adolescence by a seminarian, who later became a priest. As a result, the religious man was subjected to an administrative procedure (the so-called Investigatio praevia diocesana), preliminary and possibly preparatory to a future canonical criminal trial. In the course of these proceedings, a medico-legal expertise on the alleged victim was also ordered. The case offers significant points for reflection: from the medico-legal point of view, on the technical questions formulated to the expert with reference to the provisions of Canon Law concerning both the suitability of the declared victim to testify and her condition of possible individual vulnerability; from a clinical point of view, on the relations between psychopathology and demonology and on those between psychic trauma and (a)specificity of post-traumatic clinical disorders.