In the document, the Holy Office laid down procedures to be followed in dealing with cases of clerics (priests or bishops) of the Roman Catholic Church accused of having used the sacrament of Penance to make sexual advances to penitents; its rules were more specific than the generic ones in the Code of Canon Law. In addition, it instructed that the same procedures be used when dealing with denunciations of homosexual, paedophile or zoophile behaviour by clerics.