From October 18, 2002:

U.S. Roman Catholic Church’s new sexual abuse policy was doomed from the start. The Bishops of the United States are either expert in Church law or have them on their staffs. From the start, they have been well aware that this policy went directly against existing Church law.
Nothing in the twenty-four years of this Pope’s reign would suggest that a change in the law was remotely possible. This charade was produced as a “cover your ass” exercise only.

The policy failed to address the criminal actions of various bishops and cardinals who continued to support and conceal child molesters for decades. Bishops should have resigned or been removed over this. It won’t happen.

The policy does not contain one method of preventing any futher act of molestation. It completely fails to address any of the central failures that have allowed these monsters to exist in the Church. No changes were made in the way candidates for the priesthood are recruited or trained. No changes were made in the behaviors demanded of priests.

Every priest takes an oath of celibacy. Every priest who has sex violates that oath. The right wing loonies of the American Church lay this scandel at the feet of homosexual priests, pointing to those young men in their late teens and early twenties who have been
abused. They ignore the counter argument, what if it was your sixteen year old daughter? Would it then be alright?

No, the key issue is the oath of celibacy. Sexual orientation that is not acted upon does not prevent a man from being a good priest. Nor, as far as I can tell, is it a sin. And, don’t quote me all sorts of non-binding Church documents from 1492. If a priest can be a hetrosexual, not act on it, and be considered pure, then so can a homosexual priest who does the same.

In the United States, we enjoy certain rights. We cannot be jailed without the opportunity to face our accuser and be tried before a jury of our peers. If we are wronged by another’s accusation, we have the chance to sue for redress of our grievances.

The Church has many of these same safeguards in place. After two thousand years, it has come to recognize that if not every priest is pure, then not everyone who accuses a priest is truthful. A priest has the right to be treated fairly and justly, as does any other citizen of the United States, both under civil law and Church law.

The examples of priests who are child molesters are there. They range from the abuse of dozens of pre-teen boys, to priest who had one-time sex with a seventeen year old girl. They violated their oaths and should be subject to civil and Church justice.

But no man should be ruined by one spoken word. Due process, fairness, and, we must remember…

Forgiveness. The Church cannot be what it is if it forgets the teachings of Jesus that it professes to follow. Forgive seven times seventy.

Yeah, that sucks in a secular society. But this policy ruins men, a few who are innocent, a few others who sinned once and have confessed their sin and atoned for it. Only a policy that aggressively investigates accusations, refers suspects to civil authorities when crimes have been committed, and which protects the innocent will fix this mess. Lay down behavior rules like not being alone with children and public professions on a regular basis of their oaths. And separate the wheat from the chaff. A one time mistake thirty years ago with a seventeen year old girl is NOT the same as a fling with a 22 year old male seminarian, nor is it the same as molesting dozens of ten year old boys.

And, going back to the beginning of this. The Bishops don’t want to fix this. All they want is an out.

From February 23, 2004:

Priests defrocked for sex abuse of minors posed a danger to society as well as to themselves and should be retained within the apparatus of the Church, which otherwise would be seen as “abdicating its responsibility”, the study said.

The rebuke was contained in a study by eight leading experts in paedophilia — all non-Catholic — which was shown to journalists at the Vatican on Monday.

Manfred Luetz, a lay member of the Pontifical Council for Life which commissioned the study, said it will form the scientific basis from which the church could draw up guidelines on how to deal more effectively with the problem…

Pfafflin said no screening procedure could offer complete certainty that those accepted as candidates will not in the future molest someone.

The study said public opinion pressured the church to act “with a destructive severity”.

“Although until now, the phenomenon of abuse was not always taken seriously enough, at present there is a tendency to overreact and rob accused priests of even legitimate support,” it said.