While in my experience many of the allegations of clergy abuse are true, some are not. There are instances, for example, in which the accuser has been abused but has misidentified the perpetrator. According to the church’s law, criminal law, and our own archdiocesan policy and protocols, the accused person is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

While no parents feel they have a definitive explanation for this erosion of faith of their young, two issues come up frequently. The first is the clergy sexual abuse crisis. I know that the statistics suggest the crisis is easing. (This statement must be qualified by the observation that most allegations of abuse occur years after the violation.) The second issue is homosexuality. Many children raised in the last 20 years have had gay friends from high school on. They don’t see any sort of sin or scandal in being homosexual. They see sin and scandal in refusing to accept it.

More recently, the Pope said he has been dealing with cases of “vulnerable adults” who were victims of sex abuse that went beyond the previous description of merely someone who “habitually lacks the use of reason.” “You can be vulnerable because you’re sick, you can be vulnerable because you have psychological incapacities and you can be vulnerable because of dependence,” he said. “Sometimes there is seduction. A personality who seduces, who manages your conscience, this creates a relationship of vulnerability, and so you’re imprisoned,” he said, grabbing his wrists as if handcuffed.

Francis said there needed to be a distinction between a crime and a sin with regard to homosexuality. Church teaching holds that homosexual acts are sinful, or “intrinsically disordered,” but that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect. “It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime. It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another." Despite such outreach, Francis was criticized for the 2021 decree that said the church cannot bless same-sex unions.

The ‘priests are paedos’ trope carries a lot of currency amongst people angered by church child sex abuse scandals. The need for justice shouldn’t be appeased by punishing the wrong person just because he’s a member of the class of people many would love to punish. Some say that human tribalism is natural and that we’re all wired to try and make events fit into ‘grand narratives’ in a way that validates them. Even if we can’t always be certain about what actually happened.

The Act provides a one-year lookback window for people to seek civil remedies for sexual abuse they experienced after they turned 18, regardless of what year the abuse occurred. It allows survivors to file suit against both their abusers and the institutions that enabled them. The one-year lookback window lasts until November 23, 2023

The John Jay researchers said many accused priests cited their own immaturity as a factor. The reason why these priests are attracted to adolescents is because they are psychologically stunted—their emotional and sexual maturity leveled off when they were young. Archbishop Broglio was right in 2018 and he is right today.

When we learn of an allegation of abuse, we act promptly, report it to civil authorities, remove the accused from ministry and investigate the allegation. Allegations are submitted to our lay-majority independent review board for investigation. In fact, all accusations of abuse, going back more than a half-century, have been reported to civil authorities. We report such allegations regardless of whether the report is anonymous, the accused is alive or dead. Since 2006, we have published to our website the names of diocesan priests with substantiated allegations of abuse.

“If the rate of abuse in the public schools matched that of Catholic schools, we expect approximately 10,000 claims to be filed,” the findings of the report state. “The U.S. Department of Education speculates that the problem in public schools is 100 times that of Catholic schools. The report estimates the result of total claims filed within the two-year window would cost the state $5 billion to $32.5 billion. However, similar bills have been passed and enacted successfully in 24 states to date.

The Code of Canon Law strictly prohibits priests from disclosing information obtained during a confession; and without an exception for the seal of confession, priests may be forced to choose between civil penalties, such as jail time, or canonical penalties, such as excommunication.

All board members must sign a privacy nondisclosure document, meaning they are legally prohibited from talking about the board's activities. “At this preliminary stage, it is important to protect both the identity of the alleged abused person and the good name of the accused priest, so confidentiality, even the extreme confidentiality of the changes that you cite, is not unusual." Nicholas Cafardi, former Chair of the U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops’ National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Youth.

Father Ron, the pastor of the parish, told the Register in a statement provided by his lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). “The government has no business interfering with how a church runs its own schools. We simply want to continue to act out our faith without being threatened by the government.”

In 2000 the Vatican issued De Exorcismis et Supplicationibus Quibusdam (“On exorcisms and certain supplications”), a new manual for exorcism rituals, replacing the version in use since 1614. This included for the first time a warning to priests to take care not to mistake psychiatric illness for demonic possession, encouraging them to work with the medical profession to distinguish between the two, and to spend more time in prayer with possessed people.

‘Enlarge the Tent’ is alive to the failings of bishops, who sometimes do not listen, have autocratic tendencies and can be clericalist and individualist. [This] document opines that pyramid models of authority should be destroyed and the only genuine authority comes from love and service. [However] the main actors in all Catholic synods (and councils) and in all Orthodox synods have been the bishops. In a gentle, cooperative way this should be asserted and put into practice at the continental synods so that pastoral initiatives remain within the limits of sound doctrine.

“The first tasks of the new pope will be to restore normality, restore doctrinal clarity in faith and morals, restore a proper respect for the law, and ensure that the first criterion for the nomination of bishops is acceptance of the apostolic tradition,” Cardinal Pell.

At first we were not looking forward to the meeting, following the bad experience we had with the Church but that all changed when we met him. At the time, many of us had lost our faith completely but those few moments that we spent with him in private restored our faith. It was a very powerful and emotional meeting.

It was Benedict XVI who first began to reckon with “the dark face” of clerical abuse, pioneering a series of measures which are today at the heart of the church’s “zero tolerance” policy. In November 2001, Ratzinger got permission from John Paul to waive the statute of limitations in church law to prosecute abuse cases, allowing for the expulsion of abusers from the priesthood even for offenses that dates back decades. During his eight years as pope Benedict devoted time every week to reviewing cases of abuser priests that needed decisions.

"Questions about what John Paul II knew and did as pope have largely been resolved since the Vatican report, so it seems those arguing against his sanctity are now looking to his time in Krakow. But the reliance on secret police files, particularly relating to abusing priests who were subject to threats and blackmail, is highly questionable. The [police] routinely put out false, manipulative information to suit its purposes."

Priests, as the national survey indicates, regard bishops as the last ones to whom they would turn for spiritual or theological support. Is it any wonder vocations to the priesthood are in steep decline, with major archdioceses ordaining no one or only a handful of men. It is much too facile to blame secular culture for this descent. The bishops must examine their own consciences.

In the hierarchical culture and jurisprudence of the Catholic Church, disobedience to legitimate authority is never taken lightly, and when it’s done out loud and in clear public view, it’s akin to the sin against the Holy Spirit.