When he walked out of court a free man, he was asked by the media how he felt. He famously quipped, “Which office do I go to get my reputation back?” The same question is being asked by falsely accused priests.

“I really consider every single person, including our priests who may have abused people, as part of our family that I'm responsible to take care of in some way ... As far as that man on the cross, there's not a person that I know that he didn't die for.” Bishop Scharfenberger

Fact: The Catholic Church is the only institution on the planet where if you are an employee merely accused of wrongdoing from decades ago, your name may end up on a diocesan web site somewhere for the entire world to see as if you were a convicted child molester. Think about that.

Clergy are required to report abuse heard in confession or face up to three years in prison. Laws requiring clergy in Victoria [Australia] to report child abuse to authorities – even if it is revealed under the seal of confession – will come into effect today.

As late as last year, bishops had to admit that the definition of “credible” was, in fact, not precisely defined at all; it might mean simply that “something could have happened.” In the wake of such a “credible” accusation, in swift succession, the priest must leave his residence immediately, is prohibited from wearing clerical garb, and is barred from public ministry.

"When civil law establishes an obligation to report on the part of someone informed about the facts," Dalla Torre said, "the reduction of the pontifical secret and the detail on the limits of the ‘office secret’ permit a ready fulfillment of the requirements of the law, thereby favoring full collaboration with civil authorities and preventing illegitimate incursions of the civil authority into the canonical sphere."

“The abusive clergy were in many ways adolescents themselves, and most of their offenses consisted of fumbling efforts at intimacy” . . . provided of course that the privacy of victims is protected . . . If we allow disgust to keep us from hearing such stories, we are protecting no one but ourselves.

With all due respect to the bishop, one has to ask: What was the thought process that brought him . . . to publishing the names of 17 of his priests — before the allegations were even proven? Anecdotally, the new national organization known as Men of Melchizedek is at present receiving roughly one new request each day for material and/or legal assistance from priests in need.

“People ask for simple answers to very complex problems, and they cling to a certain kind of idea simply because it seems to explain very easily where the problem is and how you can get rid of it.”

Without waiting for further tests, without instituting an investigation, or further assessing the accusations to ascertain the dynamics of the facts the case was put in the hands of the Supreme Pontiff who has sentenced the immediate suspension of the priest.

A significant problem attending the zero-tolerance policy is that most accused priests have not actually been found “guilty” of abuse—even though that is the word usually invoked. Most often, a priest is found only to have had a “credible accusation” lodged against him. But “credibility” has no clear and distinct definition.

Sexual abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests has been headline news for years. But even with so much press attention, there are many commonly accepted myths about this issue...Remarkably, quality evidence-based research and facts about the problem doesn't always receive attention.

The crimes of sexual abuse offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and harm the community of the faithful. In order that these phenomena, in all their forms, never happen again, a continuous and profound conversion of hearts is needed, attested by concrete and effective actions that involve everyone in the Church...

Father Graf’s story illustrates the challenges facing priests who are falsely accused at a time when hundreds of true stories of horrific abuse dominate the news.

In the 20 years from 1960 to 1980, the previously normative standards regarding sexuality collapsed entirely...I aim to point out the effects of this situation on the formation of priests and on the lives of priests.

"On the basis of reading the report ... on the basis of examining other court documents and speaking with ... the attorney general’s office, my conclusion is that this second charge is in fact grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust."

Pat Svacina, a spokesman for the Fort Worth diocese: “Each bishop can define what’s credible is in his own terms. I think the definitions will be similar but they may differ in some ways.”

Credible simply means “not impossible”—that is, an incident could have possibly occurred. And many of the accusations ... are from decades ago ... no evidence can be brought forward one way or another because none exists either to verify or falsify an allegation.

American bishops, intimidated by the media and by advocacy groups—and under the advice of lawyers and PR flacks—have refused to convene a commission of theologians and canonists to review and revise their document . . . priests know bishops are not committed to protecting either their ministry or their good names.

. . . the Church’s current difficulties offer a God-given opportunity for the Charter to be finally junked and for a thoughtful new policy—creative, just and theologically-informed—to emerge which covers all clergy.