Never settle any case out of court for a variety of reasons, not least that while a pastoral plea demands a pastoral response, a legal challenge demands a legal response. Moreover, when a financial settlement is made, that more than suggests guilt, thus damaging irreparably an innocent priest’s reputation. Regrettably, most bishops listened, instead, to diocesan attorneys and insurance companies.

The legislature of the Australian state of Queensland on Tuesday passed a law requiring priests to violate the seal of confession to report known or suspected child sex abuse. Failure to do so will be punished with three years in prison.

A priest has filed a defamation suit against a chancery Monsignor, charging that the Monsignor knowingly filed a false sex-abuse claim. The suspended priest has already won a defamation suit against a police officer who made the same charge.

It is not surprising that this test case involves the due process rights of priests. They have been under attack for years. Unfairly maligned in the courts, and the court of public opinion (often manipulated by a hostile media), priests everywhere are being subjected to criticism that exceeds the bounds of rationality.

“This is a wake-up call for the county and Archdiocese,” the defamed priest's attorney said. “You had an independent, neutral body reviewing all of the evidence.”

“We have reached a new level of creative jurisprudence when a court can invoke a jury decision as the new clock determining when the limitations period starts to run. At issue here is the separation of powers between the legislature and the judiciary, not exactly a small issue.”

"We are all sinners. Priests who suffer from crises, who do not know what to do, who are in the dark ... Today all of you, brother priests, are with me on the altar ... Do not be afraid to forgive. Sometimes there are doubts ... Look at Christ [look at the Crucifix]. There is everyone's forgiveness."

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...