"The law is [that] all are presumed innocent until proven guilty. The practical situation, though, is that when someone brings forward an allegation and they appear credible, the effective presumption changes to, 'Why would the person lie?' So the priest is almost in a situation in which he has to prove his innocence, which is difficult." Flummerfelt said.

There must be a willingness to exclude anyone who does not fulfill objective criteria of maturity, self-possession, self-control, self-discipline and goodwill toward all others; A "pastoral heart" full of good intentions is not enough; there must be a demonstrated capacity to behave in every circumstance as a good pastor and to function as a mature, psychosexually healthy person.

A Catholic archbishop has seemingly proposed laicizing priests whose guilt has not been decisively established. The archbishop may be motivated by economic interests. Priests who have been removed from ministry remain, canonically, the responsibility of their dioceses. Every priest already knows he can be removed from ministry on the basis of a mere phone call claiming that some incident occurred decades ago.

The diocese’s decision to add him to the credibly accused list was based on a flawed process that invited fraud as former St. Michael’s boys filed claims of abuse with the [diocesan] compensation program, Kelly said. “I was not given the opportunity to defend myself, and no adequate investigation of these claims was made." The only claims against him, he said, have come from former court-assigned boys who were committed to St. Michael’s.

“Despite inconsistencies and lack of investigation, the (diocese) claimed that the witness’s statements were credible,” according to the suit. The suit, filed by attorney Elizabeth Bernard, alleges the statements were published “with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.”