The Archdiocese Independent Review Board, its Office of Child Abuse Investigation and Review, and outside investigators found "insufficient reason to suspect Father was guilty" of the sexual abuse allegation, church officials said Tuesday. Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, wrote that he accepted the investigation findings and will reinstate Father Guzman, "effective immediately. At the same time, we must keep our commitment to do everything possible to restore Fr. Guzman's good name."

“It’s important to remember that Oblates take a vow of poverty – where they own nothing as individuals and share everything in common. As part of this commitment, they are provided with basic supports in retirement, even if they have been removed from active ministry. Basic supports include legal representation, in the interest of ensuring a fair trial. We recognize that this may be unsettling to some and want to be clear that we make no assumption of innocence in fulfilling our obligations.”

“Taking cash directly from the weekly collection and poor box, coercing vulnerable elderly parishioners (primarily widowed females) to gift money to the parish or to the priest personally under false pretenses, diverting checks payable to the parish into non-parish accounts, and improper reimbursement of personal expenses and using secret bank accounts in the church’s name as a slush fund.” The report noted that canon law “still gives the pastor sole control over the parish assets, even though he is obligated to use it for the good of the parish. Thus, a pastor can unilaterally open bank accounts, disperse funds, and sell assets. Parish councils consisting of volunteer parishioners tend to provide ceremonial oversight, often rubber stamping the acts of a priest who most consider a person beyond suspicion."

The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit: “to provide this information privately to Church officials in the hopes that they would discipline or remove those found to be using these technologies to violate their clerical vows and possibly bring scandal to the Church.” Some bishops felt pressure from the group to take action. Others want to use the data to work behind the scenes, to monitor the priests, perhaps confronting them without saying how their app use was known, or maybe keeping such men from rising in the Church. “It’s the first needle-in-a-haystack case, where someone sifts through millions of locations in apps and looks for one person and then tries to use that info to impeach them,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

As a member of the Discipline Section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican for 11 years, Father said that the English translation of the Code of Canon Law fails to convey the gravity of the matter when a priest who violates the seal of confession. The original Latin of the text uses the word “nefas,” a rarely used word in the Code, which translates as “abomination,” “atrocity,” or “wickedness.” “There is no moment in which [the faithful] are more spiritually vulnerable than in the act of confession, when we take our deepest secrets and lay them bare before the priest, who represents Christ. It is a moment of supreme spiritual intimacy.”

The insurance carrier for a Roman Catholic Diocese filed a lawsuit Friday contending that because the diocese violated the terms of its insurance policies, the company should not have to pay out any money to settle claims from hundreds of people alleging they were victims of sexual abuse by clergy over the last several decades. The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, the insurance provider for several Catholic dioceses. The company wants a judge to order that it has no duty to “defend or indemnify” the diocese or any parish against claims of sexual abuse.

One of Pope Francis' key advisors on clergy sexual abuse also criticized Vos estis' broad definition of a "vulnerable person" who could be at risk of abuse. He said the definition was "not helpful" because it is "so broad" as to include a wide range of people. "Do you really want to be a 'vulnerable person' because you are a woman and because you are a parishioner? I don't think so." Vos estis defines a "vulnerable person" as "any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist" an abuse.

"Priests and bishops will go to jail rather than break the seal of confession," the Bishop said. "I'm confident that the priests in this diocese and my brother bishops would do that, so sacred is that bond." For Catholic priests, the seal of confession is nonnegotiable, Daly explained, noting that most secular institutions have tended to recognize the importance of the confessional seal and respected it.

"It wasn’t easy to face the whole machine of church administration," Father said in an interview last week. "I don’t like making people hate me but some people did after that. I didn’t take it lightly that I was going to make some enemies doing that." Few have paid as high a price as Father for exposing the diocese's secrets. Technically, he remains a priest, but has been suspended since the bishop imposed sanctions on him the day before the bishop resigned in 2019. The interim bishop proposed that he leave the diocese and serve as a priest elsewhere. “I felt that was a move to just push me outside so people forget and move on," Father said. "But this is my home.”

The Holy See, also commonly referred to as the Vatican, was one of several Catholic Church defendants in the lawsuit, which alleged that it was aware of numerous sexual abuse acts, but the Chief Judge granted the Holy See's motion to dismiss citing among other things, lack of subject matter jurisdiction and personal jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The order with prejudice means the Vatican can't be sued again for damages by the plaintiff.

The archive agreement states the archive will include documents "including but not limited to" clergy personnel files, other perpetrator personnel files, victim files, investigative files, investigative transcripts, depositions, clergy risk assessments, minutes of Personnel Board and Permanent Review Board meetings, assignment records, seminary records, statements given to investigators or law enforcement, and under oath proof of claim forms from the Chapter 11 case. Abuse claimants can choose to opt in on including their own "victim file" documents, proof of claim forms, interrogatory answers, or depositions in the archive.

A Democrat from Montgomery County, told lawmakers she wanted to strip out the lookback window. “I am concerned about setting our civil justice system on its head,” she said on the House floor. “When I’m 60 and I’m suing an institution for something that occurred when I was 8, do you think that institution can defend itself?”

"I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the great patience you and Father have shown in what must appear to be a very unfair set of circumstances," the archbishop wrote. "Yet, as Father has always acknowledged, he is convinced of the need for us as a Church to keep our word that the safety of children remains our priority. At the same time, we must keep our word and do everything possible to restore Father's good name."

“I have been asked over the years why our diocese does not publish a list of accused priests as do some other dioceses in the country,” the bishop said. “I am convinced a single list will not accurately reflect the various concerns and outcomes. There is no other precedent for the publishing of lists of the accused in society - even of those accused in other positions of trust such as medicine, education or law enforcement."

“Such lists can be a cause for deep division among many members of our Church who see this as publicly branding as guilty those who never have been charged by law enforcement or had a chance to defend themselves in a court of law, given the fact that many decades have passed between the alleged abuse and the reporting of that abuse, or because they were already deceased when the allegation was first received,” the bishop said.

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.