Full cooperation with relevant law enforcement agencies would be a nice way to start.
L
How about stripping any priest who molests a child of his status and excommunicating him?
That would certainly make the Church’s displeasure known to the rest of us.
yes...exactly...
but also, crimes should be pursed in the court of law, not civil court...
people should be punished...
at the same time, rumor and innuendo will not be the basis of accusations....
follow the law....
You assume the Church does not fully cooperate? It is a part of the canon law that if a crime appears to have been committed, the Church notifies the civil criminal authority.
The root scandal, as Cardinal Burke writes, is prevalence and tacit acceptance of homosexuality in the clergy. That is, however, not a civil crime, so there is nothing to report, until a child is swept in.
Active homosexuality is, however, condemned by the Church; active homosexuality even among consenting adult priests is reason for defrocking. So homosexuality between consenting adults was a secret, and at the same time, homosexuals tend to look for partners. The product of that was the "Lavender mafia": an informal tight network of priests confiding in a few fellow active homosexuals and having enough dirt of one another to threaten would-be defectors. That existed not to molest minors but to simply protect adult homosexuality.
The gay agenda both inside and outside the Church has an interest in replacing homosexuality as the chief concern with pedophilia. But that is mendacious: the reality is that when gay men are a figure of authority to minors, AND they have a network to cover up any homosexual behavior, criminal or not, they would use the network to also cover up pedophilia.
Catholics should stop tolerating gay priests, whether they commit crimes of rape and child molestation or not.