We can never completely know the intentions and motivations of any other person. In fact, we cannot even fully know our own. That's why St. John tells us that not even our own conscience can adequately judge own selves.
You're hung up on the wrong issue. The question is, are the actions of the cleric manifest, that is to say, done publicly, and are they objectively gravely evil? Are they leading many, many Catholics, the sheep of the flock which bishops are called to tend, into objective, grave evil?
The answers here are “yes,” and emphatically so. Colloquially speaking, these men are wicked.
For too long, because we try to be docile, we Catholics have made excuses for our hierarchs. Those excuses gave wide room for pervert priests and bishops to rape their way through Catholic lay children. We layfolks are not generally guilty of their great crimes, like the perverts are, but if we do not learn from that error and become less reticent to name evil when we see it, then we become guilty of the next crimes committed by these men.
It is not judging their souls to say that they are wicked men doing wicked deeds when they do what is manifestly, gravely evil.
And recall basic moral theology: subjective conditions can mitigate moral culpability on the part of a moral actor, but it cannot make an intrinsically evil action not evil. Prudence can never justify mortal sin. It is possible that this or that bishop may be subjectively less culpable for his crimes against God, the Church, and His people, but the bishop has still committed wicked deeds.
sitetest
I don’t dispute anything you have said. However, is a priest to assume a person presenting himself for Holy Communion is free of mortal sin? If that is so, then how can a priest know if politician so-and-so hasn’t gone to confession and reformed their life?
While past behavior suggests Nancy Pelosi will never repent of supporting abortion, is it the duty of the Church to assume such?
I am asking this as Devil’s Advocate.