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>You must have missed the part about NO charges being filed >and No prosecutor pressing a case, and victims agreeing/asking that the offense be kept quiet.

There doesn't have to be a prosecution for someone to be an accessory after the fact. In fact, if you think about it, the facts as you presented them .... No charges being filed, No prosecutor pressing the case, the victims agreeing/asking the offense be kept quiet (of course the victim of a child sex abuse doesn't have the legal standing to decline prosecution. The state is the plaintiff in criminal cases, it's quite common for the child victim to feel that the adult they "love" is being unfairly prosecuted) is circumstancial evidence that the Church officials' crime -- accessory after the fact-- actually occurred. If you can shut everyone up till after the statute of limitations has expired you've cheated the justice system. This is the reason that aiding and abetting a felony is itself a crime.

>Helping someone keep quiet a serious misdeed that COULD be >prosecuted but is NOT being prosecuted is no crime.

If you're an accessory after the fact, it doesn't matter if they principal felon is ever convicted, arrested or heard from again (Dr. Samuel Mudd was thrown in prison, perhaps unfairly, even though John Wilkes Boothe was never arrested). In this case, helping someone keep quiet a serious misdeed (that is a felony) that could be prosecuted and is not, is still a crime.

Massachussetts makes an exception for family members (it's the part of the statute that follows my ...), there is not an employer exception. The Church officials knew wayward priests sexually abused children, and they knew the priests had committed felonies (good luck arguing the Church officials didn't know that sodomzing a child is not a felony).

The Church officials didn't have a duty to report the abuse but it have a duty NOT to assist the priests escape justice... moving them out of town or paying off the victims is a criminal act. As a legal matter, whether the Pope himself knew is irrelevant, he's a foreign sovereign and is not answerable to a US court.

Please see my post #33. You are make statements that are wholly in error, and slanderous in nature.

The Church officials didn't have a duty to report the abuse but it have a duty NOT to assist the priests escape justice... moving them out of town or paying off the victims is a criminal act.

The individual in question was not being "moved out of town". He was in prison, having been duly convicted, and was being ordered not to return to the venues of his previous crimes.

Well, I would respect the request of a victim's parents who ask me not to notify the police.

You apparently would ignore their plea.

You also would apparently consider it your duty as bishop to keep tabs on a man who is no longer a priest or a representative of the Church.

Well done, ML. You sound like darn fine counsel.