I agree they should have been removed from positions which allowed them contact with potential victims. That need not include incarceration.
People in other situations where they are being investigated for some kind of crime are sometimes put on administrative leave while the investigation is ongoing.
(and some remain in Congress...but that is another matter and not germane).
Sometimes life isn't fair.
True, that.
If his innocence is established, restore him to office.
There is the problem. In the current media circus, even the establishment of innocence is insufficient--merely the accusation is enough and no amount of exonneration, not even confessions of guilt by malicious and false accusers (page 32, under the fold, fine print) will remove the stigma. For a priest, it will follow him from parish to parish, even though he was cleared. As I stated, it is a career wrecker.
Imagine a day-care provider similarly accused. Would you leave your children with them after they had been cleared? Probably not.
Even the stigma of having been investigated would prevent you from placing your children in that day care, regardless of the outcome.
If not, throw his sorry butt in jail.
If proven guilty beyaond a reasonable doubt, the full force of the law should be brought to bear. I have never taken issue with that.
But to shift those men accused of impropriety around to cover for them and protect them while they continued to do it and not investigate it further, is unconscionable.
If, indeed, they were permitted to be in positions where they could continue to perpetrate any crime they were accused of, yes, it is unconscionable. No argument there.
If the incidents were not investigated fully, that too, is a grevious breach of trust.
I am not in support of allowing any alleged wrongdoing to continue, or allow perpetrators to go unpunished if proven.
Sadly, the Roman Catholic church has a LONG and sordid history of sexual misconduct, easily going back a thousand years. That does cut into their credibility more than a little.
Name another church which goes back a thousand years without its problems. Over a thousand years, especially considering that justice as we know it is only a couple hundred years old, a place gets a history.
Interesting in that over a thousand years of everything from preserving western civilization, art, history, etc., being a refuge for the persecuted, and countless good works, the only things the anti-Catholics can point out are these incidents.
Nobody will criticize them for acting appropriately when the situation comes up, as it is bound to now and then.
?
Pedophiles will go where children are. It it impossible to prevent every single incidence of child molestation. Abuse is going to happen because those who want to abuse badly enough WILL find a way to do it. I don’t know of anyone who denies that.
The question then is not why abuse happened in the church, just like the question isn’t why abuse happens anywhere, but what it wasn’t dealt with appropriately, by the church. And the same question could be legitimately asked of ANY organization which didn’t deal with the problem appropriately.
The church, any church, of ALL organizations should be leading the way in setting an example of dealing with the problem. God has made it extremely clear in Scripture what is to be done in dealing with immorality in the church. The Catholic church, which claims authorship of said Scripture is doubly accountable for not following the advice that it not only claims responsibility for, but that should know better than anyone else. It condemns homosexuality as sin and yet doesn’t deal with it within its own midst.
That is NOT acceptable. And pointing that out does not make one a *anti-Catholic* or a *Catholic hater*. Expecting integrity in behavior from someone who is supposed to be setting an example is not unreasonable and if they fail in that, criticism of them is to be expected.
Read 1 Corinthians 5 concerning the subject of immorality in the church.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+5&version=ESV