Canon law guides church’s response to clergy sexual abuse

At a daylong seminar on May 25th, 2010, at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops headquarters, priests with expertise in canon law explained to journalists from the Catholic News Service how Church laws and public laws interact. (5/26, Sadowski). The priests emphasized how bishops are beholden to canon law in making important decisions, as well as the relatively glacial pace of any procedures attempting to make changes to it. The priests went on to describe how the high evidentiary standards (like the imposition of silence on witnesses during deliberations and the extensive appeals process) in canon law can have residual effects in public law. They listed some common punishments for priests who have been found guilty of sexual misconduct: for example, some priests are sentenced “a life of prayer and penance,” and forbidden from maintaining a public ministry. Finally, they detailed the gradual evolution of abuse reporting and investigative mechanisms that is ongoing even now, by which bishops are empowered to act somewhat more rapidly than before.