No. In the Diocese of Little Rock the official charged with investigating such cases is not a priest – so no sacremental confession can take place. That same official is charged with warning the Bishop not to hear sacremental confession from the accused until the case has been investigated.
A Bishop cannot give his ring and staff to a “mental health professional.” The Bishop can only accept advice from them – and the Bishop chooses his advisers. He is therefore doubly responsible for receiving and following bad advice.
Let me point out we’re not talking about isolated instances – there were priests who repeatedly went through this process. The Bishops had ample evidence these people were not being cured.
And the fact that they passed some of them on without warning of their past crimes shows the Bishops in question were deliberately hiding this information.
No. You have a responsible layman investigate the case (to avoid the problem of the confessional). If the case appears to be factually true, you turn the evidence over to the temporal authorities for further investigation and prosecution.
No, you don’t trust them. As a Bishop, your duty is to your flock. You do not turn predators loose amongst the flock.
As I have pointed out, the confessional doesn’t enter into the case – because a wise Bishop would have these charges investigated by a layman and would refuse sacremental confession during the investigation.
Your comment on “hearsay” is completely wrong. Any citizen man bring a complaint. The victim swears to the complain in front of a magistrate, who issues a warrant on the basis of that sworn complaint. (Procedures vary from state to state – but this description would fit most states.)
The Bishops chose their advisors, including these "professionals.’ They cannot shift the responsibility to the advisers – and the evidence is that most Bishops who were concealing these sexual predators chose advisors who told them what they wanted to hear.
In addition, there were plenty of follow-on complaints. How many times does a man have to rape children before you begin to doubt the assurance that he is “cured?”
Indeed it should have. But when parents came to the Church, in many cases considerable pressure was brought to bear to prevent them from going to the police. They were told, “The Church will handle it.”
One should be removed from office for poor judgement – business managers and military officers always have that hanging over them.
When one makes repeated “poor judgements,” repeating the same mistake over and over. And when that mistake ruins young peoples’ lives and allows sexual predators to go on to new hunting grounds the person who made the judgement reaches a point where he can no longer claim, “I thought he was cured.”
And if he does it one more time after that point, he should go to prison.
