The canonical crime of the sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric : an historical synopsis -- The New Testament -- The fathers -- The early councils -- The middle ages -- The corpus iuris canonici -- Following the corpus -- The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- The 1917 code -- Between the codes -- The 1983 code -- The scope of the problem : an historical synopsis -- The Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, 1984 -- The Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1991 -- The Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, 1992 -- The Diocese of Dallas, Texas, 1997 -- The Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts, 2002 -- The national picture -- The canonical landscape : the failure of the penal system -- A description of the canonical penal process -- The reasons why the canonical process was not used -- A penal process (whether judicial or administrative) was not favored in the law -- The penal process was not adequate to the problem -- American canonists lacked training and experience in the canonical penal process -- The crimes were covered by prescription -- The canonical penal process would have been useless since the priest's mental defects made the ultimate penalty of dismissal from the clerical state unavailable -- The rights of the accused priest, including his appeal rights, would trump the canonical penal process -- The cooperation of the victim could not be counted on and was not sought -- Civil lawyers strongly advised against a canonical penal process because of the discoverability of the acts -- What did the bishops do? -- Early reactions and the manual -- A change in the law -- The prior law -- Suspension ex informata conscientia -- Nonpenal restrictions -- The administrative rescript of laicization -- Requests for changes in the law -- Proposals for a return to the prior law, in new garb -- Proposals for an administrative nonpenal procedure of removal -- The recommendation of the Joint Papal Commission -- Changes in the law proposed by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops -- Changes in the law approved by the Apostolic See -- Continued action by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops -- Statement of General Counsel, February 1988 -- Statement of the Administrative Committee, November 1989 -- Statement of the Office for Media Relations, February 1992 -- Early diocesan policies, 1986-91 -- The Chicago experience, 1991-92 -- The Canadian experience, 1989-92 -- Archbishop Pilarczyk's statement, June 1992 -- The National Conference of Catholic Bishops' adoption of the Pilarczyk statement, November 1992 -- The think tank, 1992-93 -- The National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse, June 1993 -- Proposed guidelines on the assessment of clergy and religious for assignment, November 1993 -- The Bernardin accusation and its aftermath -- The Ad Hoc Committee, 1994-96 -- The treatment option -- Canon 1722 and administrative leave -- Canon 1044 and psychic illness -- The treatment centers -- The treatment option -- The relationship between dioceses and treatment centers -- Reassignment after treatment -- Canonical lessons to be learned -- The bishop's duty to investigate crimes -- A means to vindicate rights -- Tribunals for the penal process -- The bishop's authority in the diocese -- The National Bishops' Conferences -- The bishop's duty to foster the common good -- Secrecy as a legal value -- The bishop's duty to determine assignments -- A necessary change in the law.
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