Failure to act

General/Historical -

In fact, the Church has considered pedophilia not just a psychological problem but an " ecclesiastical crime " — sexual contact with a minor is defined as such in the 1984 Code of Canon Law, the body of law that structures the Catholic Church’s legal system. Father Thomas Doyle, a canonical lawyer who’s testified on behalf of plaintiffs in some 200 sex-abuse lawsuits, traces the existing law back to the Middle Ages, when Irish monks published penitential books for use while hearing confessions. Several of the tomes, according to Doyle, refer to sexual crimes committed by clerics against boys and girls. One widely used volume, known as the Penitential of Bede, advises clerics who sodomize children to repent their sins by subsisting on nothing more than bread and water for anywhere from three to 12 years. " The reason sexual abuse of minors is in these books, " says Doyle, " is because it was a problem. "

Yet this vast institutional knowledge of the problem never resulted in changes on the diocesan level — changes that might have prevented the molestation of thousands of children. Until the infamous 1984 case of Gilbert Gauthe, who was convicted of fondling and raping dozens of boys in Lafayette, Louisiana, the Church dealt with the issue quietly.

Read the article at BostonPhoenix.com dated October 4 - 11, 2001