In any setting where there’s a power differential – as between clergy and laity, and always between adults and children – the potential for wrongdoing exists. People with aberrant modes of exercising power rarely see themselves as destructive and are often chosen to lead because of their strengths. Religious organizations of all kinds by nature are settings within which people seek refuge, especially the broken or needy. This exacerbates the difficulty of implementing structures of accountability, seen as both bureaucratic and unforgiving – qualities that religious organizations tend to be expected to repudiate. However, absent these structures the boundary-less nature of pastoral work produces unusual vulnerability for the unsuspecting and unusual opportunity to harm for predatory individuals.

It’s important not to get too fascinated with the sex and the nature of the sexual misconduct; crimes of sexual misconduct – all of them – are power crimes. Anyone with power can misuse it. Religious people and structures are not immune.

The Catholic community, because of its ecclesiastical structure and the celibacy of its priesthood, faces an acute version. The geographic convergence in a parish of church, school and rectory provides an environment that can become a closed setting for misconduct. …. Institutional systems under scrutiny are rarely forthright about failure of any kind. What organization would be likely to willingly acknowledge that its leadership harmed children? The revelation of the prolonged intentional silence may compromise the structural integrity of the institution as we know it.

Cardinal Law has been criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish – and without warning the new congregation of the problem.

I can only imagine that the bishop – as the priest’s confessor – was bound not to breach the offending priest's confidentiality. Offenders may have been moved to new locations on the mistaken premise that this interruption in the behavior and the disclosure to the bishop would serve as a deterrent. This system of “intervention,” if my speculation is accurate, was doomed from the outset because it is based on a total misperception of the nature of the psychological disorder from which predatory adult sexual behavior toward children emerges.

Many of these cases occurred in ’70s and ’80s, when we had much less understanding of pedophilia and the subject was taboo. Families didn’t talk about the predatory uncle; schools ignored the rumors about the teacher who was inappropriate with his students. Given that, have church leaders behaved differently from society in general?

You point to a dynamic that derives primarily from a societal context or what scholars call the constituitive ethic The question – “Is the sufferer’s suffering worth the destruction of the system?” – will be answered differently in different eras because agreement about norms changes over time. The narrative that is emerging reveals that many people silenced themselves, were told to be silent or were not believed, because that much disruption and harm to a valued system was not acceptable. The emergence – the snowballing – of these stories is occurring in part because those who were harmed are learning that others were also abused.

Incest is a similar phenomenon. It was clearly known within families and yet was rarely discussed openly, nor was it addressed by society as a behavior that could be stopped. Children might be instructed to avoid a certain relative, but this caution was often accompanied with the simultaneous dictate to keep silent. By extension, the mandate “don’t wreck the family” was easily extrapolated to become “don’t wreck the church, community or school.” It carried the very odd and totally unsatisfactory attempt at comfort: the acknowledgement  that this behavior is bad, but at least it’s only happening to you. The lie of this construct is now exposed.

What must happen to prevent this from occurring again?

A clergy person – like a doctor or psychologist – works in an unboundaried place. Trustworthiness must be demonstrable. Clergy must create, communicate and be guided by practices whose hallmark is transparency and whose purpose is the protection from harm of anyone entrusted to them. In recent years the role of the physician’s assistant has protected many doctors and patients from potential misunderstanding. Perhaps clergy whose work includes children in classroom, worship or recreational settings should routinely include aides, parents or deacons to ensure that children are not at risk and that no perception of risk exists.

Will priests be able to rebuild the sacred trust they’ve had with their parishioners?

That’s probably the hardest question to gauge. It’s not just the children who have been injured. Public trust in the whole structure of the institution is injured in a very serious way, and recovering from that takes hard work and demonstrable contrition, which is an idea Cardinal Law in his own way has been trying to espouse.

Should he resign?

His resignation could demonstrate the contrition of the organization – he would be understood to be saying that these crimes happened on my watch, and that his personal sadness and the institution’s sorrow is best expressed by his relinquishing the honor of serving as bishop. It would also allow someone who isn’t tainted by the scandal to lead and begin the process of amendment of life, which the Church has to model as well as believe. This action alone will not restore institutional trust, within or without. Recovery will be long and, regrettably, there will continue to be deleterious side effects.

The current heartache and the disclosure are so painful that it can be hard to see good in it. My prayers for the time being are simple: that those who were silenced and are now speaking will be heard – and will hear back that what happened to them was wrong. In this, may they also find their suffering supported, be awakened from a long nightmare and placed on a sacred path of healing and dignity.

There’s real reason for hope if we can open the windows, turn on the lights, tell the truth… We have to collectively say that no one who is truly a humane, compassionate person, male or female, preys on anybody – that it’s not acceptable. I would argue that’s something religious communities across the planet stand for.