From last Sunday’s WaPo: Clerical Sexual Abuse and the Courts

Until now, prosecutors have been loath to find mens rea, or criminal intent, in any bishop or church leader for aiding and abetting. No matter how serious their malfeasance, surely they did not intend that minors be harmed. But bad has now gone to worse. If a bishop himself has sexually abused minors — as has been alleged in Springfield, Mass., and a number of other places — then one can no longer presume an absence of mens rea when such a bishop harbors or protects other predators.

If sexual abuse is systemic within a diocese, and the harboring of predators follows a pattern from the top, there are laws that can apply, namely the RICO (or racketeer-influenced and corrupt organization) laws, which have been on the books for more than 30 years. Until now, it was hard to conceive of applying them to a church. But consider Springfield again. If a group of clergy actually operated on the understanding that sex with boys was okay — as one of their colleagues recently stated — and if they acted in concert, protecting each other and destroying records as has been alleged by another of their colleagues, and if members of such a network committed two or more offenses such as sexual exploitation, fraud or obstruction of justice — then criminal RICO laws would indeed apply to that network of clerics and persons collaborating with them.

One might cringe at that prospect. But let us be clear about what is anti-Catholic and what is not. Abusers preying on children of the church are anti-Catholic. Prosecutors and judges who have given a break to the church through the years have done us greater harm than we or they ever imagined possible.