Parish transfers of abusive priests

The parish transfers of abusive priests were a pastoral practice that greatly contributed to the aggravation of Catholic sex abuse cases. Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had personal contact with children, rather than seeking to have them permanently returned to the lay state by laicization. The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about some of the alleged crimes committed, but reassigned the accused instead of seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood.

For example, John Geoghan was shifted from one parish to another although Cardinal Bernard Law had been informed of his sexual misconduct on a number of occasions such as in December 1984 when auxiliary Bishop John M. D’Arcy wrote to Cardinal Law complaining about Geoghan's reassignment to another Boston-area parish because of his “history of homosexual involvement with young boys."

Another example was the case of Joseph Birmingham who was assigned to a number of parishes over a period of 23 years during which he molested a number of children. In response to a 1987 letter from the mother of an altar boy inquiring as to whether Birmingham had a history of molesting children, Cardinal Law replied, reassuring her that there was "no factual basis" for her concern.

Public school administrators acted in a similar manner when dealing with accused teachers, as did the Boy Scouts of America.

Instead of reporting the incidents to police, many dioceses directed the offending priests to seek psychological treatment and assessment. According to the John Jay report, nearly 40 percent of priests alleged to have committed sexual abuse participated in treatment programs. The more allegations a priest had, the more likely he was to participate in treatment. From a legal perspective, the most serious criticism aside from the incidents of child sexual abuse themselves was by the bishops, who failed to report accusations to the police.

In response to the failure of many organisations to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. In 2002, Massachusetts passed a law requiring religious officials to report the abuse of children.

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Wikipedia