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One would also have to keep in mind that different countries have VERY DIFFERENT civil procedures and concepts of law. In the 1961-62 period, for instance, priests had been imprisoned in totalitarian countries for trumped up charges of various kinds. In the current media cycle people have gotten used to the idea of automatically viewing the priests as guilty and of the Church as having covered up actual terrible crimes. This was not always the case in past history. In the Communist countries dominated by the Soviet Union, innocent priests were often jailed. Whether a homosexual subculture as vast as that which has existed since the 1970s was present in the Church of the past is highly debatable. Solicitation of sex by priests would probably have been directed at women with a frequency greater than that of the homosexual sodomy/rape cases of recent headlines. That false charges of sexual misconduct have been directed at priests would have been something to be concerned about as well. This doesn't excuse cover-ups, of course.

Are you saying that perpetrators of crimes such as have been reported in our country should be shielded because of the risk that the charges could be trumped up? There is that risk always, but it is pretty clear that most of the cases that are finally seeing their day in court in our country are not trumped up.

I do see your point about laws being different from country to country and in some countries, the death penalty could be administered for abusing a minor or even homosexual activity between consenting adults.

I can only say going in, that if I were in any of those countries, I would be subject to the whims of their particular legal systems and there is no protection for me (a layperson) against injustice. Why should it be any different for a clergyman?

As to people suffering under trumped up charges, I would certainly defend them, as might the church (depending on who it is), which is certainly the right thing to do, providing I was reasonably certain they were innocent.

I just can't go so far as to say that just because there is a risk of trumped up charges that a criminal should be shielded from the civil authorities. That would be an individual call on a case-by-case basis.

Now we're down to guilty priests who walk or have fled to evade criminal prosecution versus some clergymen who are right now doing real jail time for real crimes they have committed.

Sending a clergyman to a monastery as a punishment does not seem to fit the crime imo. Any other person would have to do hard time in jail.

Are you saying that perpetrators of crimes such as have been reported in our country should be shielded because of the risk that the charges could be trumped up?

No. I specifically mentioned that there is no excuse for covering up crimes. My guess would be that prior to the 1960s or 1970s, the sex issue was largely about priests involved with women. In the document in question, it has to do with solicitation of sex in the context of Sacramental Confession, entirely another matter altogether. The issue specifically involves a sacrilegous profanation of a sacrament by a priest.

The best remedy for preventing sodomy molestation cases is to follow Vatican directives and not ordain those with an orientation toward sodomy. Obviously, once crimes have been committed, such individuals must be removed from clerical life and submitted to the appropriate legal penalties.

If the issue is what did the Vatican have to say back in 1962, one would have to be alert to the fact that false charges brought against priests had indeed taken place in totalitarian countries. There was not an openly pro-homosexual movement in the Church in 1962. There is now.