Well, it certainly is true that many child molesting priests have continued to say Mass.
My point was not what the Church is doing to punish them-I don't know what they are doing-but that it should be done publicly, like the shunning of the divorced.
Peggy Noonan is a principled lady and an Irish Catholic increasingly observant. She said on C-SPAN yesterday that Cardinal Law should resign and so he should. So should each and every other cardinal, archbishop, bishop, and priest involved in such behavior or covering it up.
The Vatican seems ready to stir on the question and so panic sets in among those who seek to further corrupt the priesthood and the Church on this and many other matters. They hope against hope that the next papal conclave will be soon and that the result will be the election of a mushbrained liberal as pope who will allow them a say in Church governance and eliminate the office of the papacy as we know it and the authority of the Vatican with it. They should live so long. The next pope will be elected by cardinals nearly all of whom have been appointed by John Paul II. Not all of them are dedicated to his policies but more will be dedicated to them at the next conclave than at the one that elected John Paul II.
As John Paul II has said at every step of his papacy, "Be not afraid!"
What has happened here in the United States and in Canada, England and Ireland is a disgrace but it seems that the necessary purging of the ranks will only begin under this papacy and will be completed in the next. John Paul II is flesh and blood and subject to physical infirmity. May his successor consolidate his policies and carry on the work with renewed vigor.