It will be interesting to see how this issue is handled at this high level. Being from Boston, I know all too well the sort of coverup that existed here. Please keep the heat on so this will not be another coverup!

With all the allegations against Catholic priests to date it seems to me priesthood is a hide away for homosexuals with very sick illness. Very disturbing...

How is this legal? And why is nothing being done from a criminal/judicial standpoint?

I too am a victim of religious order combined with sexual abuse. The events warrant both punishment and corrective discipline. I feel, however that the condemnation by the hounding of the media and coertion of repetative inquiry can do more judgement thah the situation would warrant. Jesus can forgive and restore any person both in and to His Holy stature, either offender or offended.

Not that I agree with the obvious hypocrisy, however if these people that the Cardinal engaged in homosexual activity with "young priests in training". Wouldn't young priests in training still be adults? I don't know, the story didn't seem to specify if these charges are illegal or just immoral acts for a Bishop to engage in.

Strong evidence indicates that Maciel molested at least 40 young seminarians between the 1940s and 1960s. At least 9 men who are credible professionals abused by Maciel went through the Church's official channels to report their abuse. But Maciel, who founded the bizarre Legion of Christ, was a darling of JP II for turning out ultra-conservative priests through his methods of severe discipline, which included teaching seminarians techniques of self-flagellation and wearing of painful thigh bands(think of Silas in the Da Vinci Code), imposing month-long periods of solitary confinement, and refusing release to seminarians who wished to leave the order. A number of those abused literally had to plot their escapes from Maciel and his demands for sex and procurement of painkillers for his narcotic addiction. Brian Ross was lucky to get off with only a literal hand slap from Bennie the Ratz, who has known all about Maciel for decades because of his former position as the Vatican's Number Two. After his election as Pope, Ratzi gave his old job to his protege, American William Levada, a former archbishop in Oregon and California, who has been deposed about his knowledge of cover-ups of sexual abuse in the dioceses he headed. Levada himself reassigned priests who had a history of sexual abuse to new parishes. The wolves guard the innocent lambs.
If this comes as a surprise to anyone, they have not paid attention to the consistent cover-ups of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church in America and elsewhere. At least 4,000 innocent kids and adults have been raped by Catholic clergy, and that includes people in every diocese in America. Not one American bishop has ever picked up the phone and called the police.
Has this changed? Not in the least. Chicago's Cardinal George, in charge of drafting and enforcing new rules to prevent child abuse, has admitted this year to reassigning known abusers to new parishes in Chicago, where they molested more kids and now face criminal charges. Why are Catholics putting up with the wolves guarding the lambs? Do they not understand the lifelong hell that children and adolescents abused by clergy endure? Why do Catholics not demand accountability from their Church?
I was a lamb once. A devout little lamb from a devout family. Five years of clergy sexual abuse beginning when I was twelve years old destroyed my life.
You who are still Catholics, please demand accountability from the Church. You who are not, demand that Catholic children have the same protections from sexual predators that other American children have.
And ask yourselves why Bennie the Ratz is kvetching about "The DaVinci Code" in his Easter address, and not talking about the elephant in St. Peter's square. Ask about all the Church attention to a silly movie. Distract, divert, derail attention from real issues.
And lose the nonsense that the Church wants you to believe, that this is about gay priests who should be routed out. Child molesters are usually not gay; they are people with underdeveloped sexuality who are attracted to children. Little girl children just as much as little boy children.
This information is all so available. Why are so many Catholics willing to be so blinded? "The truth will make you free." John 8:32.

Amen to that!

If we were discussing any other main stream denomination there would have been a federal investigaion by now. Why is the Catholic church being protected?

Again, old ashes grubbed up from the 1950's and presented as if they were something new. And as if abuse only happens in the Catholic Church! The case is front page news because it is the Catholic Church - the only group it is now PC to persecute. Look into other denominations, other organizations (like public school teachers) and you will see the percentages of people involved in such cases are about the same.
But it doesn't make front page news. Hypocrisy.

Teresa,

Priests molest children at no greater rate than Protestants, Jew, or school teachers. What was the Church going to do? Burn Father Maciel at the stake? This happened 50 years ago I think jail is not going to happen, the hearings were never to decide if Father Maciel goes to jail, but what his punishment would be internally,a nd that was to remove him from any priestly duties and live his life in penance. The Vatican can't put him in jail anyway what is everyone even talking about here?

Good grief, they're at it again! These holier than thou saintlies with their "higher calling", who are morally, ethically and spiritually superior to we lowlies, who can't get to heaven without them. Mea maxima culpa if I/we cannot yet see that genuinely honest, decent, clean living, honorable people do not need to go around vociferously calling attention to their holiness and good deeds -- unless they have something to hide and need to create smoke screens in order to do it. They will not stop their outrageous behaviors and cover-ups until people get smart and stop giving them their power. Walk Away! Dry up the collection boxes! Put the hypocrites out of business once and for all.

All of us are human and all religions has their own scandal, not just the Catholic Church.

God Bless

Why does no one grasp the fact that these priests are criminals? Sexually molesting young kids, or anyone for that matter, is a crime. I find it absolutely disgusting that religion is used as a means to keep these men safe.

He who is without sin cast the 1st stone, but also to whom is given much is required. If a position is given to people then accountabliity is required.
God will Judged them according to the the WORD, but if they have broken the LAW then the should be judge according to the LAW...

GOD BLESS :)

How could any sign of guilt be a stain on Pope John Paul's legacy. The Pope may have been a big supporter but that doesn't prove knowledge of the betrayal. And that's what it is if Maciel is guilty.