Whenever someone is accused of a crime, if everyone's rights are not respected and served, everyone involved suffers.  Justice cannot be gotten for anyone.

Cases involving clerical sexual abuse show how true this is.  There are new concepts in Book VI of the Code on Penal Law.  The main problem is how the concepts are applied.  At best right now in the United States, there is no consistency in the application of process.  It's the Wild West to many dioceses and dealing with these cases will remain a failure to the Church and it's Canon Law until the law is processed and applied consistently. 

Are accused clerics entitled to an advocate?  Are the accusers?  Who pays for that? Shouldn't processes be conducted in a timely way? These are just a few of the unsettled issues that are the tip of a very large iceberg. 

Many canonists believe the obvious solution is a National Penal Tribunal to handle all such cases in a timely and consistent way.  It is done in other countries. On my Resources section of my blog CanonLaw101.com there is a report that was done and submitted to the Canon Law Society of America.   A study like this was done for them more than ten years ago but that report was never even published to its members.  This year, it is not clear what if anything CLSA did outside of printing it in its committee reports.  I chaired the work and before I reported it to the CLSA, I copyrighted it with the knowledge and agreement of the committee.  So, I control the distribution of the report.  The Committee sent it to many US bishops, since they are the only ones who can make it happen.  They would have to yield some power though and that would take some doing. At the May conference in Rome of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, I discussed this with Archbishop Arrieta who spear headed the new Book VI.  He asked me for a copy of the report and off it went.  

Hopefully some consideration will be given to these thoughts.  As I said above, if one person in a legal process is deprived of rights, there is no justice in the result for anyone.