Here's an interesting article in The New Republic about how Catholic higher-ups (such as Cardinal Law and Bishop Thomas Daily) facilitated child molestation should be thrown in jail.

TNR Senior Editor Michelle Cottle makes the point:

But these priests are committing serial felonies--felonies that would land anyone outside the Church in jail faster than you could say a Hail Mary. And anyone who sits back and enables them to do so must answer not just to God, but to man, since the laws of both are being broken. Just think of the legal storm a school principal would face if it were discovered that he had allowed teachers to keep working after repeated accusations of molesting students. Our religious leaders should be held to higher standards, not lower.

How about we just try to hold them to the same standards for a change?

Her analogy would be more accurate if we were talking about a school district superintendent who found out that a teacher at one school had molested numerous children, and instead of firing him or turning him over to the police, he sends him to counciling and moves him to another elementary school, where he can molest more children.

Would we find the superindendent criminally negligent? How could we not?

This is a disgusting, reprehensible double-standard and a shameful blight on our justice system.