There ain't no rules here!

"There ain't no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something. . . .All this talk about rules. . . .When the deal goes down . . . we make 'em up as we go along."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2476071/posts

Q: A final question: is there any statue of limitation for "delicta graviora"?

A: Here you touch upon what, in my view, is a sensitive point. In the past, that is before 1889, the statue of limitations was something unknown in canon law. For the most serious crimes, it was only with the 2001 "Motu Proprio" that a statute of limitations of ten years was introduced. In accordance with these norms in cases of sexual abuse, the ten years begin from the day on which the minor reaches the age of eighteen.

http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=35783&page=2

Here’s an institution that claims to be 2000 years old, indefectible, superintended by the Holy Spirit.

So why does it not have a consistent policy on clerical sex crimes? Surely the kinds of sex crimes which a priest is tempted to commit are both few and familiar. There’s nothing especially innovative about sexual immorality, is there? It’s not as if we’re discovering new-fangled types of sex crimes.

Where a priest is concerned, doesn’t it come down to fornication (with a woman), adultery (with a married women), and sodomy?

So why, after 2000 years, is the “one true church” still is the process of hammering out a consistent and principled policy?

Isn’t this exactly how you’d expect a merely human institution to behave? There ain’t no rules here! We make ‘em up as we go along!