Fr. Thomas Doyle, the canon lawyer who has been a tireless advocate for sex-abuse victims of Catholic clergy, has analyzed the revised Dallas sex-abuse charter and norms worked out by the Vatican and the American bishops. His view is mixed to (predominantly) negative. In summation, Fr. Doyle believes the Church hierarchy has managed to protect itself from true accountability: “As long as the issue remains heavily clericalized it will fall prey to the destructive force of clericalism. The bishops still have made no moves to look into their own responsibility for the entire debacle. The repeated apologies have nothing to do with an objective, probing and complete study of why the exercise of episcopal authority has allowed thousands of men and women in our Church to have their bodies and souls raped and brutalized by clerics. Until this happens the matter will never be anyting but an ever-growing cancer in the universal Church.” Read the entire Doyle document, with his detailed analysis, at both Amy Welborn’s site and Mark Shea’s blog — both of whom will no doubt feature a robust discussion on their comments sections. (N.B., Welborn and Shea are the Chesterbelloc of Catholic blogdom).