I Only Hope They Do What I Hear about To Guys Like You in Prison

Sorry for the moderately graphic political cartoon, kids, but the LA Times is reporting on yet another sex scandal in the Catholic Church. Ex-priest Michael Stephen Baker, who plead guilty yesterday to charges of sexual molestation, was sentenced to 10 and a third years in prison.

Here are some choice cuts from the LA Times:

"For many, Baker symbolized the church's failure to protect its most vulnerable parishioners: He allegedly molested more than 20 youngsters in his 26 years as a priest and had confessed his problem to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in 1986. Instead of alerting police, Mahony, then a bishop, sent Baker to a treatment center in New Mexico and later reassigned him to serve at nine other parishes, where he allegedly victimized other children.

And, when authorities sought records from the church to help build a case against Baker, church officials vigorously fought to keep that information secret...

Among the more than 500 alleged victims and 200 clergy members accused of misconduct, Baker's case was the one Mahony had said "troubles" him the most. The cardinal, who is considered the most powerful prelate in North America, publicly apologized in 2004 to the diocese's 5 million Catholics for his mishandling of Baker.

Baker was first charged with more than a dozen crimes against young men in 2002 -- including the molestation of Severson -- but those charges were voided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court ruled that California lacked the power to retroactively extend deadlines to prosecute older crimes, known as statutes of limitations. The decision wiped out hundreds of potential criminal prosecutions, and left largely to civil lawyers the task of determining the nature and extent of the scandal."

Which brings me to many questions to you, dear reader:
1. Where the evidence necessary to uncover a crime is willfully supressed by an organization aiding and abetting felonious child molesters, should the statute of limitations be tolled until such evidence is turned over to the state?

2. Given the chronic and widespread problems with the Catholic Church's (mis-)handling of pedophiles in the clergy, should the special class of perpetrators be treated differently by the law? In the same way that there are laws against murders and against murders in the context of hate crime (generally with different sentencing), should there not be a law specifically addressing priests who molest children, arguably breaching a higher (or at least different) duty that of a baseball coach or next-door neighbor molesting a kid?

3. Where is the Vatican in all of this?!? Catholic League, where are you on this?!? Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I feel like molestation causes slightly more harm to the youth than "The Golden Compass."

EDIT: The Catholic Church is distributing a comic book to teach kids to report sexual abuse as soon as it happens, though lawyers representing clients sexually abused by priests claim that it might have the adverse effect. (Good scoop, Greg!)