EWTN News explains: What does a diocese do when a priest is accused of misconduct?

News headlines in recent years have periodically reported on Catholic priests accused of various types of misconduct, including financial crimes and sexual abuse, among other allegations.

Much of the public will only be aware of the beginning and the end of such controversies — when a clergyman is accused of a misdeed and when he is ultimately either found guilty of it or cleared of any wrongdoing.

But U.S. dioceses have complex and at times lengthy ways of addressing such allegations — processes that ensure both a full treatment of the alleged misconduct and the rights of priests to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

‘The smoke of truth’ Monsignor William King, JCD, serves as an assistant professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America. His academic expertise includes the study of both canon and civil law as well as the study of “temporal goods” such as Church finance and corporate structure.

King told EWTN News that bishops who receive allegations of wrongdoing against priests must first determine if there is sufficient credibility to the allegations, a principle he said in canon law is known as “fumus veritatis,” or “the smoke of truth.”…