The legal system of the Roman Catholic church is probably the
longest-running in history. Canon law, the commonly used name for this
system, has been accorded near magical status by some of its
practitioners, who are firmly convinced it has an answer to every
problem facing the institutional church.
The true believers have claimed that the clergy sex abuse debacle could have been avoided had the church only used its own canonical system. Foremost among them has been Cardinal Raymond Burke, formerly head of the Apostolic Signatura, the church's highest court. In 2012, he addressed a canon law convention in Kenya and said that the church has a "carefully articulated process by which to investigate accusations of sex abuse," and that the ongoing problem of clergy sex abuse was because the discipline of canon law was not followed.
http://ncronline.org/books/2015/04/book-offers-insight-canon-laws-role-sexual-abuse-crisis
The true believers have claimed that the clergy sex abuse debacle could have been avoided had the church only used its own canonical system. Foremost among them has been Cardinal Raymond Burke, formerly head of the Apostolic Signatura, the church's highest court. In 2012, he addressed a canon law convention in Kenya and said that the church has a "carefully articulated process by which to investigate accusations of sex abuse," and that the ongoing problem of clergy sex abuse was because the discipline of canon law was not followed.
http://ncronline.org/books/2015/04/book-offers-insight-canon-laws-role-sexual-abuse-crisis