I am trying to understand the Catholic Church’s side here. At first blush, this sounds bad because the only real accountability is done via civil authorities because if it’s handled only within the Church then the only penalty are things like defrocking or banning from the church. But the Church isn’t a legal authority.
I also know that the Church is supposed to encourage the reporter to self report to civil authorities and seek help.
The church also lack the ability to prevent abusers from harming vulnerable people.
At the same time I understand their position on clergy-parishioner privilege.
> if it’s handled only within the Church then the only penalty are things like defrocking or banning from the church
To be clear, things said under the "seal of the confessional" cannot be shared by the priest with anyone else _even within the Catholic Church._ This particular situation is not a matter of the church trying to handle matters internally, but more of a recognition that the penitent is confessing their sins to God and the priest is only acting "in persona Cristi" (and thereby is prevented from pursuing other personal or societal objectives based on information revealed).
This project maintains a digital source for multiple old versions of the "Divine Office" (aka Liturgy of the Hours or Roman Breviary). I find it particularly interesting from a FLOSS perspective. The source data is all very old (none/expired copyrights), but the calculations for which readings/prayers should be said for each particular day of the year are non-trivial (and the readings/prayers for a particular day are different from year-to-year). So, the logic included maintained in the project is a real value-add.