Religion

I'm an Army JAG. I've defended and prosecuted, supervised the defense and prosecution of, and done appeals for a ton of sexual assault cases. I've seen strong, weak and close cases. I've seen the process of bringing a case from start to finish at dozens of military installations with varying degrees of competence.

I can tell you pretty strongly that comparing the military's handling of sexual assault cases to the RCC's handling of priest abuse cases is comparing an ice cube to an iceberg.

1. The military has to actively report on at least an annual basis all restricted and unrestricted reports of sexual assault. And often there are congressional data calls on a more frequent basis. I remember answering Senator McCaskill's requests for data on almost a monthly basis when I was a chief prosecutor of a base in Missouri.

2. The laws governing sexual assault have been changed significantly roughly 4 times since 2007 in the military. Every change has been focused on increasing convictions and rights for alleged victims, none have been focused on increasing rights for the accused. Every change has made it more likely that cases go to trial, not less.

So you can believe the military aint there yet and has problems, but you cannot argue that attempts at transparency haven't happened or that changes in practice haven't happened.

The RCC has done very little changing to transparency or practice.