This is a situation that is questionable.
Bishop Salazar was first accused of misconduct in 2002: the year when the American bishops assured us they had fully addressed the sex-abuse problem. At the time he was a parish priest. Two years later he was ordained as an auxiliary bishop. So the first question arises: weren’t candidates for episcopal office thoroughly vetted, especially in those early months after the institution of the Dallas Charter?
Archbishop Gomez has a reasonable answer to that question. The complaint against Salazar was made to civil authorities in 2002, he tells us; church officials only learned about it in 2005, when he was already an auxiliary in Los Angeles. Fair enough. Since the Dallas Charter does not provide for disciplinary action against bishops, the archdiocese brought the case to the attention of the Vatican. After an investigation, Archbishop Gomez tells us, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) “imposed certain precautionary measures on the ministry of Bishop Salazar.”
Well, was he guilty or not? Bishop Salazar says that he is innocent. The district attorney who investigated the original complaint declined to press charges. But the CDF apparently found some reason for concern. So an important new question: If the bishop had been cleared of misconduct charges, why would there be “precautionary measures”? On the other hand, if he was guilty—indeed, if there was even a shadow of suspicion, so that he could not be considered “above reproach”—then why was he allowed to remain in active ministry?
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/the-city-gates.cfm?id=1678Could it be that he was allowed to remain in active ministry because he was innocent of the accusation?