I want to offer another perspective on the escalating scandal within the Catholic Church, and to alert readers to a good recent essay on these sordid topics.[1] In “The Pattern of Priestly Sex Abuse,” Harriet Fraad offers some important data many of us didn’t know.
Figures from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, for example, estimate that since 1950, about 280,000 children have been sexually abused by Catholic clergy and deacons. With the shame and denial that accompany sexual abuse, the real number must be much higher.
Worse, this is not just a recent phenomenon. Father Thomas Doyle, a priest, and Richard Sipes and Patrick Wall, former monks, have written that the Catholic Church has recognized the problem of abuse by priests for 2,000 years. Their book, “Sex, Priests and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church’s 2000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse” (Volt Press, 2006) was based on the church’s own documents.
And far from being the case of a few bad apples, Brooks Egerton and Reese Dunklin have reported that even eight years ago, two-thirds of sitting US bishops have been accused of moving pedophile priests to new assignments.[2] It is not the apples that are bad; it’s the barrel.
Under authoritarian rule – whether political or religious – the high ideals preached by leaders have no necessary connection to their behavior. That is the disconnect, the lack of integrity, between a church preaching Jesus while practicing sexual abuse of “the least among us” – then covering it up by moving pedophiles to fresh flocks.
It’s worth recalling a couple of teachings from this man Jesus, who hangs on the front wall of every Catholic church.
He measured the quality of our belief by whatever we do to “the least of these,” and said what we do to them, we do also to him. He said those who mislead children would be better off with a millstone around their neck, thrown into the sea. And he thought these were among the bedrocks of decency that should be obvious to all “with eyes to see and ears to hear.” This is part of the background against which any individual or church calling itself Christian must be judged.
Authoritarian leaders and institutions can blind us to the abuse of children, women, other races, sexual orientations or beliefs. They are always prone to making God their hand puppet, so He believes the same as they do. Far too often, they have turned children into mere playthings, used for the selfish desires of the priests and deacons – or left unprotected from the abuse of others.
The Catholic Church has been a great and important institution for many centuries, and much of what it has done is very good. But beneath the surface, the church’s unwillingness to integrate all the children of God into their priesthood – including women, married couples and gays. They remain trapped in a one-sexed institution, often attracting men who like to be around other men, and some whose natural perversion or moral blindness have led them to see children as appropriate sexual objects.
The consistent abuse of children by priests is not a peripheral facet of the Catholic Church; it is the logical consequence of an entrenched male hierarchy’s inbred sense of its own privilege. Of course, such behavior is the antithesis of the ideals Jesus taught. But that is another way of saying that the Catholic Church can too easily become the mortal enemy of those high ideals that are the church’s only justification for existing.
The worldwide outcry from people representing the entire religious spectrum is saying Enough! Enough of these men pretending they have the moral authority to preach on matters of sex, about which they remain so willfully ignorant. Enough pretending that their habitual abuse, secrecy and cover-ups should be tolerated by anyone – especially the victimized children and their families, and the societies that make them tax-free because they have been seen as a healthy and stabilizing part of the larger world around them. Enough of priestly myopia that lacks the eyes to see even the most heart-breaking of their transgressions.
For twenty centuries, according to the church’s own records, a dangerous and frightening number of its priests and popes have been unable to see these abuses as evil. The current outrage – which must also have roots 2,000 years deep – comes not only from Catholics, but also from millions of others, whether they care for religion or not. People the world over are trying to say that there is something fundamentally and intolerably wrong with the church and its popes, when these moral commandments are screaming so loudly that even 200 deaf boys could hear them.
[1] “Priests and Pedophilia: What Authoritarian Religion, Families & Schools Have Wrought” (posted in Tikkun and Alternet, 30 March 2010).
[2] Front page above the fold, The Dallas Morning News, June 12, 2002.
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Posts Tagged ‘Catholic Church’
For Those With Ears to Hear
That Notorious Good Friday Homily
“Much of this violence,” he declared, “has a sexual background.” Yes, let’s start there. In 2001, a year before the pedophilia crisis hit the news, the National Catholic Reporter analyzed internal church reports written by two Catholic nuns—a physician who was a Medical Missionary of Mary and the AIDS coordinator for the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—documenting the sexual exploitation of nuns by priests in 23 countries on five continents.
One of the most stunning allegations concerned a nun impregnated by a priest, who forced her to have an abortion that killed her and then officiated at her funeral. Priests were alleged to have raped young nuns who approached them for the required certificates to enter religious orders; to have told nuns that oral contraceptives would protect them from AIDS; and to have used nuns as “safe” alternatives to prostitutes in countries plagued by AIDS—with some priests going so far as to demand that heads of convents make the nuns sexually available to them.
Representative Bart “I-don’t-call-up-the-nuns” Stupak—who at that point, like the bishops, opposed health care reform for being insufficiently pro-life—tried to minimize their power, but it is real. It is why the Vatican has launched two confidential investigations into the lives of American nuns—not American bishops. One is examining the “quality” of their religious lives; the other is focused on their alleged “doctrinal” failures—like questioning an all-male priesthood.
[...]
It is Catholic women who have written about gender-inclusive prayer language and been fired for it; defended the rights of gays and lesbians and being silenced for it; fought for women’s ordination and been excommunicated for it; blown the whistle on priest sexual shenanigans and been relieved of their duties for it.
Many of these change-makers are nuns. Witness the 60 leaders of religious orders, representing 90 percent of the 59,000 Catholic women religious in the United States, who defied the American bishops and supported health care reform, insisting that legislation that helped pregnant women was “a REAL pro-life stance.”
Pope Led Cover-Up of Priest Who Molested 200 Deaf Boys
via March 25, 2010 on BBC Newsnight
Crimen sollicitationis : The document came to light because it was referenced in a footnote to a May 18, 2002, letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, to the bishops of the world regarding new procedures for sex abuse cases.
Crimen sollicitationis is a secret document issued by the Holy Office of the Vatican (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) in 1962, instructing bishops about how to handle cases in which priests were accused of using the privacy of the confessional to make sexual advances to penitents. The document also instructs bishops on how to handle cases of the “worst crime”, in which a priest is sexually involved with an animal, child, or man. Canon lawyers disagree about the extent to which the document is still in force.
The document calls for such cases to be handled in secret, and extends that secrecy to the document itself. The document imposes secrecy even upon victims of sexual abuse. Extreme penalties for violations of secrecy, including excommunication that can only be dismissed by the pope himself, are imposed. Perhaps as a result, some bishops claim not to have known of its existence.
Crimen sollicitationis came to light in 2002, in the context of new procedures for handling accusations that priests had sexually abused minors. Lawyers involved in cases against the church have argued that the document is evidence of obstruction of justice. In response, defenders of church policy have argued that the policy of secrecy extended only to Canon law actions up to and including defrocking of a priest, and would not have prevented a bishop from reporting accusations of child molestation to the civil authorities. They also argue that, because the document was a secret, it is unlikely to have influenced the actions of church officials.
via CRIMEN SOLICITATIONIS FULL ENGLISH TEXT
That Crimen Solicitationis was not designed to “cover up” sex abuse, canonists say, is clear in paragraph 15, which obligates anyone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional for that purpose to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so. This penalty is stipulated, the document says, “lest [the offense] remain occult and unpunished and always with inestimable detriment to souls.”
via National Catholic Reporter.
Therefore, it is clear that the hierarchy of the Church knew about the abuses because to not bring these cases forward was punishable by excommunication. So those who claim they did not know are lying, and those who say they did not tell their superiors should be excommunicated according to this document. If the current Pope did not act on the cases brought to his attention, he too is subject to excommunication.
If the hierarchy of the Church did not bring these cases to law enforcement authorities, as they claim this document does not prevent them from doing so, then why didn’t they act in the interests of the children? That question should be asked of each of them, under oath, in a court of law, and all documents pertaining to child abuse that are possessed by the Vatican and any diocese within the Church should be turned over to prosecutors.
Brady to meet survivors
Embattled Cardinal Sean Brady‘s campaign to stay on as head of the Catholic Church in Ireland could be decided today when he holds talks in Armagh with victims of child clerical abuse.
Last night, John Kelly of Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA) Ireland said he would tell Cardinal Brady that he needed to be “open” about his future.
Mr Kelly said his charity group would ask the Archbishop of Armagh: “When can we expect his eminence to bring to an end the speculation about his future as cardinal and Primate of All Ireland?”
The pressure on Dr Brady to offer his resignation to Pope Benedict has been intense for a fortnight after he admitted that in 1975, when he was a priest in Co Cavan, he swore two children to secrecy about their brutal abuse by paedophile priest, Brendan Smyth.
Dr Brady has asked for forgiveness and said he was ashamed, but added he would only resign if asked by Pope Benedict. He has also asked to remain as cardinal, as “a wounded healer” to implement fully child protection measures in the church across Ireland.
Read more via Brady to meet survivors – National News, Frontpage – Independent.ie.
Pope Defiant Amid Calls For Resignation
Pope Benedict XVI says he won’t be intimidated despite victims’ statements, lawsuits, and complaints amid growing calls for his resignation over the Vatican child abuse scandal.
Addressing crowds in St Peter’s square during a Palm Sunday service, the pope did not directly mention the scandal spreading through Europe and engulfing the Vatican, but alluded to it during his sermon. Faith in God, he said, led “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion”.
Once again, no contrition and no compassion for the victims. The Vatican is more concerned with maintaining a sparkling clean facade than addressing the very real trail of documentary evidence that exists in these child abuse cases.
Pope faces fresh wave of child abuse scandals in Italy
In Ireland, the leader of the Catholic church has been named in more than 200 civil actions by victims of alleged clerical abuse, putting him under further pressure to resign. The victims claim that Cardinal Seán Brady failed in his duties by neglecting to protect them from paedophile priests and other sex abusers. There is no suggestion that he took part in any abuse.
Legal sources in the republic confirmed that 230 separate victims of alleged clerical abuse are taking the church to court. They said these include five victims of Father Brendan Smyth, one of Ireland’s most notorious paedophiles.
Smyth’s arrest and conviction opened the floodgates for dozens of cases concerning priests abusing children in dioceses all over Ireland, alongside widespread and systemic abuse in church-run orphanages and industrial schools.
Brady has confirmed that he was present at a closed canonical tribunal into the activities of Smyth, who died in jail 13 years ago while serving 12 years for 74 sexual assaults on children.
“Smyth’s victims will argue that the church knew as far back as 1975 that he was abusing children. But the hierarchy’s secret deal with two of his young victims that year left Smyth free to abuse others many years afterwards,” one senior legal source told the Observer.
“The cardinal now faces being named in hundreds of cases, some of which will go through the courts.”
Asked if the church was aware that Brady had been named in so many civil actions through the Irish courts, a spokesman for the Catholic Press Office in Ireland said: “The bishop who occupies the position of primate of all Ireland [Brady] is often named as co-defendant in judicial proceedings by people who mistakenly presume him to be the ‘CEO’ for the Catholic church in Ireland. In answer to your query, I do not know the exact number of cases taken by alleged victims of clerical sex abuse who have named Cardinal Seán Brady in their actions.”
via Pope faces fresh wave of child abuse scandals in Italy | World news | The Observer.
Hitchens: The Catholic Church Is In Serious Trouble
Christopher Hitchens discusses the sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and U.S foreign policy with Bill Maher.
Hitchens called the pope’s apology a request for “wiggle room” on the “rape and torture of children.”
“It’s funny because in this society… Even in prisons, there is a hierarchy of crimes,” said Maher. “The child molesters are the ones who even hardened criminals shun, or actually kill.”
“This is the one crime no one can think about without vomiting, that the once great, moral church wants wiggle room for,” Hitchens summarized.
“This present pope is the head of a state, a political state, as well as the church. So, it’s not just that the spiritual leader of a big cult is a proven protector of child molesters, but the head of a government is, with- has an embassy in Washington. Well, can he land here from now on? Shouldn’t Congress become seized with the matter? Shouldn’t the European Union be asking, ‘Can this guy travel freely?’ Isn’t he wanted for the foulest crime of all? These are questions that, I promise you, are going to continue being asked.”
Video: Sinead O’Connor on the Catholic Church abuse scandal
Report by Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin - Report by Commission of Investigation into the handling by Church and State authorities of allegations and suspicions of child abuse against clerics of the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.
Daughter of Victim: the Pope Did Nothing
The daughter of a man who claims he was abused by a Catholic priest as a child, says the pope knew about the scandal and did nothing to stop it. She adds he should be held accountable. (March 25) – Video by AssociatedPress
Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest
Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.
via Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest – NYTimes.com.
Sinead O’Connor: ‘There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope’
Years after her controversial ‘Saturday Night Live’ appearance, the Irish singer is still at odds with the Catholic Church, saying it must come clean about sexual-abuse allegations.
http://www.dailymotion.com/videox21p4eDo you feel the pope’s letter was enough?
It’s a study in the fine art of lying and actually betraying your own people. . . . He starts by saying that he’s writing with great concern for the people of Ireland. If he was that concerned, why has it taken him 23 years to write a letter, and why did he or the last pope never get on an airplane and come to meet the victims in any of these countries and apologize?
The letter sells the Irish [church] hierarchy downriver by stating again and again that the Irish hierarchy has somehow acted independently of the Vatican. . . . The documents are there to prove that that’s a lie. . . .
If you were the boss of a company and some of the employees of your company were known to sexually abuse children, you would fire them instantly. You would also go instantly to meet the people who had been abused and profusely apologize and offer your help in any way whatsoever to deal with this. . . . That has never happened.
As a cardinal, the pope wrote an order in 2001 demanding that abuse cases be dealt with in secret. But doesn’t the directive also mention cooperating with civil authorities?
That document stated that all matters of abuse were to be sent to him in Rome, where he would decide whether they would be dealt with by Rome or locally by the bishops. They were to be dealt with exclusively by the church, and they were subject to pontifical secret, which means you can be excommunicated if you breach the secret. . . .
[It's true that] it’s the first time ever that any document coming from the Vatican actually does say to the clergy that they should cooperate with civil authorities. . . . What I object to here is, the first time they said that was 2001. They knew back in 1987 at least that this was an issue. . . . They knew so much that they took out an insurance policy.
So what should the pope do?
There should be a full criminal investigation of the Catholic hierarchy of any country in which this has been an issue. There should be a full criminal investigation of the Vatican.
There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope. The pope should stand down for the fact that he did not act in a Christian fashion to protect children, and for the fact that his organization acted to preserve their business interests decade after decade rather than be concerned about the interests of children, and for showing so much disrespect for Christ, God, the victims, the rest of us, their own clergy. . . .
The Vatican and the pope need to get on their knees and confess the full truth in the same language they make us use in Mass. . . . They need to get on their knees, open everything up, be transparent, tell the truth, ask the people for forgiveness and prayers.
That confession is their only hope of survival into the 21st century. It’s a rickety bridge, but it is a bridge. And personally, I would be willing to bring them across that little bridge into the 21st century and help them. . . .
If they don’t do that, they will not survive. . . . I hope they do survive, because there’s a lot that’s really beautiful about Catholicism. Even though there are those of us who are fighting it like you would fight an abusive parent, you love the parent still and you want it to be healed.
What about the abuse victims?
He [the pope] says his concern is “to bring healing to the victims.” But he’s denying them the one thing which might actually bring them healing, which is a full confession from the Vatican. . . .
You’re talking about some very broken people. . . . Life is very difficult for them. They can’t hold down jobs, can’t hold down relationships. . . . Life is difficult. Therapy costs a lot of money. These people don’t make much money; hardly any of them are actually fit to work. They need the Vatican to cough up some of its billions [to] pay for these people to be able to live their lives.
Should Irish bishops resign, as a few have offered?
Resignation gets them off the hook. They should be criminally prosecuted. . . . If you or I covered up crimes like that, we’d be slap-bang in jail in five minutes, and rightly so. There’s a double standard. . .
What should the Irish people do?
It’s the good-hearted, sweet Catholic people who go to Mass still despite all of this — they are the people who have the power in their hands to get the Vatican on its knees and confess. . . . How these people can do that is by refusing to go to Mass, boycott them until they actually come to their knees and confess. . . .
The way we are at the moment, we’re in a very dysfunctional relationship with an organization that’s actually abusing us. And we can’t see what’s being done to us. We have the mentality of a battered wife who thinks it’s her fault. If we had a friend in a similar relationship, we would beg him or her to walk away.
Yet you still consider yourself a Catholic?
I’m a Catholic, and I love God. . . . That’s why I object to what these people are doing to the religion that I was born into. . . .
I’m passionately in love and always have been with what I call the Holy Spirit, which I believe the Catholic Church have held hostage and still do hold hostage. I think God needs to be rescued from them. They are not representing Christian values and Christian attitudes. If they were truly Christian, they would’ve confessed ages ago, and we wouldn’t be having to batter the door down and try to get blood from a stone.
via Sinead O’Connor: ‘There should be a full criminal investigation of the pope’ – latimes.com.
Q&A: A Reporter’s Insight Into the International Clergy Abuse Flare-Up
MW/PP: The situation in Germany is particularly of interest because for years, the pope—then known as Cardinal Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger—oversaw the Munich and Freising Archdiocese. News reports vary on how aware Ratzinger was of a particular priest who had repeatedly molested boys, and one of the pope’s deputies has since taken responsibility for the personnel mistakes that led to further abuse. Your thoughts?
WR: I don’t know of any archdiocese where the archbishop or the cardinal archbishop was not kept fully informed and in most cases was not heavily involved in decision-making involving any priest who was accused of abusing minors. In every diocese in the U.S., including those headed by cardinals, there was personal knowledge by the cardinal archbishop when news of abuse surfaced. It was true in Boston, it was true in L.A., it was true in Chicago.
The fact we have one archbishop in Munich that claims not to know anything is enough to make one suspicious. So the question is, if there was complicity by the pope himself, how do you get the evidence? And the evidence is in the recollections of priests who were involved who would know, the evidence is in the personnel files, and I’m not sure under German law whether there is any way whether civil authorities could force the release of those files. … One thing is certain. The church went to such great lengths to protect its bishops and archbishops in the U.S., you can imagine how far they’ll go to protect the reputation of the pope.
via Q&A: A Reporter’s Insight Into the International Clergy Abuse Flare-Up – ProPublica.
Colm O’Gorman: Papal letter was a disgraceful deceit
Pope Benedict XVI published his letter to the Irish church on the issue of child abuse on Saturday. What was necessary seemed clear. He had to acknowledge the cover up of the rape and abuse of children by priests, to take responsibility for it, and to show how he would ensure it never happened again.
But the letter failed to do any of that. There was no acceptance of responsibility for the now-established cover up, no plan to ensure that children will be properly protected around the global church, and no assurance that those who rape and abuse will be reported to the civil authorities.
The letter is clearly an effort to restore the credibility of a church rocked by the publication of three state investigations into clerical crimes and church over ups in Ireland. The Pope has seen all three of these reports.
And yet, disgracefully, he used his letter and this issue to attack one of his favourite targets, secularisation. We are asked to believe that the secularisation of Irish society led to abuse and cover up. In fact, it is the secularisation of society that finally led to the exposure of the crimes of the church.
The most horrific abuse was perpetrated, not in a secularised Ireland, but at a time when Irish society was dominated, socially and politically, by the Catholic Church. That the Pope appears to have wilfully ignored this established fact is a blatant and disgraceful deceit.
via Colm O’Gorman: Papal letter was a disgraceful deceit – Commentators, Opinion – The Independent.
Hear, hear!
What the Pope must do to stop it
I was spared from the abuse of the priests and nuns of the Catholic Church, ironically because the Church turned its back on my Irish grandfather who, at 13, went to the Church for help only 2 weeks after arriving in the U.S. when his parents mysteriously disappeared, leaving him to care for his 9 younger brothers and sisters. The Church wanted to separate the children and send them to the orphanages and he wouldn’t allow that, so then the Church said they wouldn’t help him. From that day, he ceased being Catholic. I have relatives all over the U.S. and in Ireland and probably many other places that I don’t know the names of and have never met. I’m a second generation American, but I qualify under Irish law to apply for Irish citizenship, provided I can submit the proper genealogical data, which I’ve yet to track down.
But I do consider myself part of the Irish diaspora. And it’s stories like the one below, and the Magdalene Laundries, the secret cults, and the intentional hiding of priests and cover-ups by the Catholic church and its Popes, who should have been supporting the ordinary people, that absolutely sickens me. I am glad I am not Catholic, and my thoughts are with all those victims.
It was not being raped by a priest at the age of 14 that shattered my faith; it was the horrifying realisation that the Catholic Church had wilfully, knowingly abandoned me to it, the knowledge that they had ordained the priest who abused me despite knowing he was a paedophile and set him free to abuse with near impunity, ignoring all complaints.
And so it is difficult not to be cynical about the likely merit of the pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI will publish today.
For a start the letter is intended for the “Irish faithful”. The Pope will write not to those who have left or fled his Church traumatised or outraged by acts of depravity and cover-up, but to those who somehow hold faith despite it.
For my part I know what fractured my faith in the institutions of the Roman Catholic Church. I was a faithful Catholic, born into a society where to be Irish meant being Catholic. As a child, I knelt with my family in the evenings to say the rosary and I became an altar boy, finding great meaning as a child in the idea of serving the God my elders spoke of. My faith mattered to me; it had come to me across the generations and gave me a powerful sense of myself and my place in the world.
That faith was strong enough not to be shattered by the abuse. Father Sean Fortune used my fidelity to lure me to his rural parish and sexually assault me. But my faith was so strong, and my need to believe in the goodness of the Church and its priests so powerful, that I blamed myself for his crimes, turning my hatred of the act of his abuse inwards where, for decades, it poisoned my sense of myself. My faith in myself was gone, but not my faith in my church. Over the years I drifted from regular Mass attendance, but I still held the Church in esteem – until that painful realisation of the extent of the cover-up, of my abuse and that of countless others.
If today’s letter is to represent a real and meaningful change in how the Vatican deals with abuse, it will have to be a radical departure from previous papal statements.
Firstly, it must not make any attempt to blame anyone else for Church failures. Pope Benedict must not suggest the revelations of clerical crime and cover-up are part of a global media conspiracy as he has previously done. He must not seek to blame the decadence of Western society, the sexual revolution, gays, secularisation or even the Devil, as senior church leaders have asserted over the years.
He must also move beyond bland statements expressing his shock and dismay at the revelations of recent years. As head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, he was the man charged with the management of cases of child sexual abuse on a global scale for more than two decades. He, more than anyone, knows about the scale of abuse across the Catholic Church.
He must not patronise us by telling us what any person with basic reason knows, that child abuse is a “heinous crime”. He must not express his regret at the actions of some, or a few, or even many priests. Neither he, nor his institution, can be held responsible for the actions of any individual priest, which has never been the charge levelled against him.
He must end the denial and deceit typified by his constant refusal to properly engage with the charge of cover-up, never mind admit it. In the face of findings of fact in Ireland, the US, Australia and Canada which have detailed the institutional corruption at the heart of these scandals, to do otherwise would be to continue to cover up by a wilful denial to address the issue.
He must take responsibility for the cover-up, and apologise for it. As supreme head of the Catholic Church he must use his power to enforce proper child protection across the global Church. He must also make it clear that those who fail to act to protect children will be properly held to account.
When I was a child I was taught truth and justice mattered. I was taught that I should have the courage to take responsibility for any wrong that I might do others. I was taught that the first step in doing so was to confess my failings. I expect no less from the head of the Church that preached those values to me.
The writer campaigns for justice for clerical sexual abuse victims and is the author of ‘Beyond Belief’, the story of the boy who sued the Pope (colmogorman.com)
THE GREAT SIN in the Catholic Church is scandalising the faithful. But it has missed the obvious. The faithful are not as scandalised by the depravity of sick individual clerics as they are by the institutionalised corruption of a church that seeks its own self-protection by concealment and cover-up. An institution that is willing to sacrifice the innocent child for the guilty cleric. An institution that, instead of protecting children from known paedophiles, took out insurance to cover law suits against them. An institution, in other words, that protected its wealth and its image and not its innocents. That has been the true scandal of the Catholic Church.
The current Pope, Benedict XVI, claimed media coverage of abuse scandals was prompted by “a desire to discredit the church”. But how, says O’Gorman, can the Pope preach Christ’s gospel and fail to implement a mandatory child protection scheme across the Catholic world? “With a stroke of a pen the Pope could do more to advance child protection than any other human being. And he hasn’t. The Catholic Church is the largest educator and provider of social welfare for children on the planet. And it has no mandatory child protection practice across its institutions. It has coerced, covered up, colluded, denied and facilitated the rape and physical and emotional abuse of children across the world.”
via Colm O’Gorman interview: Conspiracy of silence, Scotland on Sunday, 10 May 2009
Bishops meet Pope over child abuse scandals
A Vatican meeting between Irish bishops and Pope Benedict XVI gets under way today with the past handling of child abuse scandals on the agenda.
The 24 senior clergymen will take part in the unprecedented two-day talks after being hauled before the pontiff in the wake of the sexual abuse revelations that rocked the Irish church.
On the eve of the meeting, survivors of clerical abuse demanded leadership and accountability from the Pope and called for financial compensation for victims.
Four bishops already resigned over the damning Murphy report, which unveiled a catalogue of child abuse and subsequent cover-ups over three decades by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin.
via Bishops meet Pope over child abuse scandals – Europe, World – The Independent.
