Catholic Church Abuse Scandal: Silence Is Not An Answer

The AP reports:  “The Vatican No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, rebuffed questions about the pontiff’s silence on the topic [of Pedophilia], indicating that Benedict was standing firm.”

Someone with sense and access needs to take the top Vatican officials into the woodshed for a “tough love” conversation and beat some common sense into their hard heads.  Apparently the Vatican is not used to serious persistent criticism and it continues to blunder.  Even a novice in public life knows that if you do not have a defense you attack the accuser to change the subject.  Unfortunately for the Pope and the Vatican the public is not easily fooled by this tactic.  So when the Vatican says that    “accusations that he [the Pope] helped cover up the actions of pedophile priests are part of an anti-Catholic ‘hate’ campaign targeting the pope for his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage” we are left perplexed and in dis-belief at both the audacity and the incompetence of the spokesman.

I see no need to review the evidence that top Vatican officials (including with all probability the Pope) were complicit in the cover-up of widespread serial pedophilia, ephebephilia and sexual molestation by priests against young victims.  There is no need to repeat the argument that this is a serious violation of priestly duty that was made worse by trying to tamp down publicity, muzzling victims, and transferring priests to other dioceses where they continued their molestation.  This whole horrid story is a black eye for the Church, which continues to defend, deny and deflect accusations and charges.  Obviously the guys in the long robes don’t get it, or rather don’t want to get it, because the implications for the Church and the priesthood are almost too serious for them to contemplate.

To suggest that this is not a real problem, that there are not real victims, that the criticism of the Church is because the victims and their supporters are part of an anti-Church hate campaign, that there is no need for the church to get on its collective knees and beg forgiveness from their god, simply compounds this evil.

If they don’t wake up pretty soon and begin to change the mentality that allows this sort of evil to fester under the long robes, their fast declining moral authority will be squandered and they might as well close their doors because they will have no one’s respect.

The Rev. Arthur G Broadhurst

http://www.christianhumanist.net