The whole world, it seems—and that includes many unbelievers—have worked themselves into a frenzy of adoration toward Pope Francis. He’s such a humble man, they say, and he wears regular shoes! He lives in a tiny apartment instead of the fancy Vatican digs of his predecessor.
Those people were always fooling themselves, for the Pope must uphold one of the world’s most autocratic (and harmful) faiths, and he wouldn’t be Pope if he were going to fundamentally change Church dogma.
Sure enough, as reported by the BBC today, Pope Francis is reacting to the UN’s report (which faults the Church strongly and urges immediate action to root out sexual deviants from the clergy), with anything but humility.
Pope Francis has strongly defended the Roman Catholic Church’s record on tackling sexual abuse by priests.
In a rare interview with an Italian newspaper, the Pope said “no-one else has done more” to root out paedophilia.
He said the Church had acted with transparency and responsibility, yet it was the only institution to have been attacked.
And who else was supposed to be attacked?
In his interview with Corriere della Sera published on Wednesday, Pope Francis said: “The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility.
“No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked.”
The Pope, who will celebrate his first anniversary of his election later this month, also praised his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, for changing the Church’s attitude towards predatory priests, saying he had been “very courageous”.
He also questioned the focus of the debate, saying: “The statistics on the phenomenon of violence against children are shocking, but they also clearly show that the great majority of abuses are carried out in family or neighbourhood environments.”
What kind of statement is that? That Church had institutionalized pedophilia, knew of the problem, tried to sweep it under the rug, and was called out for it. And the Pope tells us: “It’s not that bad: after all, more child abuse occurs outside the church than within it.” Is that supposed to absolve his Church of responsibility? It’s the worst possible thing he could have said, and it’s dripping with arrogance and insouciance.
“The Pope may make this statement, but then the Vatican doesn’t reply to the UN or impose the obligation that bishops should denounce accused priests in the courts and not deal with the cases internally.”
The founder of the US-based website, BishopAccountability.org, Terence McKiernan, was more direct in his criticism, complaining that the Pope had not merely failed to apologise to the children who had been abused but had not even expressed sorrow.
“It is astonishing, at this late date, that Pope Francis would recycle such tired and defensive rhetoric,” he said.
Meet the new Pope—same as the old Pope.
What I don’t understand are the rank and file members and even, perhaps, some low level clergy (those with secular careers as I understand many nuns and such do) who stick with such an organization.
I am speechless. This vile crime usually happens at the hands of neighbours (as indeed it did to a close member of my family), therefore the catholic Church is being unfairly picked on!
It gets worse. “The Pope, who will celebrate his first anniversary of his election later this month, also praised his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, for changing the Church’s attitude towards predatory priests, saying he had been “very courageous”.”
What Ratzinger did about predatory priests was courageous? And in what kind of organisation does protecting minors against rape require courage?
Call Websters; the word, “courageous” has been redefined to mean, “clandestine”.
They bravely ran away!
lol
Well, indeed, it is courageous to sign the internal secret policy of excommunicating anyone for disclosing child rapists to police.
I was under the impression that religion and the church were supposed to be a very large part of the ‘family [and/]or neighborhood environments.’
“in what kind of organisation does protecting minors against rape require courage?”
NAMBLA? At least they’re honest about it.
Supposedly, a priest is an “intercessory to God”: someone who allegedly is there to help you avoid an eternity of burning torment should therefore be held to a HIGHER level of accountability than even a trusted family member or parent; comparison of these crimes with “ordinary” child molestation is a sickening effort at minimization.
Something about an emperor and new clothes comes to mind.
What I find particular disgusting is the insinuation that abuse of children is a numbers game and that the church should be condoned for it’s actions completely ignoring the long history of covering up.
“No fair to blame us. It’s human nature and it actually could have been worse if we weren’t so honest.”
Arseholes.
Yeah. The Catholic Church is pathetic. In all things they claim superiority over others due to close association with magic man, EXCEPT when they are caught behaving heinously. Then they are just like everybody else.
Oops, “behaving heinously” should be “with their pants down.”
Spot on.
I almost typed a smiley here, but come to think of it I won’t.
Having taught at a Catholic school and knowing what the public generally thinks, I can say its worse than most people think. CEO Francis is just trying to keep the obsequious at bay and the morality in the closet.
WORSE?? Holy cow!
Will he apologise for other abuses by his church such as stolen babies in Spain and the Magdalen laundries in Ireland?
Exactly. He’d have to apologize non stop till death just to make a good start.
Not likely.
But even if he did, would it really count meaningfully for anything? This is quite a different animal from an individual offending against another, or a few. He would have to take meaningful actions to change the church and redress the damages done to individuals lives for his apology to be worth anything.
I didn’t know what a Magdalen laundry was, so I looked it up. Yet one more thing religion has to answer for.
“Sinéad O’Connor spent time in a Magdalene Asylum as a teenager.”
-Wikipedia
That may explain her antipathy toward the pope.
Magdalen laundries were places where girls were incarcerated and made to work against their will. Sometimes they may have had illegitimate children but often they were considered ‘difficult’ by their parents and sent away out of sight. Some stayed there all their lives and when they died were buried in mass graves. They were run by the Catholic Church but supported by the Irish government and police.
Wow I just learned something new. Pretty disgusting!
When googleing Magdalen laundries this gem by Bill Donahue comes up 4th or 5th on google:
http://www.catholicleague.org/myths-of-the-magdalene-laundries/
Cheese-and-rice, this guy is piece of work.
The laundries play a role in this films that got four BAFTAs and four oscar nominations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philomena_(film)
It’s on my list, but I haven’t personally seen it yet.
“No-one else has done more…” The previous Popes have only helped the child abusers. Pope Francis may have done more because he has done nothing.
Give it a little time. No telling what may come to light now that he is in the limelight.
The bile rises immediately.
Who else knew this guy was a charlatan from the get-go? Raise your hand.
He is a politician, and, as usual, says things that are vastly different than he acts.
I sometimes stop by the bl*g of an author who’s stories I have enjoyed, and who’s bl*g articles indicate is a pretty decent and rational person. I was dismayed one day when he wrote a post praising the new Pope as a swell guy.
I don’t understand why anyone not already committed to the religion would think it is reasonable to give this new pope the benefit of the doubt, given the history of the church.
Wow. Major apostrophe fail. Amazing what slips by without notice.
“No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked.”
I’m so sick of hearing this nonsense. Even some Catholic laity I know often play this deflection game. Yet where oh where are these other religious organizations or denominations as big and centralized as the Roman Catholic Church that are getting away with rampant pedophilia while the RCC is “unfairly” targeted?
So far, no one can name even one.
Meanwhile, in hell:
Sexual “deviants” still burning for eternity, not comforted by new pope’s toned down rhetoric.
So what is his position on contraception? “Church teaching on contraception does not need to change but it must be applied with mercy, Pope Francis has said.” Mercy to what?
Translation:
“Waffle, waffle, tap dance, meaningless churchy sounding words. Does that answer your question?”
//
You don’t happen to go by “Pope” in your daily life (I hope), do you, Francis?
Not one bit…
Does anyone remember the outcry in the 90s when Sinead O’Connor ripped up a picture of Pope JP on SNL & said “fight the real evil”? She was on to something. I remember loving it, talking about it & being met with shock that I supported it: “she shouldn’t talk about the Pope like that”, some said “She should write a letter to him if she has a problem with him”. LOL At least we’re ahead in our more open criticisms. I thank the efforts of the New Atheists for that!
I recall the incident with Sinead and despite the surprising (for me), backlash it worked for her and those that ‘got it’. Everyone has their own style. Many were so offended they couldn’t focus on work, I had to close the door to my office. Is New Atheism like New Age? Been around for ages just rejuvenated and newly discovered?
I heard that there were massive amounts of weapons of destruction in Iraq a while back, too.
Just to clarify a point, which is in itself kind of pointless, the Roman Church has never technically tried to hide or downplay pedophilia. The argument, since well before Henry II of England, has been that secular law could not be applied to clerical situations. The clergy of the Catholic church has from the first been responsible only to its canon law and courts. This court’s absolute failure to manage almost any transgression is another matter. There is also the problem of recruitment,as with police and the military, tends to attract personalities that lend themselves best to employment that brings out their worst.
You can’t be serious. Part of what makes this scandal so infuriating is the face-saving covering-up the church has tried to do, rather than conscientiously and forthrightly dealing with the criminals in its employ.
Number of alleged sex abusers greater than archdiocese admits.
Scandal it is indeed, and disgusting. But the Stance of the Catholic church has always been that they and only they police their own (obviously not vary well.) It very similar to the military and its court system. The clergy and the military both hold themselves to judgement by a different authority than secular courts.
Yes, and this is the (well, a big) problem. In their little world they judge raping of children to be a matter of sin. They think god is sad when you do such things but if you go tell another fellow with a collar about it all is forgiven. Jesus is nice that way.
The rest of us recognize a crime as a crime.
Sadly, I wish that pedophilia was the worst sin committed by the Church.
Who gives a tinker’s damn about sins? I’ve got zero interest in how offended their god is.
But, yes. There are a lot of dead and dying people in Africa who were told by their priests that condoms cause AIDS. There are lots of crimes.
I did not mean ‘sin’ in religious terms, but as a synonym for criminal or misbehavior.
One gets the impression that if you asked where the victims fit into their equation, they’d look puzzled and say: “victims?”
Yes, the RCC has tried an in-house approach with these crimes/criminals.
Where you’re mistaken is in claiming that “the Roman Church has never technically tried to hide or downplay pedophilia.” They sure as shootin’ have.
In modern times the Church cannot hide its doings as well as it has in the past. But they still see it not so much as a ‘cover up’ as the stance that ‘what the clergy does is no business of anyone but the Ecclesiastic courts.’
No. I’m not defining “dealing with it in-house” as “covering up”.
The RCC has simply engaged in regular-old-what-everyone-understands-by-the-term cover-up.
Did you read the article I linked? When told to provide names of priests on whom they had info, the archdiocese of Minneapolis/St. Paul turned in less than half the names of oriests on whom they had info. That is a full-on regular old cover-up. Lying to the authorities. It was not a matter of weird ideas about jurisdiction, it was a face-saving attempt. Their priority was their image, not justice, in-house or otherwise.
Lisa, I think that is a distinction without a difference.
The burglar says he isn’t stealing, he’s just liberating that HD TV system.
lisa, I feel for you, you’re clearly have some (previous) affections to Catholicism, and you show some internal views of catholicism which I can relate too.
Yes, the church see these things differently, they are wrong of course. A lot of pastors who themselves did nothing like these (I believe including pope Francis) felt prosecuted unfairly. Maybe personally, but, for those represent the organization (church), that is not the wise, or even proper response.
And I noticed sadly your comment that these pedos are not the worst of their sins, care to elaborate here?.
The sins of the RCC began once they gained enough power and influence to interfere with world politics. The examples are many; we could start with the crusades and the damage done there. And there was the persecution of witches. (Witchcraft, or at least the remnants of the Old Religion, such as divination and the village ‘wise women’ that practiced herbal medicine, etc., was tolerated by the Church until the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th.) It is accepted by most historians that the witch hunts that resulted in large scale murder and the mass extermination of cats as ‘Satan’s servants’, which then lead to the rapid increase in rat populations were largely responsible for the severity of the devastating plagues of the 14th century. (But the Protestant religions took over the witch hunting and perfected it.) Then there was the Inquisition (except for the Spanish Inquisition which operated separately and was for the most part political.) I don’t suppose that the Church can really take the brunt of the blame for the near genocide of the indigenous peoples of Middle and South Americas, but they helped. There are also the religious wars in France in the 16th and 17th centuries. There are a lot of others. To my mind though, in the present, the sin almost on par with the RCC’s tenacious hold on the concept that their clergy is subject only to Ecclesiastical courts, is their policy that when priests and bishops are tried in secular courts (both criminal and civil), any fines or damages are the responsibility of the individual parishes and must be paid from the tithes of the parishioners, with no claim to the vast wealth of the Vatican.
“The clergy and the military both hold themselves to judgement by a different authority than secular courts.”
As regards the U.S. military (in which I served four years active and four years reserve duty), the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) obtains. Under the UCMJ, e.g., adultery is a punishable crime, which would seem to be a stiffer penalty then what obtains in civilian law/secular courts. One can’t quit his job, can’t call a superior officer a jerk or worse, without significant consequences. The U.S. Congress could do away with the UCMJ if it so chose, and let secular law prevail, eh?
What exactly are you saying about the UCMJ here, Filippo?
I guess one thing I’m saying is that the military, not being a democracy of course, has its own justice system so as to be that much more empowered to put the squeeze on human beings (just in case that “Dugout Doug” MacArthur “duty, honor, country” thang doesn’t work). Why else does it exist? Exactly why isn’t civilian law sufficient? Again, the U.S. congress could do away with the UCMJ if it so desired.
Perhaps I can better answer your question if you tell me more about why you’re mentioning religious and military together, in commenting that they are separate from civilian, secular law. Do I correctly gather you think (and I agree) that religious and military law ought to be dissolved and all of us be subject to the same common civilian secular law?
However despicable adultery may be, it is not (now) a crime in civilian, secular law punishable by a prison sentence. Sexual abuse is apparently significantly rampant in the U.S. military, and authorities are cracking down on it. A U.S. army brigadier general is currently being court-martialed for alleged adultery and sexual abuse. If there is sexual abuse, he should be severely punished. But adultery and/or sex between two consenting adults a crime? And if I heard correctly, under the UCMJ, a possible penalty (for the sexual abuse, and not the adultery, I assume) is life in prison. If that is warrantable under the UCMJ, why not under civilian law?
(On the other hand, didn’t the investor/swindler Madoff get life plus 20-40 years for his swindling billions? Whereas, murderers can be paroled in 20-40 years?)
Gotta rush.
OK, I thought that was your point, esp. given the adultery example. Just wanted to be sure I wasn’t misreading you and you weren’t actually touting the UCMJ–if so, I was going to throw the rampant sexual abuse and rape stats and lack of action on same back at you. I see that isn’t necessary. 🙂
BTW, it was Lisa, not I, who brought up the military (& whom you quoted), but I certainly agree with your conclusion, “that religious and military law ought to be dissolved and all of us be subject to the same common civilian secular law?”
IMO if you are in a country (or state), you should be subject to its laws and held accountable in its courts; everyone held to the same laws and standards.
Funny that the Church hasn’t kept this guy out of secular courts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Vitale
Then again, he’s not an embarrassment, which is what that argument is really about. The Church reserves the right to hide it’s dirty laundry.
I was never fooled by any of Bergoglio’s actions. For instance when he made his famous statement on homosexuality, I did not understand why people were excited by it, as I immediately saw Bergoglio was not stating something else than was already the official position. A wolf in sheep’s clothes, Betgoglio had been and still is.
“And who else was supposed to be attacked?”
Unfortunately Jerry, quite a few other institutions have had to be attacked – which rather gives the lie to the Pope’s “yet it was the only institution to have been attacked.” The Catholic Church’s “comparative advantage” in all this is the worldwide scale of its activities but it isn’t the only player – actually if he was infallible I thought he might have known that.
Indeed. As if Catholic priests are the only individuals who’ve ever faced pedophilia charges.
It’s pretty ridiculous that the pope and other Catholic spokespeople think they can simultaneously play the “no fair holding us to a higher standard” card and claim to be the very conduit of god-given morality.
Fair? The Roman Catholic Church is the definition of unfair.
As a victim of this morally bankrupt organization I found those comments deeply offensive. I’ve said since his appointment that this guy was just the church’s newest PR guy and that people need top leave these idiots in their dark history where they belong.
Pope Francis: grave robber
This is not only untrue, its so obviously untrue that I’m amazed they think anyone could believe it.
Pretty much every public school teacher in the US and many other western countries is a mandated reporter. When they find evidence of abuse, they are legally required to report it to the police. THAT, Pope Francis, is what “doing more” looks like. Enacting a policy that tells priests to go to the RCC first if they suspect abuse, and not to go to the police? That is intentionally and purposefully choosing to do less.
…something about a leopard changing its spots??
The only thing more disgusting is the fact that catholic believers will treat this nonsense to treat as revealed truth and use it as an argument in defense of the Church’s practices.
Just another … well, you know the rest.
/@
Damn…beat me to it by five minutes….
b&
I don’t think I can put it any better than our good hero, Tim Minchin, did:
Cheers,
b&
Christianity is one of the world’s most harmful faiths? I’ll stack it against atheism any day.
Oh, really? Atheism is harmful? Who kills children with faith healing? Not atheists. Who murders OB/GYNs? Not atheists. Who puts children in polygamous marriage compounds in Texas? Not atheists. Who killed Protestants/Catholics in N. Ireland simply for being Protestant/Catholic? Not atheists. Branching out: Who flies airplanes into buildings? Not atheists.
So when atheists take immoral actions such as these, we can blame atheism for their actions too, right? Cool, just making sure.
Absolutely!
If only, for example, Stalin had abandoned his atheism and become a theist by embracing the principles taught to us by Quetzalcoatl, Russia would have been spared the human sacrifices.
…wait, what?
You mean you don’t actually know what atheism is?
b&
Immoral actions such as….the ones you make up in your head to slander people that threaten to expose your fairy tales?
Except atheism isn’t a faith, just like how illiteracy isn’t a written language.
Oh yeah, you clearly came to this blog because you have a lot of confidence in your religion.
Lol.
I left out the most important one: Who exacerbates the HIV epidemic in Africa by obstruction of condom distribution? NOT atheists.
If religion were a net benefit to humanity, religion would take the lead in rooting out child abuse, within the church and without. Do we see any attempt at a solution coming from religion? No. They barely/don’t contain the damage when a priest or youth pastor is outed for child abuse. And you know how the saying goes, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” Religion is the problem.
I wonder what the rates of abuse are in Secular US Government school system compared to Chatholic Schools?
I Know there are a few cases of abuse but, statistically what are the comparisons? (I know it’s hard to calculate because Catholic church has covered up suppressed information etc…)
“Pope Francis has strongly defended the Roman Catholic Church’s record on tackling sexual abuse by priests.”
Just what bloody circumstances would have to obtain to prompt the Pope to deign to utter the word “rape” instead of “abuse”?
(A point well-made by Hitch, I believe in a debate when he was teamed with A.C. Grayling and Dawkins.)
I read an article by a reporter on the religious beat who was actually considering becoming a Papist.
He had read of the rapes, couched as they were in soft, neutral language like abuse.
What’s the rumpus over some inappropriate behaviour or overtures? wonders he.
He does a wee digging and finds victim impact statements where rape isn’t a strong enough word.
He now questions faith and the deference these crimes have garnered from the liberal media.
I got into a tussle with some skeptical believers and their shruggies. After the Argument from STFU and much highland dancing, they float the “it’s all about love and forgiveness anyway” trope.
This group is fond of asking questions of wooligans and demanding honest answers.
So I asked if anyone would forgive the priest who caused their 3 yr-old to bury his bloody underwear at the back of his closet on the pain of hell if he squeals or the professional friend of doG who deflowered your wee daughter with the magic water shaker.
Crickets chirp happily
I recommend anyone with an interest in the subject to watch Frontline’s Secrets of the Vatican. It is illuminating. The corruption of the Church is profound. And you get some insight into why the previous pope retired.
Of the three main divisions of Christendom – Roman Catholic, Protestant, (Eastern?) Orthodox – I perceive Orthodox the least discussed/understood by the average USer. Is Orthodox as (or more?) authoritarian than the other two?
Catholicism is in a cultural quandary nowadays. Their ancient culture they had been living for thousand of years, which is a kind of benign feudalism: say your rituals, know your standing, act accordingly, the royals will protect / persecute you in mysterious ways — is no longer adequate.
Of course, Islam or other religions are even in worse positions. But the difference is in their response to it. Others flatly denied it (read fundies, xtians or moslems) – RCC tries to understand, and reconcile – something like embrace-and-extend, initially denies then take initiative and bend (like what Microsoft always did in softwares).
That gave the feeling of arrogance from the outside, and feeling of unfair persecutions from the inside — -and that’s what Francis meant by “doing more than everybody else”.
It is a culture war, and of course I am in the side of the righteousness, having been touched by the Great Noodliness 😀 — but RCC is not worse than fundie-islam or fundie-xtians or fundie-generales.
They are smug and annoying (and used to be rich and controlling), like the old king-of-the-hills that goes bankrupt.
Say what we will about them, they are not supposed to be respectable, but they are not the worst of the worst in the vast realm of Religionistan ..
cheers.
They are AFAIK one of the few sects that have organized raping and else abusing children, and on an unprecedented scale. (FWIW, in Spain and some other nations they have even been accused of child trade right out of maternity wards. But that is an open case.)
So no, they are absolutely “the worst of the worst” of all sects.
No one else has done more to curb paedophilia?!!
The Pope must be on dope.
The pope must be *a* dope.
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It is the new “rope-a-pope” media slugger trick. They hang themselves.
I can’t believe a pope would say that. The issue of child rape is enraging, as in round up the priests for a grand auto-da-fé at the Vatican enraging. That would be doing more.
I thought the new pope was more savvy than that. These are the words of an imbecile.
When you remember who picks the pope and the pool he’s picked from, it should be blindingly obvious why he’s no different from all the others.
It might also help to remember that every new pope is hailed as the revolutionary new savior of the Church.
Regardless, it’s basically guaranteed that the rest of the cardinals have dirt on Francis or else they wouldn’t have a way to keep him in check. That’s how it works in organized crime. Honestly, I’d be most surprised if that dirt had nothing to do with child rape, especially seeing how it’s one of the leadership’s favorite perks.
b&
I was giving him a little time to do something worthwhile (contraception and gays come to mind). And now he has blown it – just another Papa….. Perhaps having been with the upper Firm for a year, he has been fully inculcated.
I have a very close relative who was abused as a young girl (14) by a priest. It was made to be her fault when it blew open. When she was 16, yet another priest again abused her. She is now almost 80 and I can see traces of this trauma permeating her entire life.
This has been going on for centuries, millennia really.
Women who have tried to become Catholic priests have been excommunicated. Priests who have raped children have not.
Jerry Sandusky is wishing he’d been a priest…
A few weeks ago, this appeared: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/17/pope-benedict-defrocked-400-priests-child-abuse. Question for Francis: why were they not referred to the relevant police force?
Around the same time came the announcement that Francis was to set up “Church courts” to deal with priestly child rape. Same question: why not the police?
Exactly!
This is appalling:
Ratzinger is the highest in hierarchy of that sect, before he was elected leader but as he was responsible for its pedophilia strategy, to be on record as facilitating its pedophilia ring. It is also likely why he is still hiding under the faux “citizen immunity” of the Vatican.
It´s disgusting.
The problem is that intelligent, educated, otherwise moral and good people are lying, making excuses, trivializing, negating the fucking obvious, all to protect their beloved church because the church must continue! the church must continue! Anything will be done….but the fucking church must continue at all costs.
I despise this rotten institution and everything it represents, but most of all, i despise with the fury of a thousand suns what it does to good people and the depths to which it sunks them in order to prevail.
Wouldn’t (sort-of) voluntary (sort-of) celibacy be classified as a deviancy by the overwhelming majority of people?
I was amazed at the numbers of people posting on Daily Kos who wrote diaries or comments praising Francis who also claimed to be atheists. After awhile I got tired of it and called them out on it. I’m glad Francis busted out of the shell his PR handlers put him in and showed his true colors. It was only a matter of time and it didn’t take that long. I’m sure all these media experts they hired are now scrambling to undo the damage of thei interview. One effort appears to be the attempt by the Vatican to re-write history in Argentina on Betoglio’s anti-gay stances. Lies lies and lies. All from the master institution of lying. When will the world wake up and stop being used by the RCC??
Has it occurred to anyone else that many priests joined the church simply so they could abuse children with impunity, as they could until recently. I feel sure that they did not become priests then decided that paedophilia was the way to go.
Why does the Vatican still have state sovereignty again? Friggin Mussolini granted them sovereignty, why don’t we correct yet another international mistake and strip them of sovereignty?
Then it would be 1000 times easier to prosecute them for crimes against humanity
How would the Vatican be effectively stripped of that status? Since the government of Italy, such as it was, granted it, shall the government of Italy, such as it is, revoke it? Or shall the United Nations? And will that be met with religioso opposition from whatever source? Shall Bill Donohue and his ilk have a lower GI hemorrhage as a result?
Not sure whether the government even can revoke the Vatican’s sovereignty at this point, but efforts by Italian humanist associations have focused on repealing the Concordate between church and state.
As an example (in Italian): http://www.change.org/concordato
The problem was never that paedophile (and otherwise abusive) clergy exist. Sick people exist in all walks of life both in and outside of the clergy.
The problem was that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church colluded for decades to protect their reputation by hiding and moving these monsters with the full knowledge that others were being harmed by their shameful actions. The failing of the church was the complicity of the senior clergy in the violent sexual abuse of the weakest and most vulnerable. It was not simple inaction, or ignorance. It was a criminal conspiracy involving bishops (and higher) in covering up sexual violence and protecting predatory, violent offenders in order to preserve the outward appearance of the church.
[The Pope said] “no-one else has done more”
The church did nothing until they were caught with their pants (literally and figuratively) down. They claim moral authority yet their actions in hiding rapists, suspiciously moving assets out of the reach of victims’ compensation funds, blocking transparency lawsuits and so on, speak louder than their words.
Sick people exist in all walks of life. But the Catholic Church harbors a much higher percent of pedophile clergy than other religions do. There is a reason for this and it is wound up in the bizarre insistence on celibacy mixed with a hefty dose of secrecy and fetishized obedience. It is a recipe for horrors.
How any decent people continue to support this institution is something I simply do not understand. It is a testament to the human mind’s ability to partition things, I suppose.