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So, the Pope's published the pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland. It's an amazing piece of blame-shifting, and I recommend to you Natural20's analysis of the letter, with further commentary by Sciamanna. A hearty dose of "what they said".
Now, I'm an Anglican. Anglican, not Church of England, because I was baptised in the Church of Ireland, which is a separate and autonomous province within the Anglican Communion. It's clear that I am not likely to look upon the doings of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland with an entirely unjaundiced eye. However, I remember reading about this pattern of cover-up gradually coming to light in Canada -- in the 1980s. It was the same story that's become so familiar since, from one country to the next; the victims and their families sworn to secrecy on pain of excommunication, the rapists quietly moved on to another parish when it became too difficult to keep the lid on rumour.
And Ratzinger has the damnable cheek to blame this on a mix of secularisation and Vatican II?
I mean that damnable quite literally. This is not the product of the liberals within and without the church having some sway. It is entirely the opposite. It is the product of a hierarchy obsessed with its own status and power doing anything, anything, to preserve their grip on authority. These cases run back to at least the 1950s in Ireland, and that's the ones we know about. Don't try blaming Vatican II for that. Vatican II tried to tackle the mindset that leads to cover-up. The organisational crime here is simple and obvious -- it is that of putting image before substance, of clinging to earthly pomp and power rather than easing suffering that was well within their power to mend at least a little. There are one or two Biblical verses on that subject, though they seem to have slipped the memory of those involved.
No organisation can entirely eradicate those within its structure who will abuse the power given them by their position. It would not be fair to blame a church simply for having abusers within its ranks. What a church can be blamed for is the way it handles cases that come to light. And the handling here was utterly amoral.
I can understand a church trying to hush things up out of embarrassment. I might not approve of a church simply removing an abuser from contact with those he is likely to abuse, but I can understand and forgive an attempt to restrain him within the confines of the organisation rather than without. But what the Roman Catholic Church did was not restrain such men, but actively enable them. Their victims were silenced by threats, they were provided with easy access to fresh prey. And this was not the work of one rogue diocese, but institutional policy, corrupt and criminally complicit from top to bottom.
And even now, the institutional reaction is to avoid accepting moral responsibility. As individuals, as an organisation. "I was only obeying orders." Benedict's letter is the closest I've seen any senior figure come to saying honestly, "We fucked up, big time, and we're sorry," and even he is using it to say that the answer to the problem is greater lay obedience to that very hierarchy that failed to protect the innocent.
They have no moral authority. They have shamed not just themselves, but those priests who have faithfully tried to keep God's word. There can be no trust where trust was so shamefully used, and honest priests will have to bear that burden now. And that too is a sin, if not so grievous a sin as the enabling of abuse, for there are many who have found comfort in religion who will now no longer have it.
Now, I'm an Anglican. Anglican, not Church of England, because I was baptised in the Church of Ireland, which is a separate and autonomous province within the Anglican Communion. It's clear that I am not likely to look upon the doings of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland with an entirely unjaundiced eye. However, I remember reading about this pattern of cover-up gradually coming to light in Canada -- in the 1980s. It was the same story that's become so familiar since, from one country to the next; the victims and their families sworn to secrecy on pain of excommunication, the rapists quietly moved on to another parish when it became too difficult to keep the lid on rumour.
And Ratzinger has the damnable cheek to blame this on a mix of secularisation and Vatican II?
I mean that damnable quite literally. This is not the product of the liberals within and without the church having some sway. It is entirely the opposite. It is the product of a hierarchy obsessed with its own status and power doing anything, anything, to preserve their grip on authority. These cases run back to at least the 1950s in Ireland, and that's the ones we know about. Don't try blaming Vatican II for that. Vatican II tried to tackle the mindset that leads to cover-up. The organisational crime here is simple and obvious -- it is that of putting image before substance, of clinging to earthly pomp and power rather than easing suffering that was well within their power to mend at least a little. There are one or two Biblical verses on that subject, though they seem to have slipped the memory of those involved.
No organisation can entirely eradicate those within its structure who will abuse the power given them by their position. It would not be fair to blame a church simply for having abusers within its ranks. What a church can be blamed for is the way it handles cases that come to light. And the handling here was utterly amoral.
I can understand a church trying to hush things up out of embarrassment. I might not approve of a church simply removing an abuser from contact with those he is likely to abuse, but I can understand and forgive an attempt to restrain him within the confines of the organisation rather than without. But what the Roman Catholic Church did was not restrain such men, but actively enable them. Their victims were silenced by threats, they were provided with easy access to fresh prey. And this was not the work of one rogue diocese, but institutional policy, corrupt and criminally complicit from top to bottom.
And even now, the institutional reaction is to avoid accepting moral responsibility. As individuals, as an organisation. "I was only obeying orders." Benedict's letter is the closest I've seen any senior figure come to saying honestly, "We fucked up, big time, and we're sorry," and even he is using it to say that the answer to the problem is greater lay obedience to that very hierarchy that failed to protect the innocent.
They have no moral authority. They have shamed not just themselves, but those priests who have faithfully tried to keep God's word. There can be no trust where trust was so shamefully used, and honest priests will have to bear that burden now. And that too is a sin, if not so grievous a sin as the enabling of abuse, for there are many who have found comfort in religion who will now no longer have it.