French church
So the Pope is sad. Really?
The Pope could put a stop to sexual abuse by clergy if he wanted to. ...
He could make it necessary for all clergy who become aware of abuse to go to the civil authorities and report it. He won't. (Pope mandates reporting of sex abuse to church, not police)
The Pope could make confessions from priests to other priests about their abusive acts free from the secrecy of confession so it could be reported. He won't. (Vatican Hits Back at Attempts to Break Confession Secrecy)
The Pope could fire - totally sever from the church - every priest who is known to have abused someone. He won't. (The Catholic Church Is Reinstating Priests Accused of Sexual Abuse)
The Pope could allow married people to be priests, he could allow women to be priests. That would vastly diminish the ability for the f*cked-up creeps who now populate the Catholic priesthood to get away with their abuse, and it would vastly diminish the number of those creeps in the priesthood. He won't. (Pope Francis Won't Allow Married Men As Priests, Women As Deacons)
So I don't actually believe that the Pope feels "sorrow" about the children who are being raped by his priests.
And the depressing thing is, most of the people who identify as Catholic don't care either. If they did, they would make the chuch change or they would leave. They won't.
posted by crystal | 10:15 PM
2 Comments:
Here, at least, priests and anyone who works for the church or are volunteers are mandatory reporters; that is they are required by both state law and church rules to report instances or allegations of abuse to civil authorities. I think the reason that is not a blanket rule by the Vatican is that some governments are corrupt and/or authoritarian (think China or Myanmar, etc.) and are not trusted by victims.
I agree that opening the priesthood to married men or women would widen the pool of candidates and attract more psychologically healthy people.
I wonder what happens in other countries in international corporations when one worker knows another broke the law. Just reporting that fact to the company instead of the police, especially when the leaders of the corporation have been shown to have covered up crimes, seems criminal itself. I don't trust the church's excuse on that ... they could have a crave-out for countries where the governments are dangerous, but that leaves most of the world where they could report to authorities.
Post a Comment
<< Home