"Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in." I know exactly how Michael Corleone feels. Each new article about how the Catholic Church is reinvigorating its efforts to get past the sexual abuse scandals reminds me that we have heard it all before. Whether the newest revelation occurs in Germany, France, the U.S. or Belgium the plot remains the same. Some Cardinal is forced into a public statement regarding new details of abuse by the priests in his diocese. The prelate is, of course, dismayed (he can hardly be shocked). New safeguards are promised, new apologies are made,victims are consoled. No one thinks it ironic that the consolation comes from the same source as the abuse.
The Vatican has depleted its supply of sackcloth and ashes. All the hair shirts have been distributed. We all know how very sorry you are. Tragically however the remedies remain half hearted and still smell of an incense-ladened cover-up. The Catholic Church in the person of his Holliless the Pope is still praying night and day that this sorry mess just goes away. Praying is all they have left. Blaming the media didn't work. Painting the Church in America as an isolated cauldron of sin failed miserably as Germany, Ireland and now Belgium exploded in the press. The clerical spin-doctors in Rome have blamed everyone short of Pontius Pilate for the consistent, pervasive, systemic patterns of sexual abuse inside the Roman Catholic Church. The time for blame is over. Fix it.
There is only one way to get passed this tragedy: call the cops. The Church in Rome has continually dodged the simple remedy of treating their abusive priests as the criminals they are. The Church wants to protect them as though the transgression was akin to stealing from the poor box or being drunk during Mass. The Holy See has attempted to enforce a statute of limitations on older cases hoping to leave adult victims without remedy. If Catholicism ever expects to restore any shred of moral superiority to its institutions, they must prosecute each and every verifiable case of abuse. Period. Anything less makes a mockery of the entire concept of organized religion.
No one should care if Rome continues to refuse ordination to married men or to women. If the Vatican wishes to see itself become extinct while clinging to out-moded traditions, so what? There is no shortage of churches to absorb the faithful. God will still be God. However, Rome must clean house. Any priest found guilty of abusing a child must be defrocked immediately and publicly. The time for "handling these things "in-house" has passed.Think Spanish Inquisition only without the rack.
By the way, just to show that Pope Benedict XVI hasn't lost his comic touch, attend the tale of his recent trip to the UK. While touring in England the Pope announced the beatification of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a former Anglican priest and scholar who lived in the nineteenth century and converted to Catholicism. Cardinal Newman believed that the Church of England and the Church of Rome should reunite. Considering the thousands of Protestants barbecued during an earlier attempt at reunification this was not an especially popular notion. Also, Benedict had previously proclaimed that Popes should not participate in the beatification process. Apparently the Pope chose to break his own edict in order to poke a finger in the eye of the country in which he was a guest. Smooth.
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