John Paul II can take the log out of his eye, and stick it up his ass.

The BBQ Pit
1

OK, now that I’ve got the rant out of the way in the thread title, down to business.

JPII has finally broken his silence about the RCC’s epidemic of pedophile priests, and “too little, too late” doesn’t begin to describe his response. It’s more like “nothing at all.”

There are at least two levels of sin going on here: there are the priests themselves, who molested children. Then there’s the work of the RCC hierarchy in covering up the priests’ actions, thereby enbabling those priests to continue their attacks on children, as well as not in any way discouraging others from doing the same.

The Pope’s statement did a whitewash on the first, and ignored the second altogether.

Here’s his statement:

It ain’t so much that a number of priests molested children that casts a “dark shadow of suspicion”, Karol my buddy, even though the numbers of priests involved, and the number of children they victimized, are both appalling.

It’s the certainty that both those numbers would have been a good deal smaller if you and your red-robed buddies hadn’t been covering up this whole nasty business for decades, rather than, early on, forcing the offending priests to own up to their sins before their congregations and ask forgiveness. That individual priests took advantage of children is evil; that the Church condoned the perpetuation of those acts in the name of covering its holy ass is a far greater evil.

So: the Pope ignored the role of the Church, as opposed to the individual priests, in this massive conspiracy of sin and silence. He also didn’t have any message of any kind for those who suffered at the hands (and other extremities) of these priests. Instead, he was concerned about the effect of this business on other priests, rather than the actual victims.

Karol Wojtyla, you’re scum. Why don’t you turn in your robes, and let someone who cares about his flock more than he cares about the hierarchy, be the Pope.

2

One of the Pope’s pet Cardinals, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, was trotted out in a Vatican news conference. (Same link.)

Funny, I thought the Church was supposed to be a light to the fallen and sinful world. Instead, it looks as if the Church’s line is now, “if we’re evil, it’s because we’re in an evil world. You can’t expect us to be any better than you are, folks.”

I’m trying to figure out how this differs from that old “The devil made me do it” comedy routine, but the only difference seems to be that this isn’t funny.

3

Of course, The 1940’s and 1950’swere the high points of Pansexualism and libertinism, especially in Ireland.
And I can trot these cites out all day.

4

This is just a nitpick, really, since I agree with everything you said, but the letter from which the Pope’s statements were taken was sent to priests only, as part of a pre-Easter address. It wasn’t meant to communicate with the victims.

5

I did kinda skip past that, I admit.

But it only makes it worse, when you think about it. Rather than communicating with the victims and their families - or even the larger class including them, which is to say the people in the pews - he addresses his own hierarchy.

6

While agreeing with you about the severity and extent of all this (together with the non-admitted culpability of the church hierarchy), isn’t there some way in which this can be viewed as a (partially) good thing (albeit that it hasn’t gone anywhere near far enough)?

For instance, in the link you cite, there are now calls for each of the 188 American dioceses to inaugurate a lay board to investigate any complaint of abuse. We’ve seen in so many institutions a complete inability to self-police; this sounds like it could be a step in the right direction.

7

The pope should just issue a decree that child molestation is now a sacrament or something. He’s infallible so every Catholic would have to accept it or be excommunicated.

Problem solved.

8

Except that those calls for lay boards didn’t come from the Pope or from the Church hierarchy. The magazine America is published by the Jesuits, who (although an RCC order) have been noted for not exactly toeing the party line.

So that’s better than if a lay Catholic organization called for such an investigation, but it’s still not something that came from the Pope, or anywhere close.

9

Small point, but isn’t it the police’s job to investigate complaints of abuse, not the church’s?

10

Yes, and quite frankly, the idea of lay investigative board is troubling. The implication is that the board will investigate the allegations and determine whether they have any merit, with the meritorious allegations being reported to the police.

And what, exactly, is a lay board’s qualifications to determine whether an allegation is meritorious? There is a pre-existing organization that does that - it’s called the “criminal justice system.” (And I’m not just talking about the courts - the police and district attorneys can review evidence and decide whether or not arrest or indictment is warranted.)

The RCC could save a mess of time and trouble by simply reporting allegations to the police. Seems kinda, well, obvious.

Sua

11

Point taken. I guess the thing I was trying to get across was that maybe (and it’s a loose maybe, I’ll grant you) the fact that the hierarchy are at least talking about it amongst themselves in a semi-public way might mean that the days of the issues being swept under the carpet are drawing to an end. Maybe not, I agree, but I see any public acknowledgement as a step in the right direction. A too-small step, perhaps, but the direction is right.

Yep. That really helps.

12

I think obfusciatrist was being facetious. His post certainly got a ::splort:: out of me.

I think it’s reasonable for the Church to undertake its own investigation in addition to that which the police do. But just like other citizens, whatever investigating arm the Church sets up has an obligation to report evidence of crimes to the police.

I would hope that an enterprising prosecutor somewhere would interview the molesting priests’ superiors - bishops and whatnot - to find out what they knew and when, with an eye to obstruction-of-justice and criminal conspiracy charges - the same sorta stuff they nailed the Watergate crew with.

13

Now a serious question from me:

What if child molesting priests simply admitted to it every day in confession? It is my understanding that the priest would not be allowed to go to the police with that information, and even if someone did it wouldn’t be allowable at trial.

Internally within the church, would it be permissable to punish or even act upon information given during confession by a fellow priest? (Yes, I am talking about the letter of the law interpretation.)

14

That’s a very interesting thought - and one that I’d certainly welcome. I guess they wouldn’t be forthcoming if the information was given to them under the seal of confession (and that’s a topic for a whole new debate, I reckon) but any other way, and they’ve definitely got an obligation to inform the police.

15

ob, you posted as I was composing. I think that a priest cannot be made to divulge anything told to him under the seal of confession, but I’ll have to go hunting for backup for that.

16

No good, RT. If the lay board investigates and determines that no crime has been committed, then they wouldn’t consider themselves to be under an obligation to report anything to the police. Of course, the police may look at the same evidence and decide that a crime was indeed committed.

Obviously, if a child accuses a priest of molesting him/her on Friday, the church should check obvious things, like whether the priest was in town on Friday, but beyond that, they should just report the accusation to the police and that’s it. If after they report it to the police, they want to conduct an investigation to determine what happened and whether the chuch’s procedures were adequate, fine, but only so long as they don’t interefere with the police investigation.

Sua

17

I agree with this. I don’t know who really should accept the blame for what has happened so far. Is each individual diocese responsible for sweeping the problem under the carpet? Or has there been an institutionalized method for dealing with these situations within the RCC?

It seems to me that anything they have tried so far has not solved any problems and in fact probably made things worse by continually moving priests with complaints around.

18

nitpick- if I’m remembering my theology correctly, that statement is not exactly true. the pope is only infallible when he is speaking
ex cathedra (from the chair.) it most certainly does not apply to anything and everything he says.

this post was provided for your edification. we return you now to your regularly scheduled rant, already in progress…

19

Doesn’t work like that. True, a priest can’t go to the police with information from a good confession. But someone who confesses a sin with every intention of doing it again hasn’t made a good confession–in fact, they haven’t made a confession at all. You have to truly regret ever doing it, and have every intention of doing your absolute darndest never to do it again. So just confessing it every day won’t get you “real” absolution, and the confession would be knowingly false on your part. Or so I was taught, anyway. Now, most of the time only the confessing party knows whether the confession is “good” or not, but in this case, I’d say your average parish priest would get a mite suspicious about someone who confessed such a thing daily.

But why wouldn’t it be allowed at trial? I seem to recall a case where a priest heard a confession in jail, which was taped and used at the person’s trial, which started a lawsuit about whether or not the taped confession was admissible, but I don’t recall how that came out, and I don’t see how that would be relevant to a case where a priest voluntarily brought such information to the authorities.

20

The priest-penitent relationship, like the lawyer-client relationship, is “privileged.” This is so people will not feel inhibited from confiding in their priests and lawyers. Society has made the judgment that even though a lawyer’s or a priest’s revealing such confidences might serve the truth in a particular case, it is systemically better to maintain them.