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  Society Must Speak out on Clergy's Abuse

By Pinky Khoabane
Times
March 14, 2010

http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article354007.ece

SOUTH AFRICA -- Pinky Khoabane: It's the type of ripple effect we have come to expect. One person reveals details of child sexual abuse at a school or a monastery and unravels a chain reaction that exposes years of abuse in that institution.

Whether it's in the Roman Catholic Church or at schools (even preschools, these days), the pattern is the same.

In the latest spate of sexual scandals to hit the Catholic Church in Europe, students at two boarding schools in Germany have accused the pope's elder brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, of sexual and physical abuse.

Pinky Khoabane

Ratzinger has acknowledged beating at least one child, but denies sexual abuse.

New cases of accusations are being revealed daily as victims expose abuses spanning more than two decades at the boarding schools, which one former student described as an "elaborate system of sadistic punishment combined with sexual lust", according to the German magazine Spiegel.

Revelations of other child sexual abuses have emerged in Ireland, Austria and the Netherlands in recent months.

In Ireland, a number of bishops had to resign following a government report that exposed the horrific and persistent scale of physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children at Catholic-run state schools and orphanages.

In Austria, the head of Salzburg monastery resigned this week after admitting to sexually abusing a boy more than 40 years ago.

The Vatican defended itself this week, choosing to commend the European churches for their "timely and decisive action".

Yeah, right! This, after tens of thousands of children have been abused in Catholic institutions for years. And how many of these decisive actions have we heard of and with what consequences for the abusers?

It also cautioned against focusing only on sexual abuse in the church, noting that abuse was a societal problem. "In Austria, 17 cases were found in the Catholic institutions while in the same period, 510 abuse cases were found in other areas," the Vatican said.

Like, hello! We know that, but we were hoping that your institution wouldn't be part of that society of abusers! The church should be a torchbearer of good morals.

What this church fails to grasp is that it isn't just about the abuse, but also about the hypocrisy of priests who project themselves as moral beacons while engaging in immoral, cruel and unlawful acts.

The litany of cases against Roman Catholic clergy requires a serious response from both the Vatican and society in general.

By the end of 2002, the Boston Archdiocese faced about 500 civil lawsuits from victims who were allegedly abused by the clergy there. The Boston Globe reported at the time that the archdiocese had agreed to pay a staggering $85-million to settle lawsuits.

Two years later, independent researchers commissioned by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a report detailing a total of 10667 cases of sexual abuses by Catholic priests in that country.

In 2008, Pope Benedict apologised for sexual abuses by priests, describing abuse as an evil act.

And last year, of course, there were the two reports against the Irish clergy, which showed the cover-up of abuses over years. In this case, more than 2000 children confessed to having suffered abuses while in the Catholic-run schools.

That the abuse was sanctioned at the highest level of the church is abominable. That the names of the perpetrators were protected and hence there wouldn't be criminal prosecutions is a travesty of justice.

The pope has given the clergy involved a public lashing and no doubt he will continue to do so with each scandal. However, history has shown that these "grave sins which offend God and wound the dignity of the human person created in his image", as a statement from the Vatican read following a crisis meeting between the pope and the Irish clergy, are not abating.

Instead of meeting the pope and having round table discussions with this one and that one, as they often do each time a sexual scandal is exposed, it's time the Roman Catholic Church reviewed its stance on celibacy.

It is also time society raised its voice in condemnation and outrage at the sexual abuses in the Roman Catholic Church.

I don't know much about what goes on in this church, but what I know for sure is that the notion of sexual abstinence has defeated these men of the cloth, hands down.

 
 

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