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	Pope's Pastoral Letter Apology May Fall Short Richmark Sentinel March 20, 2010 http://www.therichmarksentinel.com/rs_headlines.asp?recid=4191 Pope Benedict XVI in terms of a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, Saturday, expressed "shame and remorse" for episodes of child sex abuse, while acknowledging the sense of betrayal in the Church that victims and their families must have felt. The letter is the first public statement of its kind in decades issued by the Vatican on the sexual abuse of children. He went on to confirm that "serious mistakes" had been made by Irish bishops in responding to allegations and that priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse "must answer" for their crimes "before properly constituted tribunals." "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," he said to the victims of the abuse while offering to meet with victims. He then turned to the offenders whom he said must openly acknowledge their guilt, submit themselves to the demands of justice, but not to despair of God's mercy. In this regard he announced a mission to Irish dioceses rocked by sex scandals to assist "the local Church on their path to renewal. He admonished Irish bishops who had "failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of Canon law for the crime of child abuse." Predominantly Catholic Ireland has been shocked by three judicial reports in the last five years revealing ill-treatment, abuse and cruelty by clerics and a cover-up of their activities by church authorities. The latest revelations, compounded by evidence of a cover-up by the church hierarchy, shook Ireland late last year. A leading victims group 'One in Four' called upon the Pope to apologise to Irish sex abuse victims and admit that the Catholic church abused its power and deliberately covered up the activities of pedophile priests. That the Pope must say "clearly and unequivocally" that the church "at the highest levels" had always known about the clerical sexual abuse of children. Pope Benedict while calling for healing, reparation and renewal in the Irish church essentially through more prayer did not call upon Bishops to resign which will cause continuing consternation in a few quarters. Many feel that the Pope is a part of the problem while others suggest that he does not go far enough in addressing an issue which has rocked the Catholic Church worldwide. In this regard they point to an alleged incident in Germany in 1979, where an 11-year-old German boy was sexually abused by a priest after being given alcohol. The offender was sent by the then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger to Munich for "therapy", having given assurances that he would no longer be allowed children in his care. But the offender was returned to duty with children by the Pope's deputy at that time Vicar General Gerhard Gruber with the result that he began sexual assaulting again. The suggestions that the Pope was unaware of this have been met with no-little scepticism. In addition as a cardinal, the Pope was put in charge of the "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith". In 2001 his predecessor Pope John Paul II charged them to investigate child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, the Pope issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In terms whereof he reminded them of the extreme gravity of reporting rape and torture outside of the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. As such there are question marks over Pope Benedict XVI in terms of dealing decisively with this scandal. A scandal which has rocked the Church around the world as this summary from the BBC highlights : IRELAND Two major reports into allegations of paedophilia among Irish clergy last year revealed the shocking extent of abuse, cover-ups and hierarchical failings involving thousands of victims, and stretching back decades. In one, four Dublin archbishops were found to have effectively turned a blind eye to cases of abuse from 1975 to 2004. The Dublin archdiocese, it said, operated in a culture of concealment, placing the integrity of its institutions above the welfare of the children in its care. In the wake of the report, four bishops resigned and the entire Irish hierarchy was summoned to the Vatican to give an account of themselves in person before the Pope. Six months earlier, another report - the result of a nine-year investigation - documented some six decades of physical , sexual and emotional abuse at residential institutions run by 18 religious orders. With the Church still reeling from the reports' findings, a fresh scandal erupted in March 2010 when it emerged the head of the Irish Catholic Church, Cardinal Sean Brady, was present at meetings in 1975 where children signed vows of silence over complaints against a paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth. Cardinal Brady resisted calls to resign and issued an apology . UNITED STATES Over the past two decades, the Roman Catholic Church in the US - with the archdiocese of Boston in particular - has been embroiled in a series of child sex scandals. There was public outrage after abuses in the 1990s by two Boston priests, Paul Shanley and John Geoghan , came to light, with suspicions that Church leaders had sought to cover up their crimes by moving them from post to post. In 2002 the then-Pope John Paul II called an emergency meeting with US cardinals, but allegations continued to emerge. Despite an apology and pledge to take a tougher line, Archbishop Bernard Law resigned over the scandal at the end of the year. In September 2003, the Boston archdiocese - the fourth-largest in the US - agreed to pay $85m to settle more than 500 civil suits accusing priests of sexual abuse and church officials of concealment. A report commissioned by the Church the following year said more than 4,000 US Roman Catholic priests had faced sexual abuse allegations in the last 50 years, in cases involving more than 10,000 children - mostly boys. A series of huge payouts has been made by US diocese to alleged victims of abuse - the largest being some $660m from the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 2007. During a tour of the US in 2008, the Pope met privately with victims of abuse by priests and spoke of " the pain and the harm inflicted by the sexual abuse of minors". GERMANY Since the start of 2010, at least 300 people have made allegations of sexual or physical abuse by priests across the Pope's home country. Claims are being investigated in 18 of Germany's 27 Roman Catholic dioceses. Accusations include the abuse of more than 170 children by priests at Jesuit schools, three Catholic schools in Bavaria, and within the Regensburg Domspatzen school boys' choir that was directed for 30 years by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the Pope's brother. In March, Father Peter Hullermann , who was convicted of molesting boys during his time in the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, was suspended from his duties after breaching a ban on working with children. Days earlier, the Pope's former diocese said Benedict had unwittingly approved housing for Fr Hullermann when serving as archbishop of Munich; the Vatican denounced what it called "aggressive" efforts to link the Pope to the scandal. NETHERLANDS In March 2010, Dutch bishops ordered an independent inquiry into more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests, in addition to three cases dating from 1950 to 1970. Allegations first centred on Don Rua monastery school in the eastern Netherlands, with people saying they were abused by Catholic priests in the 1960s and 70s. This prompted dozens more alleged victims from other institutions to come forward. AUSTRIA A series of claims of sexual abuse by priests has emerged in the Vorarlberg region. Some 16 people have reported 27 alleged incidents there, spanning half a century. Ten children are also alleged to have been abused at a monastery in Mehrerau in the 1970s and early 80s. Meanwhile five priests at a monastery in Kremsmuenster in Upper Austria have been suspended after complaints of sexual and physical abuse of boys there. Separately, the head of a Salzburg monastery, Bruno Becker, resigned after confessing to having abused a boy 40 years ago, when he was a monk. SWITZERLAND A commission set up by the Swiss Bishops Conference in 2002 has been investigating allegations of abuse involving the Catholic Church there. A member of the commission, Abbot Martin Werlen, said in a newspaper interview this month that about 60 people have said they were abused by Catholic priests. The alleged incidents are reported to have occurred over the past 15 years. Observation The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church with more than a billion members. This loyalty and devotion merits a material response to a scandal that has been ongoing for decades if not longer. The Pope cannot - as he did when he was still a cardinal - try to bury it within the church and pray for it to go away. He needs decisive action with assistence from secular organisations who deal with these crimes. He owes that to his followers.
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