BishopAccountability.org
	The Devil Could Not Have Been Happier By Chege Mbitiru Sunday Nation April 4, 2010 http://www.nation.co.ke/News/world/The%20Devil%20could%20not%20have%20been%20happier%20/-/1068/892950/-/140hnps/-/ KENYA -- For the Devil, Happy Easter is here. His infiltration of the Catholic Church's righteous bureaucratic bungling dominates the season. Worse, allegations of sins of commission and omission go to Pope Benedict XVI's citadel. In some quarters, hitherto unimaginable question arise: While a pope can resign, how do you get rid of one? No wonder the pope, bishops, and archbishops, especially in Europe and North America, have been generous with "sympathy," "anger," "shame," "apologies," et al. Sexual abuse of minors, especially by priests, is at the core of the current furore, some would say crisis. Civilian courts have found evidence and meted justice. Media reports say dioceses in the United States have compensated victims with $2 billion and in Ireland with a half that. Some dioceses, especially in the United States, have filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying compensation. It isn't news that for centuries claimers of piety have left the straight and narrow on matters sex. However, beginning with the reign of John Paul II floodgates of alleged sexual abuse victims in the Catholic Church opened. Why? That's another story. Meanwhile, a major problem became evident. While priest succumbed to temptations, bishops and archbishops covered it up. It wasn't entirely their fault. The tradition is the clergy's transgressions remain internal affair. Besides, conventionally, criminal priests remain oxymoron. Pope Benedict's problem is that the media has dragged him into the cover-up. It goes back to his days as Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich and follows him to Rome as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the enforcer of Catholic righteousness. In Munich, he allegedly ignored a memo allowing return to pastoral duties of a priest convicted of paedophile and determined as unfit by a psychiatrist. While the top cop in Rome he allegedly looked the other way from a Milwaukee, USA, priest suspected of molesting up to 200 deaf boys continuing with pastoral duties. In the Pope's defence, the Munich diocese says the archbishop may have missed the memo. After all, his office received 700 to 1,000 annually. As Ms Maureen Dowd of The New York Times pointed out, that's two to three a day. Who is kidding? As for the Milwaukee case, the diocese says church official and civil authorities made mistakes, not the Vatican. The Vatican can be a long way, sometime. That sins of commission and omissions might have occurred isn't an issue. That's inevitable in a paternalistic, bureaucratic organization fuelled by faith and dominated, incredibly, by an infallible human being. What is questionable though is then Cardinal Ratzinger's 2001 directive that bishops secretly report sex crimes to the Vatican. Implicit: "Don't tell the cops" even it they are Catholic. Yet, the directive came when it's acknowledged sexual molestation of any kind is a crime. Talk of obstruction of justice! The Catholic faithful might feel overweighed with the assault on the Church and Pope Benedict. They need not. Their faith isn't at issue. Bungling by the church hierarchy is. In any case, the faith wouldn't vanish were priests, nuns, all the way to the Pope, bungled to antiquity, nor will the believers' efforts to deny the Devil another Happy Easter. Contact: cmbitiru@hotmail.com
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