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  Catholic Church Needs to Get Grip on Reality

By Paul Schneidereitr
The Chronicle-Herald
April 6, 2010

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Columnists/1175697.html

When you believe, absolutely, that God is on your side, and those who criticize you are inspired by the devil, your capacity to rationalize is nearly unlimited.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church, especially the Vatican, represents a closed society whose leaders are accorded tremendous power and prestige. Like all such similar structures in human history, many of those on the inside intent on climbing the ladder to success are willing to protect their positions — and those of their colleagues — from external threats.

The Church is deservedly under fire for the worldwide sexual abuse of thousands of children, over decades if not longer, by its anointed priests, and for the equally monstrous failure of Church officials to remove offenders from any further contact with children as well as later attempts to deny or downplay what occurred.



People are rightly furious that a religious organization would coddle its own chosen "men of God" — think about that contradiction, in light of their crimes — who, ignoring the very moral code they preached to others, had preyed upon the most defenceless among us, simply to satisfy their own selfish sexual desires.

Yes, we hear apologies from the Church, expressions of regret, but not willingness to open up its massive files on offenders, everywhere they abused those in their care, to legal authorities so that the perpetrators can be punished.

Are priests deserving of some special latitude that laymen are not when it comes to the sexual abuse of minors? Enough with the equivocations. Those of the cloth guilty of such crimes should face the same secular justice as anyone else would.

The same goes for anyone — I don't care if they're a bishop, cardinal or whatever — who, by their actions, was complicit in the crimes of some priests.

In the last few days, we've witnessed just how bizarre the cloistered thinking of embattled Church insiders can get.

Last week, Pope Benedict's own preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, compared the unrelenting criticism of the Church in the sex abuse scandal to the "collective violence" Jews have faced in their history.

The parallel is worse than ridiculous. The Catholic Church is not being persecuted for its religious faith here, much less facing a Holocaust. Although Cantalamessa later apologized, that the comparison could be made speaks volumes.

Then we have the "noted" — according to the news report I read — Italian exorcist Gabriele Amorth, who days ago said the media's persistent questioning of Pope Benedict's role in the scandal was "prompted by the devil."

Apparently, the New York Times was specifically cited by Amorth, 85, for its underworld-inspired journalism.

I don't know about the devil's role in the media's reporting of this matter, but I do know that when literally tens of thousands of children have been sexually assaulted by Catholic priests for many years, and the Church knew but didn't aggressively remove offenders from the priesthood, that's a story with, as we say, legs — cloven-hoofed or not.

Finally, on Easter Sunday, at the crowded mass held at St. Peter's Square in Rome, the dean of the College of Cardinals, a senior figure in the Church, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, told the Pope that on his side were the "people of God" who aren't affected by the "petty gossip" of the Church's critics.

If this is the thinking of the Church's most senior officials, it's clear some — remarkably, still — just don't get it.

I recently watched an online ABC News report about evidence that the former Pope, John Paul II, was aware some of his most trusted officials faced serious allegations that they had been guilty of, or had known about but failed to stop, sexual abuses of children.

During the video, a clip showed the senior reporter trying, in 2002, to question then Cardinal Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict — about a certain case, as Ratzinger was then the Vatican's top morals enforcer.

Ratzinger declined to answer. Pressed again, the cardinal then reached out and slapped the top of the reporter's hand, as if admonishing him for having the temerity to continue to quiz a high Church official.

Ratzinger reportedly tried harder than many others to go after offenders, I'm not slagging him for that. I just found the slap so symbolic, a gesture of temper and entitlement from inside a cloistered world.

 
 

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