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	Serious Measures Taken: Fiore By Josh Campbell Leader-Post April 9, 2010 http://www.leaderpost.com/life/Serious+measures+taken+Fiore/2781467/story.html Father Ben Fiore sat in his Campion College office, somberly reflecting on the recent outbreak of abuse scandals plaguing the Catholic church. "I sympathize with (the victims)," said Fiore. "It's unfortunate that the media makes it sound like the abuse is still happening today." Fiore said that the current abuse scandals in Europe and those that surfaced in the United States in Canada in the past 10 years are the results of poor screening and support for priests from the 1970s into the 1990s. He said that new checks and balances are in place throughout the Canadian and American Catholic churches which have reduced the incidents of abuse in the past 10 years. "The Canadian church is taking serious measures to make sure the victims' needs are being addressed and that the priests are better trained. Priests now have to go through workshops on sexual abuse and how to prevent it," said Fiore. "It's ironic when you see the news, but one of the safest places that a kid can be is in the church context because of all the monitoring and regulations that are in place now so that abuse doesn't occur." Strict guidelines laid down for priests included not being alone with children in a non-visible closed room and no trips with less than three adult supervisors. "All of this change was the reaction to the reality of a rotten situation," said Fiore. Writer Trevor Herriot, who attends Christ the King parish in Regina, said this latest scandal represents "a dark night of the soul" for the Catholic church. "This is a deep and complex and disturbing issue that keeps coming up again and again." Herriot said the most frustrating thing is the lack of communication and transparency from the Vatican. He believes the church is trying to rectify the abuse situation with more checks and balances, but wonders why the silence remains. "Why not be open and say, 'Yeah, this is a problem and this is how we are addressing it,' instead of working quietly on these things," said Herriot. "They have some public relations points to gain if they would be open about (their improvements)." Herriot believes the abuse was a result of structural issues within the church that the current hierarchy isn't willing to tackle. "We have to look at how we recruit priests, how we support the clergy and be open to the question of married and female clergy," said Herriot. "The whole entire female side of the human experience is lost in the church's administration and hierarchy. That, to me, is deforming. If we were to bring the gifts of women into this church, we would see a wonderful flourishing happen." Tashia Toupin, a practising Catholic and education student at the University of Regina, agreed that the church should consider married and female clergy, but doesn't see it as necessarily the solution. "(Married clergy) would just be a band-aid solution," said Toupin. "It's not addressing the whole issue." As for female clergy, Toupin asked: "Is that going to allow the Catholic church to become scandal free? Absolutely not. It may help, but should not be the motivation for the church to ordain women. It's about equality and women not having a place of power in the Catholic church." Toupin agreed that real change starts with the church coming clean with its mistakes, dealing with the problem and giving support to priests. "We can talk to priests about our problems, but who do they talk to about their problems?" she said. Toupin said the failure of the church to be open and transparent is eating away at the trust of its flock and the world at large. Some of them include her friends who no longer go to church. "They're mad at the church because they feel like they're being lied to and their trust is being violated," said Toupin. "If (the Catholic church) would just fess up and deal with it, then people would be more apt to support them."
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