UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage
William D. Lindsey
As a footnote to my earlier posting today noting that the spotlight that recently shone on the Vatican at the UN hearing is now on Pope Francis himself, a reader has pointed me to Betty Clermont’s recent posting at Open Tabernacle about Francis’s handling of the sex abuse crisis. As with everything Betty writes, it’s exhaustively researched and insightful.
Betty’s conclusion about what we can now expect from Francis:
Pope Francis is washing his hands of any responsibility for whatever happens outside his city state or those on his immediate payroll. “On the level of the Holy See, as the Sovereign of Vatican City State, the response to sexual abuse has been in accord with its direct responsibility over the territory of Vatican City State,” stated Tomasi. “Priests are not functionaries of the Vatican….They are citizens of their own state and fall under the jurisdiction of that state.” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said in a statement on Jan. 16. Questions posed by the U.N. committee and others “seem to presuppose that bishops and religious superiors act as representatives or delegates of the pope, something which is without foundation.”
Betty ends by citing Richard Sipe’s observations last fall regarding the culture of narcissistic corruption and colossal abuse of power inside the clerical system from which the abuse of children emanates:
Only willful blindness and pathological denial can allow one to overlook the reality that the symptom of clerical abuse reveals a Roman Catholic Church as dysfunctional and corrupt sexually and financially as during the time of the Protestant Reformation.” A. W. Richard Sipe, Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor, former Benedictine monk and priest, and recognized authority on celibacy and priest sex abuse. August 30, 2013.
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