AUSTRALIA
WA Today
March 12, 2013
Geoffrey Robertson
As the world awaits the white smoke, it is time to ask how the next Supreme Leader of the Catholic Church can meet its most urgent challenge – stopping its priests sexually molesting small boys. There have been, on a realistic estimate, more than 100,000 such victims since 1981 when Joseph Ratzinger became head of the Vatican office that declined to defrock paedophiles and instead approved their removal to other parishes and other countries.
These widespread and systematic sexual assaults can collectively be described as a crime against humanity. The church cannot atone just by paying compensation. Unless the new Pope installs a policy that minimises danger to children he, like Benedict, will become complicit in ongoing but avoidable abuse.
First, and most obviously, there must be zero tolerance for paedophile priests. They must be automatically defrocked as soon as their bishop learns of their crime. There must be no delay, and certainly no appeal to the Vatican – it was there that Ratzinger’s preference for avoiding scandal permitted so many paedophiles to be forgiven, and then to re-offend. There is ample evidence now, from Ireland, the US and Europe, that the Vatican has conspired to thwart prosecutors and protect clerical criminals.
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