Catholic Church Child Abuse: More Deja Vu

One thing that struck me in Rome yesterday was the - in my view at least - ignorance and idiocy of the thousands who watch a televised mass of the Pope in St. Peter's Square. Would one seek to listen to the worlds of a documented child molester? I suspect not. So why do thousands continue to hang on the every word of a man who has been documented to have protected and engaged in cover ups for documented child molesters? It's enough to make my head explode. What is wrong with these people. Are they lazy, stupid, or morally bankrupt themselves? Equally disgusting were all of the pictures, posters and other materials being marketed all over Rome calling for sainthood for the anything but saintly John Paul II who is likely burning in Hell - assuming there is one, of course - for his own role in the sex abuse scandal. The man should have gone to prison for what he allowed to continue for decades.

As noted in a prior post, a U.S. bishop has finally been indicted because of his malfeasance in failing to report a predator priest who went on to prey on additional victims. A column in The Huffington Post looks ate the sad manner in which the sex abuse scandal continues to unfold with most of the guilty (especially the enablers and protectors of child rapists) going unpunished. Here are some highlights:

Catholic Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City has just been indicted for failure to report suspected child abuse. The offender, one of his priests, apparently was a photographer of some considerable energy. According to the indictment, as reported by the New York Times, the bishop for some six months failed to report evidence found on the priest's laptop, and thus he is charged with ignoring "previous knowledge regarding Father Rattigan and children; the discovery of hundreds of photographs of children on Father Rattigan's laptop, including a child's naked vagina, upskirt images and images focused on the crotch; and violations of restrictions placed on Father Rattigan." Apparently during the six months, the priest went to children's parties, hosted an Easter egg hunt and presided -- with the bishop's permission -- at the first communion of a young girl.

No one is guilty until judged by their peers, but one gathers that the facts of the matter are not really in dispute. The question is whether the bishop is legally liable.

In a way, this sort of thing has become so common that one is almost inclined to read with a sigh and turn away to other things. Which of course is precisely the action we must not have. Wickedness never ends and we must be ever vigilant. Edmund Burke was right: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Thank goodness the legal authorities in Kansas City are doing their duty and making sure that whatever has happened it is brought into the light and the guilty punished. And even if the guilty are not necessarily found legally culpable, then they are still shown to be morally guilty and deserving of condemnation.

But what do the rest of us say at a point like this? Someone like Richard Dawkins takes not pleasure but an almost salubrious satisfaction in the turn of events. It is what he forecast -- religion leads to virtually nothing but ill -- and the sooner it is eliminated the better.

Dawkins does have a point though. Too often, established religion does make possible evil things and clearly the Kansas City situation is one such case. The authority and attitude of the bishop makes what happened all too possible and common. . . . . the hierarchical system of the Church makes possible abuse and it has happened and goes on happening. Dawkins wants to blow up the whole thing and he may well be right.

The tragedy is that it does not seem that things will change in our lifetime. Thanks particularly to the present pope and his predecessor, the hierarchy is manned -- and I use the word "manned" deliberately -- by conservatives, who frown upon women having full authority over themselves or in society, who are anti-gay (especially when it comes to things like marriage), who simply don't recognize that we are now in the 21st century. And when the present pope dies, given that the cardinals in place are all of this ilk, there is little reason to think that his successor will be much different.

I remain convinced that only the wholesale exodus of those who believe in moral accountability and who refuse to embrace ignorance from the Catholic Church will bring change to a very rotten institution. Sadly, too many Catholics remain too lazy and refuse to open their eyes to the fact that they are accessories to the horrors visited on children and youth by individual priests and the Church hierarchy as a whole.

P.S. The boyfriend and I did not go into St. Peter's yesterday because of the massive lines. If we had, I wanted to stand before the high altar and make out with the boyfriend - it would have been my own not so subtle message to the Nazi Pope that he can go do something rude and crude to himself in my estimation.