Vatican Holds Charade Symposium on Sex Abuse

As noted recently on this blog, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee admitted in bankruptcy court filing 8,000 instances of sexual abuse of children and youths. 8,000 instances in a single archdiocese. Given the stories that have come out of Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands, Belgium - not to mention all over the USA and Australia - the situation in Milwaukee was sadly most likely the norm. Likely millions of victims worldwide and how many bishops and cardinals have been removed from office and thrown out of the Church and stripped of comfort and a pompous life style? Almost none. Thus, I view the "Toward Healing and Renewal" symposium at the Vatican's Gregorian University frankly as a farce. It's window dressing to further dupe the sheep in the pews so that they will continue to hand over money to support the criminal conspirators in the Church hierarchy. If the Vatican wants to be taken seriously, bishops and cardinals need to be sacked and not placed in "retirement" where they live in palaces and are catered to and treated with undue deference. As the National Catholic Reporter notes, provisions already exist that would allow such firings to be done:

[T]here are already provisions in church law to sanction bishops for "negligence and malice in exercising one's duties," suggesting this provision should be more strenuously applied. (He appeared to be referring to canon 128 of the Code of Canon Law, which reads: "Whoever illegitimately inflicts damage upon someone by a juridic act or by any other act placed with malice or negligence is obliged to repair the damage inflicted.")

Scicluna also noted that when canon law specifies penalties that can be imposed on "clergy," that includes bishops as well as priests and deacons -- though, he said, the fact it applies to bishops too is sometimes "ignored."

Merely talking about accountability, of course, doesn't do the trick. It has to be enforced, and it remains to be seen if the canonical sanctions to which Scicluna referred will be wielded in some visible, effective fashion

If the Vatican were serious about atoning for the rape and molestation of countless children and youths, heads would have rolled long before now and individuals like Cardinal Law would not have been whisked out of American and set up living in a palace at the Vatican. Actions speak louder than words and the Vatican's inaction tell us all we really need to know. As for Catholics who continue to blindly support the Church, they need to open their eyes and face the fact that they are aiding and abetting child molesters and criminals.