When the Pope recognised that there was a problem with so much pedophilia in his church earlier in the week, he cleverly blamed the rest of the world for the problem. He acknowledged that there was a problem in his dioceses, but said that pedophilia "is found not only in your dioceses but in every sector of society".
If the Pope can see pedophilia is *every* sector of society, he is either only looking in certain places or is looking through a tinted lens.
Is there an epidemic of kindergarten teachers who are secretly molesting children? Perhaps it is new mothers or the tourist industry that is rampant in child pornography.
The fact that catholic priests are often associated with molesting young boys is not some kind of protestant conspiracy to discredit them. It has come out of hundred if not thousands of complaints of child abuse.
If that wasn't enough the catholic church has notoriously covered up, or protected those accused.
For the Pope to turn around and claim society is at the core of the abuse of the Catholic Priests' victims, is infuriating. The Church needs to "take it like a man". Accept responsibility for their own actions in full, not blaming society or anyone else, and then lay out plans of how to eradicate those who abuse children and those who protect those who abuse children. But most importantly, carry out those plans. Only then will i believe they are being serious about protecting the children.
3 comments:
Maybe it's just that it's early in the morning and I should sleep more, but that title just seems kinda wrong for the subject matter ;)
But on a serious note, I think child abuse is something that is relatively wide-spread, but seems to be particularly noticeable in the Catholic church. Maybe it is the celibacy thing, maybe it's also that in the past those who are abusing children have known that the church would simply cover it up and move them on to a nice new parish with plenty of virginal altarboys.
If the church had always been tougher on it, who knows if it would still be an issue. Not that you want them returning to the Inquisition in terms of style of hunting down people or whatever, but just the transparency and a desire to seriously deal with problems.
With regards to the American abuse thing, I remember reading on Slate.com something about how the church was selling off properties to fund payments to victims. Including the homes of some nuns, who were turfed out so the property could be used to pay. They'd done nothing wrong and the Catholic church has enough money to fill the Grand Canyon, so who knows...
I actually disagree with you here Kristin.
I don't think that article or the quotes from the pope were at all implying that the abuse of Children by priests was the fault of the rest of the world.
Most abuse is perpetrated by family members. Uncomfortable, but true. It is far, FAR too easy to box up abuse as something that is heavily associated with a church or a group or a profession and not tackle the wider problem.
And I happen to agree with him that there is something wrong with the dominant perceptions of sexuality. There is a problem bigger than the abuse issues in the church!
Taylor pointed out that the Church has more media focus because of its moral standards. Thus when they don't live up to them, then world gasps in horror.
Perhaps this is why so much scrutiny is placed on the church.
I have to say that in more recent days i have been impressed with the Pope's decision to meet with victims of abuse and continue to talk about the church's need to change.
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