ReportFromTheFront's Blog

          I once overheard the latter part of a conversation at the height of the frenzy involving the abuse of children at the hands of Catholic priests. “Don’t they have anything else to report?” one of the speakers asked.

 

            ‘No, my dear, they don’t’, I thought to myself. And they shouldn't.

 

            Like many people, I can think of few things more abhorrent that the sexual abuse of anyone much less an innocent child, especially at the hands of a religious figure such as a priest. Rather than recoil in horror and take whatever steps were necessary in order to deal with the problem as one would expect, the Catholic Church – which has known about the problem for more years than you or I know about (or they are willing to admit for litigious and other reasons) – simply pushed the issue aside and chose to ‘counsel’ victimizers and transfer them to other postings.

 

            In other words, the Church chose to play ‘King Log’ as the saying goes and buried its collective heads in the sand while conducting business as usual. If the brave souls who finally came forward hadn’t done so, no one would have done anything. Instead of protecting the innocent, the Church decided to gird its loins and circle the wagons in order to protect its own. After all, we don’t want to do anything that might affect the old collection plate.

 

            Even so, even after the issue finally surfaced and began to gain steam fueled by the admissions of an increasing number of people who decided to further disrupt their lives and come forward, the Church admitted nothing, conceded nothing and gave no ground until forced to do so by the threats of finding itself on the receiving end of multi-million dollar lawsuits and criminal proceedings. ‘There may have been an occasional incident involving a priest and a parishioner’ we were initially informed, ‘but we can be assured that these were truly rare & isolated’, or so went the initial acknowledgement, although they knew better. It took the power of the subpoena to force the Church’s compliance with federal and state prosecutors conducting the investigations.

 

            Last time I checked, lying was one of the big no no’s.

 

            Still, after multiple settlements in efforts to avoid civil trials – settlements which, so far, have bankrupted six arch-dioceses, admissions from the Church have been grudgingly forthcoming.

 

            To his credit, Pope Benedict XVI has commented on the issue, calling the acts of abuse horrible and admitting that the Church’s handling of the entire affair “badly managed”. To his discredit, however, the Papacy chose to do nothing, say nothing relative to the size, impact and duration of the scandal prior to coming to the U.S. Once here – or at least in transit – did Benedict decide that the matter finally merited a more serious comment or two in order to placate the American faithful.

 

            One can’t help but believe that if it were not for this trip, he might not have said anything at all.

 

            Despite what the pontiff may think, meeting and praying with a select group of victims for less than a half hour won’t accomplish anything in the long run except to gloss over the issue at large and make good press as the Church tries to demonstrate it’s ‘deep concern’ and willingness to meet the problem head on. What about voluntarily granting access to Church records in order to make the job of identifying perpetrators and their victims easier rather than waiting to be subpoened? How about making unlimited funds available for treatment of victims whose lives have been permanently damaged? Has anyone given even the remotest thought to removing known abusers permanently from their ministries. What about – for starters – excommunication? As I recall my world history lessons, the Church had no problem bringing that particular weapon to bear against the faithful for crimes far less serious than sexual child abuse.

 

            Nope.

 

            As of this writing, not a word. Not a peep. Nuthin’.

 

            One can’t help but wonder about the Church’s silence and unwillingness to help the people it mercilessly preyed upon.