MORE ON THE CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL

After so many posts that I've lost count, I'm pretty well played out with commentary on the child abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church throughout countries in Europe. Turns out that the abuse was not simply an anomaly in the materialist United States of America.

I probably have one more post in me before I reach true catharsis, a post outlining the worst of my personal grievances with the RCC, which may come in due time. For now I offer the best of the links which have come my way recently from the folks who truly keep Wounded Bird going, my faithful stringers. As I said in my comments, keep the cards and letters coming (preferably with cash enclosed), because I couldn't do this without you ;-). So. Instead of more commentary, I give you links and brief quotes from several news sources, to opinions and articles on the subject. I include one opinion column on the expulsion of two little girls from their Roman Catholic school because their mothers are lesbians.

From Andrew Brown's blog at the Guardian:

I said there was something extraordinary and rather shocking hidden in Mgr Charles Scicluna's interview last week. It's hidden in plain sight, so obvious that it has so far been invisible: there was no Vatican conspiracy. There was no Vatican cover-up.

Instead of one centrally ordered cover-up, there were hundreds of little local ones. They didn't require special regulations. They grew quite naturally out of the clerical culture. They worked by silence and omission rather than anything more obviously sinister. The scandal is going to be much worse as a result.

I'd concluded that the cover-up was handled from central command at the Vatican, because a similar pattern of protecting the institution rather than the children was evidenced in different parts of the world. Andrew Brown and Mgr Scicluna say otherwise, and they are probably right.

Thanks to Cathy and Lapin for the link.


From the New York Times:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

Thanks to Ann and Lapin.

The NYT's link to the documents of the lawsuits against Fr Lawrence Murphy contain information that is truly shocking.


From CNN:

An Irish bishop resigned amid a Catholic church sex abuse scandal, apologizing in a statement Wednesday for any abuse that occurred in his diocese.

Bishop John Magee of the diocese of Cloyne said he tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI on March 9.

"I have been informed today that it has been accepted, and as I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies to any person who has been abused by any priest of the Diocese of Cloyne during my time as bishop or at any time," Magee said in a statement posted on the diocese Web site.

Thanks to Ann.


From Patrick Boyle at The Huffington Post:

With depressing regularity, the men who run the Catholic Church do something that reminds me of why I'm part of the fastest growing religion in the country: Raised Catholic.

You know the type. Someone asks us what our religion is, and we act like you've stumped us on a game show. "Well," we explain, "I was raised Catholic, but ..."

The reasons for the "but" are many, and the archbishop of Denver just handed us another: He kicked two little girls out of Catholic school because they are being raised by a lesbian couple.

Thanks to Ann V.