Pope Benedict XVI rebuked Irish bishops Saturday for "grave errors of judgment" in handling clerical sex abuse cases and ordered an investigation into the Irish church. But he laid no blame for the problem on the Vatican's policies of keeping such cases secret.
In a letter to the Irish faithful read across Europe amid a growing, multination abuse scandal, the pope apologized to victims but doled out no specific punishments to bishops blamed by Irish government-ordered investigations for having covered up abuse of thousands of Irish children from the 1930s to the 1990s.
Ireland's main group of clerical-abuse victims, One in Four, said it was deeply disappointed by the letter because it failed to place responsibility with the Vatican for what it called a "deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children."
"If the church cannot acknowledge this fundamental truth, it is still in denial," the group said.
Yes. And who was a bishop in Germany when child abuse by clergy was taking place there? And who was a cardinal serving at the Vatican advising bishops on how to handle the charges of child abuse? Et tu, Ratzi?
The letter directly addressed only Ireland, but the Vatican said it could be read as applying to other countries. Hundreds of new allegations of abuse have recently come to light across Europe, including in the pope's native Germany, where he served as archbishop in a diocese where several victims have recently come forward. One priest suspected of molesting boys while the future pope was in charge was transferred to a job where he abused more children.
While a cardinal at the Vatican, Joseph Ratzinger penned a 2001 letter instructing bishops around the world to report all cases of abuse to his office and keep the church investigations secret under threat of excommunication. While the Vatican insists that secrecy rule only applied to the church's investigation and didn't preclude reporting abuse to police, Irish bishops have said the letter was widely understood to mean they shouldn't report the cases to civil authorities.
Then from the New York Times:
Faced with a church sexual abuse scandal spreading across Europe, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologized directly to victims and their families in Ireland, expressing “shame and remorse” for what he called “sinful and criminal” acts committed by clergy.
But the pope did not require that church leaders be disciplined for past mistakes as some victims were hoping; nor did he clarify what critics see as contradictory Vatican rules they fear allow abuse to continue unpunished.
But wait!
The strong letter was written in language at once passionate, personal and sweeping. And the pope did take the relatively rare step of ordering a special apostolic delegation to be sent to unspecified dioceses in Ireland to investigate.
See. The pope ordered a special apostolic delegation.
The most recent revelation came last week when a psychiatrist who treated a priest decades ago in an archdiocese run by the future pope in Germany said he repeatedly warned that the accused priest should never work with children again. The priest was reassigned to pastoral work, but another church leader had taken responsibility for that decision.
Ratzi said, "I didn't do it!" and sure enough, an underling took the blame.
Here's the link to the text of Pope Benedict's pastoral letter to the Irish church.
The pope cites a changing world and creeping secularism as partial explanations for the child abuse and cover-up. Yes, the world turns, and secularism creeps, but please, Your Holiness, give us a break from lame excuses and put the major blame where it belongs - on the institutional structure led by the powers in the Vatican.
