As I noted in my book, Catholic bishops uniformly failed to get angry when they heard that a priest had defiled a child, often in the church itself. I examined this failure at length in my book Sacrilege, especially on pp. 465-471.
The bishops have failed to heed the warning of St. John Chrysostom: “He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.”
Dan Leger of the Chronicle Herald is also deeply troubled by Mancini’s response to the allegations about Bishop Lahey and child pornography.
But why wasn’t he angry? Why didn’t he rage at the idea that Lahey might have been another priestly exploiter of children? Why didn’t he pound his fist on the table and demand hard justice for every offender hiding in the folds of the Church’s holy vestments?
Every right-thinking Catholic should be furious at what’s happened to the institution that guides and nourishes their faith. And not just because they, not the Vatican or the institutional Church, are being asked to pay for the sins of the fathers.
Beyond who pays for the abuse settlements, a lot of people have cause to be angry at what’s happened to the Church over the past 50 years, and not only the Catholics. While all this was going on, people of many faiths and no faith at all were being hectored by priests, bishops and popes about morality and ethics.
Catholic authorities have constantly railed against abortion rights, against same-sex marriage, birth control, stem cell research and fertility treatments. They cite the word of God as their authority. By definition, anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but immoral and a sinner.
Yet there is strong evidence, including at least one massive U.S. study commissioned by the Church itself, that those same clerical authorities were aware of abuse allegations against priests and clerics. Rather than cleaning up the mess, they covered it up.
That meant many offenders were moved around and protected by senior Church authorities, often to repeat their abuses in other parishes. That the Church evidently knew that and did so little to stop it suggests hypocrisy on a global scale.
Leon Podles hits the nail on the head once again. Where is the outrage from Mancini and, at least, the Canadian Conference of Bishops? Where is the outcry from the people in the pews? Why are Catholics continuing to “feed the beast” with their contributions? When will Catholics get out of the pews and into the streets to demand changes?
Priests, nuns, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and the pope himself want the secrecy to continue because they are all complicit in this sex scandal that continues to unfold. Canadian authorities just busted a bishop for child porn posesion – likely part of an active pedophile ring. They want us to forgive and forget all that they have done and resume worshipping them again. That is not going to happen. We are dealing with decades of sex crimes that these men and women committed against our children. Court justice and lawsuits are the only tools we have to resolve these wrongs. What else can you do against a secretive church that has no real checks an balances and is driven by sexual politics?
You write about nothing. You should just say”get out as fast as you can” or be held responsible for going along with the Crimes against Humanity that are being comitted by the people in the Roman Catholic Church. The Almighty will say, “what did you do when you found out about the these crimes against my precious children? If you say, “well I left as fast as I could and did everything in my power to get the authorities involved and others who did not know apprised of the hideousness ofthe evil that is going on in the RCC. Then, maybe, He will say “Good and faithfull servant”
My husband and I have been married 58 yrs and were married in the RCC. We raised our children strict Catholic and when we “knew “what was going on in 2001, we left as fast as our feet would carry us. Nothing in the RCC has changed and it is getting worse, as the RCC is fighting with every $ they can muster and that’s lots of “$”‘s They go to confession[to one another ] [what a joke but brainwashing did it] and then go on to committ these hideous sins over and over again to our innocent children. All you say is true but LEAVE! BLOW THE DUST FROM YOUR FEET.We did and HIS miracles have not stopped and never will. PTL!