Colm O’Gorman:- On Saturday Pope Benedict XVI published his letter to the Irish Church on the issue of child abuse. What was necessary seemed clear. As Pope, acknowledge the cover up by Roman Catholic Church of the rape and abuse of children by priests, take responsibility for it, and show how you will ensure it never happens again.
But the letter failed to do any of this. There was no acceptance of responsibility for the now established cover up, no plan to ensure that across the global church those who rape and abuse will be reported to the civil authorities and children properly protected.
The letter is clearly an effort to restore the credibility of a church rocked by the publication of three state investigations into clerical crimes and church over ups in Ireland. The Pope has seen all three of these reports.
Published in May 2009, following an eleven year State investigation, the Ryan Report detailed the full extent of the horrific abuse endured by children abandoned to the ‘care’ of the church.
It reported ritualized, savage beatings, endemic rape and sexual assault and the exploitation of children forced to work to enrich the bloated religious congregations charged with their care.
Disgracefully, the Pope used his letter and this issue to attack one of his favourite targets, secularisation. We are asked to believe that the secularisation of Irish society led to abuse and cover up. In fact, it is the secularisation of society that finally led to the exposure of the crimes of the church.
The most horrific abuse was perpetrated, not in a secularised Ireland, but at a time when Irish society was dominated, socially and politically, by the Catholic Church.
That the Pope appears to have wilfully ignored this established fact is a blatant and disgraceful deceit.
Some have reported that the Pope issued a heartfelt apology to victims of abuse. In fact the word ‘sorry’ appeared just once in a letter running to almost four thousand seven hundred words.
22 March, 2010 at 2:13 pm
A sorry apology indeed, sorry they got caught that is.
22 March, 2010 at 8:21 pm
Yes and note when he addressed crowds on Sunday in Rome, not a mention, they intend to continue this denial of institutional problems and responsibility while saying we should not judge them, not an idea they apply to those they makes rules against-
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35971797/ns/world_news-europe/
23 March, 2010 at 7:31 pm
“While acknowledging her sin, he does not condemn her, but urges her to sin no more,” Benedict told English-speaking pilgrims in the square. “Trusting in his great mercy toward us, we humbly beg his forgiveness for our own failings, and we ask for the strength to grow in his holiness.”
It’s bloody pathetic!
23 March, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Don’t think they ever said “sorry” for their part in the support of Nazism and the Holocaust, either.
23 March, 2010 at 11:02 pm
Nope, and Ratzi wants to make Hilter’s Pope a “saint.”
23 March, 2010 at 7:45 pm
You know, it reminds me of all the crap Sinead O’Connor got when she went after the last Pope. I wonder if anyone who called her names will apologize now.
23 March, 2010 at 7:57 pm
And of course, she was right:
http://www.salon.com/news/catholicism/index.html?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/03/23/sinead_o_connor_pope
23 March, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Thanks for the link. Here’s one for you: http://colmogorman.com/?tag=sinead-oconnor
Yes, she was right.
23 March, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Ratzi is too busy trying to make another enabler of child rape, JPII, a “saint.”