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May 28, 2013
Both the royal commission into child abuse in institutions and the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse are highlighting the Catholic Church's unacceptable response to pedophilia by its priests in Australia. This is to deny there is a culture of abuse; that it adopts the half-baked solution of moving the clergy from parish to parish; destroying records; attacks a hostile media; avoids any systemic investigation into the abuse; places itself above the law; obstructed investigations and protected child molesters.
David Pope
It's a broken church and it requires the power of the state to force it to confront its own denial about clerical sexual abuse, the lack of pastoral care of its people and the entrenched culture of concealment within the church. There has been a failure of the Church at very senior levels, right up to the present day, to deal adequately with allegations of serious and predatory crimes, including the apparent failure to alert police.
The Church's leadership has its back to the wall, unable to say much except sorry and apologize. The power of the state is being used to tell Catholics that their Church has to smarten itself up and bring its practices into line with best practice accepted by everyone else in a liberal society; or suffer prosecution for its culpable negligence.
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Remember the fuss and bother when the COALition made accusations of child abuse against aboriginal people?
Unsubstantiated largely.
Just before the '07 election.
Which resulted in the halting of government wage payments and the like, conditions placed on government subsidies, the takeover of aboriginal properties assets and programmes, takeover of land, laws passed about alcohol consumption, proposed compulsory health checks for minors?
And a whole slew of other measures cos after all, 'we are just thinking of the children".
Our society condones double standards.