At age five, 1954, "the Bishop" (Chicago's Cardinal Stritch) stood over me and said, I had to "stop babbling" about what the priest did to me. It took me 40 years to talk about it again. Today, I babble.

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Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Pedophile Epidemic is about as bad as Rain on a Bake Sale, to hear the Vatican respond to it

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By Kay Ebeling


The Vatican response to the Dublin Archdiocese Murphy Report is "shame, shock and dismay," according to news outlets around the world today, using the same news release. What? Those are words you use for something mundane, a small incident. Dismay? Oh, it rained on our bake sale. "Shocked" is what you say when someone swears in public. "Ashamed?" You have food in your front tooth. All three words refer to what Catholics used to call "venial" rather than "mortal" sins.

What's needed is for real news to be made, like action as a result of all the evidence we now have that pedophilia and child abuse is an international problem in the Catholic Church: in Dublin, Connecticut, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Australia.

A World Court trial in The Hague might finally resolve this issue.

The response from the Vatican should be "ENOUGH!" Stop all activity on anything else and get to the root of this problem. Make it the Highest Priority, even more important than keeping gays from forming families, more important than inflicting their religion on American medical policy.

As one of the very damaged adult victims of a pedophile priest, I am so tired of watching the Vatican, and apologists for the Church, and local bishops and priests - AND victims' advocates - getting up in front of reporters to throw words at this problem. How many times can you say "ashamed shocked and dismayed" for the media? Worse yet, reporters then copy and paste all these press statements and call it news.

Meanwhile, even if it takes The Law to force them, the Church needs to open the doors, open the files, clean out the crime, admit the sins, and pay a penance in a penal institution. Catholic priests have to get out of their dresses, roll up their sleeves, and dig down to the roots of the Church to get out this disease, maybe drop out of the free lunch that is the Church and become real parents.

Start out by letting the public know about Crimen Solicitationes. Who started that Vatican policy for handling sex predator priests, how Crimen was applied, and who will spend time in prison because of it.

Everyone, please stop making statements to the news and start doing something that in the end makes genuine news. But don't stand up there saying, "dismayed, shocked, ashamed" when the subject is thousands of children raped worldwide.

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Here is how the BBC reported it today:

The Vatican is ashamed by the findings of the Murphy report into clerical abuse in the Dublin diocese, the Pope's representative in Ireland has said.

Papal Nuncio Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza expressed his shock at how Church and state authorities handled allegations of child abuse against 46 priests.

"We feel ashamed about what happened, I must express again my shock, my dismay," said Archbishop Leanza.


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Here is a string of them from Abuse Tracker by Kathy Shaw, see what I mean? Just more officials standing up and throwing out words. I want to see action.

December 8, 2009
Vatican 'ashamed' at handling of abuse claims
IRELAND
The Irish Times
The papal nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, has said there was no intention on the part of...

Vatican 'ashamed' of Irish abuse report
IRELAND
BBC News
The Vatican is ashamed by the findings of the Murphy report into clerical abuse in the Dublin

Vatican 'ashamed' of abuse report
IRELAND
Louth Leader
Published Date: 08 December 2009 The Pope's Ambassador to Ireland has said the Vatican is ashamed by the devastating findings

Papal Nuncio: Pope will respond to Murphy report
IRELAND
Irish Independent
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
The papal nuncio to Ireland says a response on the findings of the Murphy report on clerical sex abuse can be expected from the Pope.

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As reported in the last story linked above, next week the Pope himself will respond to the Murphy Report from Dublin. He will likely stand up and say he is "ashamed, shocked, dismayed," wave his hand with that pointed toothed grin he has, and go on to the next topic.

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(And then here I go making my own statement in the press with this post...)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cardinal Reynaud:

“I'm shocked, Rick, shocked, to find that there's pedophilia going on here. ..."

Kay Ebeling said...

Touche, you made me laugh out loud, Card Reynaud.

Anonymous said...

Remember that the figure of 48 priests represents a sample used by the report. Some 102 were fingered out of a total of some 172 who had it was felt questions to answer. It is also known that many hundreds have got away with their evil simply because of the terror of their victims.

Anonymous said...

"We feel ashamed about what happened, I must express again my shock, my dismay," said Archbishop Leanza.
Question: Is his shame and shock the result of the debacle finding the light of day? Or, is his shame and shock the result of "Crimen" not being executed properly, which would have resulted in the debacle not seeing the light of day? Watch out for those mental reservations!