Thursday, March 18, 2010

Abuse Scandal Deepens in Europe

 Looks like the Catholic Church is in the news again.

The Catholic clergy child-rape scandal, which first broke in Ireland in the 1990s, has recently exploded Germany. Since the story broke, hundreds of victims have come forward. Their stories are horrifying: in one instance, two ten-year-olds were forced to sign vows of silence concerning their abuse. Their priest went on to molest children for 18 years.

The claims of abuse have since spread to Italy, Austria, and the Netherlands.

The biggest story is the proximity of the abuse to Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Pope Benedict XVI. He was the Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982, during which time Peter Hullermann, a priest in his archdiocese, was accused of molesting boys. Instead of reporting and prosecuting this rapist, Ratzinger sent the priest to receive therapy. Once out, he was summarily transferred to another diocese where he resumed molesting boys. He was convicted by a German court for this renewed abuse in 1986, and yet he continued to preach and molest until this past Monday!



The moral high ground?
Apologists often claim that Catholic priests do not, in fact, molest children at higher rates than the rest of the population. However, they do claim to be the sole possessors of universal morality at much higher rates than the rest of the population. How can they pretend to claim the moral high ground when there is endemic rape of minors within their own ranks?

Complicit in the act
What really gets me is not the molestation in itself, horrifying as it is. It's the cover up. For decades, the Catholic Church believed it was more important to save face, to protect their image to the public, than to prosecute those rapists within its ranks. It is common practice for priests to switch dioceses or briefly undergo therapy, as happened in Boston  and in Germany under Pope Benedict XVI. In other cases, victims were paid for their silence.


The Catholic Church knowingly and willingly protected abusers and molesters from the full and righteous justice they deserved. Any other man convicted of molesting children would be rotting in jail. Any other institution that allowed molestation to continue would be so denounced and vilified that its continued existence would be impossible.

It is time for the Catholic Church to be brought to reckoning.

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