Thursday, August 16, 2018

The Cover Up Continues?


I have to say, I had to Google this.  Most articles about it paraphrase the statement, rather than reprint it in full (is that so hard to do?  It's not like it's 900, or is it 1400, pages?  Did we ever get a verified count on that?).  USA Today took up the narrative again, noting this statement came out after "two days of deafening silence."  Because...what?  

I'm just playing media critic here, not Defender of the Faith.  Every article has its favored phrase from the statement.  "Morally reprehensible," says USA Today.  "Shame and sorrow" showed up for Reuters.  The Daily Mail quoted:

Catholic magazine editor Matthew Schmitz said on Twitter: 'Francis has at times been unfairly attacked for his handling of sex abuse but his record is still disappointing.

'He needs to act now by authorizing a full investigation of the American hierarchy.'

A papal legate should conduct formal interviews and make recommendations to the Pope about 'appropriate penalties', he said.  
Which is pretty much all that can happen now, as the statute of limitations has run on most of these crimes.  Much blame is put on the Catholic church in covering up these crimes, and that's deserved.  But the legal system of Pennsylvania apparently had the legal power to investigate these matters before the statute of limitations expired, and failed to do so.  That doesn't exonerate the Church, but it does indicate the pointing of fingers is a tricky practice.  No one wanted to listen, until it was too late.

Sadly, all that can be done now is for the Church to investigate and take actions against those it finds responsible.  The failures here are really rather general.  None are innocent except the victims; and their innocence was taken from them long ago. 
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1 comment:

  1. The Thought Criminal11:01 AM

    I'm waiting for the grand jury investigation into child rape for the camera in freely available internet porn, which doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

    The Catholic Church will have to endure this for probably the rest of our lives because it treated it so badly and so stupidly for so many years because they could cover it up. I don't think that is unrelated to the fact that the entire governing structure of the Catholic Church for most of that period was in the hands of unmarried men who didn't have children (not counting a few illegitimate children they seldom had a hand in caring for). I do think that was the origin of this, particular child abuse scandal, both in it happening and why it was covered up as long as it was.

    I don't see much of any movement on other child abusing institutions and industries. I don't see much in the way of any moves by Western governments to shut down the trafficking of children and women in the sex industry, surely since Americans have been so concerned about the various child sex abuse scandals in Ireland and Chile, recently, they can muster some concerns for those who are repeatedly raped in prostitution and the sadistic rape for porn industry that flourishes all around the world. Only I don't really see anything like the same level of outrage or even concern over that nor, especially, the fact that you can access those images online. I haven't checked Tumblr lately but I know the last time I looked the blogs featuring the sadistic rape of children by men were the themes of a large number of them, many of them either simulated or real incest.

    I've been writing about that for years, now. I'm beginning to think their claims of being concerned about the children instead of the identity of the abusers are insincere.

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