A Reflection on the Sex Abuse Scandal in Ireland: Vatican Accountability and Spiritual Power

After reflecting on the articles, a few things are apparent to me.
1. The Murphy report of sex abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin connected the dots and held the Vatican accountable. It was not just criminal priests, bishops who hid the abuse, a criminal justice system that failed, but the Vatican itself who refused to answer questions of its role in the debacle that is like a cancer destroying the moral fiber of our church. These two articles below reach the conclusion that motivated the Irish bishops to travel to Rome. The bishops operated under orders from headquarters.

2. The U.S. media has largely ignored and/or under-reported the story of Vatican accountability. Why?

3. Radical Reform is needed in a church that punishes faithful Catholics like Roman Catholic Womenpriests with excommunication, but ignores or covers-up , from the top-down, the criminal behavior of pedophiles and and the bishops who shuffled them from parish to parish, country to country.

4. Ask yourself, what would Jesus, who had male and female disciples do? In the Gospel, he welcomes the children, gathers them in his arms and speaks out against harming them. What do you think Jesus would say to the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church today about the sex abuse scandal that has destroyed so many lives?

5. The greatest abuse is the abuse of spiritual power. The hierarchial model must be transformed to a discipleship of equals model where all are one and all united in God's love in mutual service. All of us are empowered by our baptism to live vibrant lives of faith united with God and one another. No one, not the bishop or pope, has the power to throw us out of the family! Excommunication does not cancel our baptism! We the people have the spiritual power we need to live holy, faithful lives in love with God and with others.
Bridget Mary Meehan, RCWP

Justine Mc Carthy,"We can't have faith in a church with these leaders" http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7034885.ece
"On May 29, 2008 he issued a decree that any woman attempting to be ordained a priest, or any bishop who assists her, would be excommunicated. The gravity with which the powers-that-be in Rome regard the outrage of a woman’s priestly vocation is reflected in the severity of the punishment. For priests who rape children, the worst possible punishment is defrocking, but a woman attempting to join the clerical club is denied the sacraments — including the last rites — and her eternal soul is damned. A Louisiana-born priest, Roy Bourgeois, was excommunicated in 2008 for participating in a “mock ordination” of a woman. "


and Marci A. Hamilton's article, "The Pieces of the Puzzle are Falling into Place: Catholic Officials, a Global Web of Childhood Sexual Abuse, and the Judgment of History"
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20100218.html

"Meanwhile, at the same time that the Irish bishops were demanding accountability from the Holy See, discovery in a Wisconsin case -- as I discussed in my last column -- showed that the Holy See and in particular, then-Cardinal Ratzinger (who, of course, is now the Pope) were the official handlers for abusing priests in the United States. The exchanges that litigation unearthed show that there is little question that bishops operated under orders from the highest levels of the Roman Catholic hierarchy on the issue of clergy who had been caught sexually abusing children. "