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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Vatican at Center of Global Sexual Abuse Crisis: A Tsunami for the Catholic Church



http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/04/scandal-sex-abuse-catholic-vatican-washington/1


"Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 80, who once ran the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy, was going to be the star celebrant at the first Latin Mass to be offered in half a century at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. But it came to light that the senior cardinal once praised a French bishop for protecting, not reporting, a pedophile priest. "
By Massimo Sambucetti, Associated Press

"Julia Duin reported in The Washington Times,
"Cardinal Hoyos was exposed ...for lauding -- in a 2001 letter -- French Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux for refusing to denounce" a priest that the bishop knew was a pedophile.
Duin writes that the priest was later convicted of rape and sexual assaults on 11 youngsters. ...Hoyos wrote Pican a letter that the cardinal claims was approved by the late Pope John Paul II:
"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration ... You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."


Bridget Mary's Reflection:

One of the shocking revelations of the global sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church is that Vatican officials played a major role in the coverup that protected priest pedophiles, not their innocent victims.


Cardinal Hoyos was also at the center of the Irish sex abuse scandal. When the Irish bishops met with him in Rome. He resisted their efforts to removed an infamous pedophile from ministry."

http://www.rte.ie/tv/wouldyoubelieve/av_index.html January 17, 2011
"The Pope has blamed Irish bishops for their mishandling of "unspeakable crimes" by priests, but reporter Mick Peelo reveals how not only did the Vatican secretly block the bishop's efforts to improve child protection and bring abuser priests to justice, but were every bit as inept in their own handling of abuse. "


The Vatican, under Pope John Paul II, appointed Cardinal Law, who had kept priest pedophiles in ministry in the Boston Archdiocese, as Archpriest
in charge of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.


Cardinal Ratzinger left Fr. Murphy who abused hundreds of deaf children in Wisconsin in the priesthood --in spite of the damage done to the youth and in spite of the local bishop's requests to defrock him. And the list goes on and on.


The bottom line is that the Roman Catholic Church is in the middle of a tsumani. From worldwide news reports, investigative journalism, court records and personal testimonies we now know that the Vatican is at the epic center of the worldwide sexual abuse crisis. This tsnami appears to be uneneding and indicates that the clerical, hierarchial model must be dismantled if the institutional church is to survive as a credible witness to Christ in our world.

Now there is some good news of new beginnings, rooted in a more community-empowered model of church that is chipping away at the clerical model of priestly ministry. In response to Jesus' call, women priests and married priests are bringing new life to our beloved church by founding inclusive grassroots communities where all are welcome to receive sacraments. It is a beginning and a blessing, a gift to the church we love.

Bridget Mary Meehan RCWP
http://www.associationofromancatholicwomenpriests.org/


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