Living in Philadelphia, it’s hard to read the stories coming out about the cruel abuse that Roman Catholic priests have been heaping on children in Philadelphia parishes for decades. It’s hard to read that Cardinal Bevilacqua and now Cardinal Rigali have routinely protected those priests rather than protect the children from the rapist priests.
And it was especially hard to
read Cardinal Rigali’s statement last Saturday: "Once again the issue of
the sexual abuse of minors is raised, as well as the role of the Church and her
leaders in addressing this abuse. As Catholics we are hurt and confused,
and perhaps even quite angry and feeling betrayed,” he said.
To read Rigali, one would think
he were an on-looking parishioner, rather than one of the Church leaders who
has knowingly allowed this abuse to go on. The same is true of Pope Ratz. To hear
him and his apologists, one would think he were a victim of cruel lies rather
than the mastermind behind policies that have allowed pedophile priests to use
Roman Catholic children as their personal sex slaves for decades.
And these men are using the hoary
and weary excuse that the Church didn’t realize how heinous a crime pedophilia
was; that the Church leaders assumed it was a peculiarity that could be cured.
Even if that were true, which it
isn’t, how can the RC hierarchy want to keep a man doing parish priestly duties
who has even once raped a nine-year-old boy and then gone off to rehab to be
cured? It’s not about forgiveness. That’s fine. Forgive the man. But FOR GOD’S
SAKE, take him out of the rotation.
Most of us don’t want people who do
ugly, unspeakable things to children to even be our stock brokers, and we
forgive our stock brokers many and multifarious sins. But for church leaders to lie and
circumvent civil and canon laws in order to keep pedophiles in jobs where they
have access to children for their entire lives as priests, is an unspeakable crime
as horrible as the abuse of children.
So here is the big question. How
can Pope Ratz and Cardinal Rigali live with themselves? How can they get in
high dudgeon and run to their church lawyers and mount defenses and excuse
themselves and tell lies to excuse themselves, and claim ignorance and innocence
in the face of the mounting evidence that they knew and have always known that
these pedophile priests were using children as sex toys?
How can they lie and deny and
live with themselves? I will tell you.
All the Popes’ men in the Vatican
and all these little Cardinal-underlings can live with themselves while lying
and cheating and allowing criminals to abuse children because they are no
better than drug lords, money launderers and mob bosses.
These higher-ups in the Roman
Catholic Church are SCUM!
