This is unforgivable. It's amazing there are any catholics left. Who the **** would belong to this perverted cult?
For decades, stories about clerical sexual abuse committed by Pennsylvania Catholic priests were reportedly
locked away in the church’s secret archives.
These old secrets exploded into the light Tuesday with the
publication of a grand jury report into six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.
The jurors’ 884-page report allowed Pennsylvania Catholics to finally grasp the extent of the abuse ― and cover-up ― in six dioceses: Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. Over the course of two years, jurors identified 301 “predator priests” and more than 1,000 victims.
Jurors heard stories of boys and girls being groped. They heard about cases of kids becoming victims of child pornography, being made to masturbate with assailants, and being raped orally, vaginally and anally.
Underpinning the horrific alleged crimes in the report are hundreds of pages of documents from the church’s secret archives that the jurors claim show that senior church officials knew the abuse was happening and failed to act properly. Catholic leaders, including former bishops, actively worked to protect abusers and the church’s public reputation, while brushing aside victims’ reports, the jurors claim.
First, this did not "explode" (present tense). It had exploded years, decades ago. What was frustrating some is Pennsylvania's statute of limitations on this. They want the law changed, and no one blames them.
Look, as a journalist at the time, I (and others as well) were frustrated that the whole story was not being told. According to you, no one should send their children to public schools, their doctor (much less a psychologist/psychiatrist), register them for sports, clubs, or ever leave them alone with stepfathers, fathers, uncles, or cousins. The bottom line is that all professions contain a certain percentage of pedophiles--and guess what, percentage wise their is a lesser number of Catholic priests than other groupings. In other words, percentage wise your child may be safer with a priest than their own dad, and more certainly, a stepfather.
Also as a journalist (and a member of the Catholic Church) we were on the Church to fix this! If the Church couldn't fix this horrific business and be a model to other agencies, then who could and who would? In the past twenty years and more, the USCCB have insisted on changes and have pressured any diocese who was slow in implementing these changes.
I--and every Catholic--agree that if there is one place this should not occur, it is in the Catholic Church, but being of society and in society, did not make the Church magically exempt from the worst degradation in human nature. We have to be alert to it just as much as everyone else.
An extremely small percentage of priests have made things very difficult for the large percentage of priests who have always been faithful to their calling and their profession. They do not let this percentage keep them from this faithfulness any more than eleven apostles allowed the twelfth to prevent them from following through with their mission.