Conservative Culture

Pic: Philly.com

How many victims are pedophile priests allowed? That should be the question raised after the system hid them, moved them and covered for them. Two? Three? More? What was needed was for the Pope to confront pedophile priests and kick them out. Then meet with the victims.

The Pope got two things wrong. He made a statement that the world is waiting to hear from Christians the testimony and truthfulness of the Gospel. No. It isn’t waiting to hear it. Jesus said the world listens to their father the devil (statement made to the religious leaders of his time… make note of that). What they see is a religious system that protects the criminal and asks the victims to forgive the criminals.

In an address that relied on Scripture and scholarship and summarized the opportunities and dangers of the modern age, the pope this evening urged those who worship God in the name of Jesus to give “unambiguous testimony to the truthfulness of the Gospel and its moral teaching.

“This is the message which the world is waiting to hear from us.”

One man said it wasn’t just sexual abuse and that this spiritual abuse is a cancer growing in the church he said he hoped the Pope heard him. If he is a genuine person he will not only hear but take hard, swift action to protect other victims.

WASHINGTON - In an extraordinary move, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday met in private with victims of clergy sex abuse, praying with them and offering words of hope.

The pontiff’s day began with an open-air Mass attended by more than 45,000 people in a baseball stadium, and later included an address to Catholic college presidents.

But it was the unexpected private meeting with sex-abuse victims that is likely to be the most significant event of Benedict’s six-day visit to the United States.

The five victims, all adults from the Archdiocese of Boston, met with Benedict for 25 minutes at the Washington residence of Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio to the United States. They met as a group and privately, said a Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, who said that some of the victims wept.

“They prayed with the Holy Father, who afterward listened to their personal accounts and offered them words of encouragement and hope,” said Lombardi, adding that the pontiff himself had requested the meeting. “His holiness assured them of his prayers for their intentions, for their families, and for all victims of sexual abuse.”

Bernie McDaid, one of the victims, said in an interview with CNN that he told the pope that he was an altar boy when he was abused and that “it wasn’t just sexual abuse. It was spiritual abuse. And I want you to know that. And then I told him that he has a cancer growing in his ministry and needs to do something about it. And I hope he hears me . . . and he nodded.”

It wouldn’t be hard if he is serious. Just pull all the “hell files” and act on the confessions of the priests who willingly made victims of children. It’s not hard. Why keep those who only hurt the case you say you stand for?

No tags for this post.