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Pope Benedict- Bring The Criminals To Justice, Stop Hiding Them

12/11/09-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
When Pope John Paul II passed away, I mourned. The man who had been my Pope, though I am not a Catholic, was gone. I respected his Holiness even if I never agreed with him. He was a man of peace, a man of respect, and a man of deep faith. He was a man who understood the deep pain and suffering in the world, and knew that the Catholic Church had much to answer for with regards to the suffering it had caused. He is one of two men ‘on the Right’, as it were, who I have deep respect for though I never agreed with what they believed. Pope John Paul II knew that the sex scandals that had embroiled the Catholic Church had to be addressed, and he did what he could to not only fix the problem, but bring those perpetrators to justice.

With all due respect, Pope Benedict does not come close to filling the shoes of Pope John Paul II. If nothing else, Pope Benedict has sought to blame an entire group for the crimes and sins of a few people, and purge them from his Church without bringing those individuals to justice. I do not care if Pope Benedict is “disturbed and distressed” by the report in Ireland into the abuses perpetrated by Catholic Priests over the last several decades. Demanding that the Irish Government publish that report without naming a single person who committed those crimes and who covered those crimes up is tantamount to obstruction of justice. These individuals should be punished for their crimes. Not punished within the Church, but defrocked and handed over to face criminal charges in a temporal court of law.

What is more, the Vatican is attempting to hide behind diplomatic immunity, and demanding that the pursuit of justice be taken through diplomatic channels. Pope Benedict must end that as well. Hand over these criminals and stop blaming their crimes on a group of people who seek to demonize in order to bolster your waning numbers with those uncomfortable with modernity. Stop making wonderful speeches and giving pretty words in order to assuage the pain that your parishioners feel and see that justice is done. Worse, the decision to make sure that the report did not come out until the Thanksgiving Holiday in the United States just shows how desperate the Catholic Church is to hide the scope of the abuse from the world by making sure that the American networks did not cover it.

If you truly feel that the Vatican, and thus the Church, are above the temporal laws of the various nations that your faith has spread to, then do not be surprised if your Church’s status within those nations is threatened. It is not possible for the Vatican to claim diplomatic status with impunity and not expect that some nation, somewhere, will not see their actions as a threat to their sovereignty and expel the Church forthwith as a foreign nation. All it will take is one dictator in some country who feels that the Catholic Church is a threat to his power, and the Catholic Church will be removed. It will be taken over.

This is not the Sixteenth Century. It is not the age when the Pope and the Vatican ruled the Catholic nations by decree, and the temporal power of the Church often trumped that of the Crown. It is not the age of Henry II and Archbishop Thomas a Beckett. It is not the time when the Pope could install a King and rule his flock through their voice.

This is hardly the time of Pope Adrian VI when the Vatican decreed English rule over Ireland. A decree which sparked eight hundred years of warfare over the sovereignty of that island.

It is this diplomatic duplicity and the ability to hide the names of criminal priests that fuels men like Ian Paisley, and those like him who have warred with the Catholics of Ulster for the better part of half a century.

This is hardly the time of the Synod of Whitby when the Roman Church took over the Irish Church.

Today, there are hundreds of major Christian denominations. By not bringing these criminals to justice in the open, visible to the very people they wronged, you, Pope Benedict the former Cardinal Ratzinger have chosen to give them reason to doubt and reason to leave the Catholic Church. You have given them cause to join- horrors of horrors- the Church of Ireland, other denominations of Christianity, or even to just stop going to church. By hiding behind the supposed sovereignty of the Vatican- a sovereignty that even now Italy is contemplating revoking over this issue- you have threatened the Catholic Church’s very survival.

Some would say that a world without the Catholic Church would be a better world.

I can say this. I was molested as a child, and that man was brought to justice. The very people who sheltered him were punished as well. Twenty-four years later, the knowledge that they were punished takes away some of the pain. By not bringing these men to the light and giving their victims justice, all you are doing is increasing their pain. It is un-Christian, unconscionable, and against everything that the Bible stands for.