Protectors of the Pedophile

The Catholic church has been in hot holy water over the past couple of decades, as more and more cases of child molestation by clergy members come to the light – I used to think raking in millions upon millions of tax-free dollars every year was the most despicable thing churches did, until these stories began to surface.   Apparently some men of the cloth have been de-frocking their choir boy companions for years now, and the church has done all it can to keep these incidents under their pious, pointy hats.  Now, to be fair, Catholicism isn’t the only religious sect that has been involved in these allegations of gross misconduct – in both the figurative and literal sense – but their pathetic and veiled attempts at handling these cases has been a travesty.  For example, a 2006 BBC documentary titled Sex Crimes and the Vatican specifically talks about a secret church decree known as ‘Crimen sollicitationis’, which “imposes the strictest oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest dealing with the allegation, and any witnesses…Breaking that oath means instant banishment from the Catholic Church – also known as excommunication.”  This has led to many molestation cases being handled internally – no pun intended – and also a reluctance by the church to work with civil authorities who investigate these types of cases.  One would think that an organization known for its lofty moral standards, a group of people who basically believe themselves to be the right hand of God, would want all the help they can get when it comes to finding kid diddlers within their ranks.  But as this recent story shows, the Vatican prefers issues of this nature to be shrouded in secrecy and handled in anonymity, instead of having their image damaged by a little thing like the truth.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday accused Belgian police of “deplorable methods” in raiding a bishops’ meeting as part of a pedophilia probe, as Brussels said the Vatican was over-reacting.

“I want to express… my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness – moment of sadness?!? Really?!? - in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out including in the Mechelen cathedral and in the premises where the Belgian episcopate was meeting in plenary session,” he said. 

Thursday’s raids were prompted by new claims of child abuse by members of the Catholic Church in Belgium, one of the countries worst hit by recent revelations of pedophilia by priests in Europe and North America.

In his letter Pope Benedict called for the respect of the Church’s own procedures for tackling abuse…He stressed that police had targeted a meeting that was due to address “amongst other things, aspects linked to the abuse of minors by members of the clergy.”  If you were a victim, would you be more comforted by law enforcement officers looking for hard evidence that the church was attempting to cover up, or a meeting among church leaders that included a “molestation is bad, m’kay” speech? “I have myself repeated numerous times that these serious facts must be dealt with by civil law and by canon law, in reciprocal respect of the specificity and autonomy of each,” added the pontiff, according to a copy of the letter released Sunday by the Vatican. Which basically means, “Law enforcement authorities should handle any crimes against the church; but we’ll deal with any crimes that are perpetrated by members of the church in our own way.”

A spokesman for the Belgian archdiocese, Eric De Beukelaer, insisted “the church doesn’t consider itself above the law.”…”The only thing we ask is whether the searches were proportional,” as the images went around the world and “gave a negative image of the church,” he told local television RTL-TVi.  All of the molestation accusations are apparently fine, but seeing images of a church being raided is seemingly the worst of their public relation concerns at the moment.

Police confiscated phones, computers and the archdiocese’s accounting system in a search for documents including any correspondence between alleged victims and the Catholic authorities…The Belgian Church was rocked in April when its longest-serving bishop, 73-year-old Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after admitting sexually abusing a boy for years.

Police also seized computer files at the home of the bishop’s predecessor Godfried Danneels, who was Belgium’s top cardinal for the past 20 years.  According to retired priest Dirk Deville, hundreds of cases of sexual abuse had been signaled to Danneels going back to the 1990s, leading to suspicions of a cover-up.(VIA)

The police should have just let comedian Louis C.K. handle the investigation, because he apparently has no problem getting the truth out of the Catholic church (Contains language – not recommended if you are the politically correct type either):