PROTECTING THE SICK AND EMPTY
What we need in this country are religious leaders who can make the
right decisions
without thought of self, reward or glory.
There are bunches of religious leaders today who are jumbo politicians,
not only
worrying about keeping their plush jobs but also striving to please
every possible
constituent. They don't make proper decisions. Their judgement is
based on how
much money they can acquire, how many pats on the back they will
receive from peers
or how much praise they will win in religious publications.
Meanwhile, we might wonder, who is worrying about the people? This
morning it was
reported that another 400 victims have come forward accusing priests in
the Boston
Diocese of sexual abuse. Cardinal Bernard Law, hardly acting as a
cardinal, failed to
show up for Mass this past Sunday. He has said repeatedly that he will
not resign in the face of
charges that he protected priests when they were accused of sexual
crimes.
But Bernard Law did protect priests. He also broke the code of conduct
when he allowed
abusing clerics to transfer to other congregations where they would
molest new
victims and ruin more lives. Law's disgrace is that he allowed countless
sick priests to
remain on the clergy roster, and gave them new opportunities to continue
their crimes.
If priests are sentenced to prison for their disgraces, one wonders what
the
government should do with a Roman Catholic Cardinal who was central in a
sexual
intrique that damaged hundreds.
The crime is not ignorance as some claim. That feeble excuse has been
flowing out of
Catholicism for at least a decade. The claim is that bishops did not
know priests
were hurting children when they touched them inappropriately or involved
them in
secretive sexual unions.
I say it's crazy to claim that highly educated bishops did not
understand sexual
contact between a boy and a man is harmful. What could possibly make a
bishop think
that men having oral sex with young boys was good for anyone, including
the Catholic
church? This claim of ignorance is laughed at by everyone outside the
church, and yet it
is the assertion that continues to be offered as an excuse for decades
of sexual crimes
in the Catholic church.
Everyone, Catholics first, should be outraged that such morally empty
leadership has
been allowed to drive Catholicism into this new trough of trouble.
The way leaders should protect the sick and empty is to remove them from
active
participation with other human beings and force them into medical
therapy.
But the mind set that has allowed this buffoonery to continue is that
priests should be
protected from all charges and criticism. The leadership has decided
that every priest
must be surrounded by brothers, or bishops and fellow priests,
so that no
embarrassment or shame ever washes over the Catholic church.
This has been the so-called Cardinal Rule for decades. Even before the
priest shortage
began bumping the church, priests were the golden boys of Catholicism.
And if you were
a troubled priest, the protection you received was abundant and
unending.
Now the question is, should Cardinal Law resign from his post? If you
say no, please
explain why a man who encouraged sexual crimes for decades should
continue as the
foremost Catholic leader in America.
The second question is, should he face the judgement of a criminal
court for his lapses
in his leadership? Would that be punishment enough for driving the
church into this dark
corner?
Clark D. Morphew
Posted For 4-17-02
