Doug PollardDoing my Vatican Rag
March 21st 2010 04:37
I had one of those moments this week, where I quite literally could not believe my ears.
At the end of yet another news report of child abuse by Roman Catholic priests, Anton Enus added, in an almost throwaway fashion, “Victim advocates estimate that up to half a million children have been abused at the hands of the Catholic Church over the last fifty years.”
Pope Benedict, in his former role as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly called The Inquisition), banned anyone from speaking about the abuse outside the church. The criminals were protected and the victims silenced in order to safeguard the church’s image.
In a letter to Irish victims he now says ‘serious mistakes’ were made by the local Bishops, but still does not confess his own complicity.
The Holy See has ‘permanent observer’ status at the United Nations. It can’t vote in the General Assembly, but has the same status as a member state at most UN conferences.
It has used that status to obstruct: the provision of emergency contraception; the promotion of condoms as protection against HIV/AIDS; sexuality education in school curricula; and the training and equipping of health care workers to ensure safe and accessible abortion.
In short, the church works strenuously to ensure an early death from AIDS for millions, and orphans millions more. It ensures death for unknown numbers of women from botched illegal abortions.
The 2004 Jay Report on child sexual abuse in the US Catholic Church found that from 1950 to 2002, 10,667 people made allegations of child sexual abuse. 81% of them were male, 78% between the ages of 11 and 17.
The Vatican tries to say it’s a gay issue, not a paedophile one. Monsignor Charles Scicluna, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said that of the 3,000 cases referred to his office over nine years, 60% involved adolescents of the same sex, 30% involved heterosexual relations, and only the remaining 10% were paedophilia ‘in the truest sense’.
Here in Australia, Rome wields massive influence in both major parties.
Let’s remind ourselves of that news bulletin again. “Victim advocates estimate that up to half a million children have been abused at the hands of the Catholic Church over the last fifty years.”
Every hour of every day for the last fifty years, at least one child has been physically and/or sexually abused by this organisation. And our politicians go to them for moral guidance?
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