The concern that non-catholics have when news such as this come out is that the Catholic church hasn’t done a good enough job of weeding out the evil priests who perform the criminal acts, but even worse - they maintain a culture of keeping these incidents internal instead of involving the proper authorities.
The arguement that other groups, such as schools and protestant churches have evil leaders who prey on children doesn’t address the second concern, which is the culture of not involving authorities. If this was just one isolated incident where a local priest was responsible, it would be more understandable. Instead, it is just one of many with a similar pattern: accused priest doesn’t face formal punishment or criminal investigation and church authorities who know about the accusations don’t alert the authorities or punish the priest.
It gives the appearance that church authorities are more concerned with hiding problems with priests rather than dealing with them openly and showing more concern for the victims. The church has said they’ve corrected their mistakes and abuse cases are from the distant past, but this case occurred starting in 1999.
If the priest is treated by the Church as guilty until proven innocent, they do indeed face official (within the church) recriminations while the incident is being investigated.
As many of these 'incidents' are only coming to light years, sometimes decades, after they allegedly happened, some of this reeks of lawsuit lotto.
I'm not saying that no incidents ever occurred, but consider that the taint of accusation, if unwarranted, not only removes a priest from his current contact with the public, but even if proven false, will follow that priest for the rest of his life. Needless to say, that would be a career wrecker.
Before one goes calling for heads on pikes, consider that this would be an excellent way for someone bent on damaging the Church to proceed, through baseless accusations, to cripple the clergy.
There are those who just might have such motivation, because the Catholic Church will not accept nor perform homosexual marriages, nor will it sanction abortion. When one considers the people who believe their ends justify any means, the abortionists, homosexuals, and others just might employ such tactics.
With the willingness of the media to belabor any accusation, justified or otherwise, it is only prudent that the Church isolate the accused (to prevent any further incidents, if indeed wrongdoing has occurred) and perform its own investigation before calling in authorities, otherwise, the tactic would be entirely effective.
“The concern that non-catholics have when news such as this come out is that the Catholic church hasn’t done a good enough job of weeding out the evil priests who perform the criminal acts, but even worse - they maintain a culture of keeping these incidents internal instead of involving the proper authorities.”
You are right. It is also the concern of faithful Catholics. It is also the conccern of those who see cover up of sexual abuse in other institutions such as public schools.
However there is a distinct number of people on Free Republic who use this scandal and its horrors to condemn everything about the Catholic Church even its dogmas. They are never concerned about sex abuse victims except for those who were victims of priests. They don’t care about other institutions shuffling abusers and covering up abuse. They are not even willing to admit that perhaps in some instances false accusations have been made. Though som.accusers have admitted such and withdrawn their complaints.
Everything is not about the wrongs done by clergy and bishops. It is about hating Catholicism and hoping and praying that this crisis will lead the the Church’s downfall and her silence.
There are two groups who embrace this idea. The first is the liberal secularists who hate the Church’s defense of life and Christian morality. The second is those rabid, vitrolic Protestants who hate Catholicism and Catholics. Guess who the group on FR are???