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	Pope Offers Words of Encouragement, Hope Daily Observer April 24, 2008 http://www.thedailyobserver.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1001262 Pope Benedict XVI, supreme pontiff of the world's one billion Roman Catholics, is being lauded for his admission that "great pain" has been caused by the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clergy. The Pope reportedly opened the topic on the plane on his way from Rome to the U.S., where he is now making an official visit. The issue of clergy abuse has been the elephant in the room for a generation, since revelations started coming out of the U.S. and Canada and countries around the world of inappropriate touching, even intercourse, between priests and innocent children in their care. The problem became widely known as the so-called "baby boom" generation came of age and began revealing their dark secrets from childhood. A common thread runs through most of these sickening and sobering accounts: the priest was a trusted friend of the family, a respected member of the community. The children - boys and girls - kept their silence expecting they would not be believed. They tried to forget and get on with their lives, but deep-seated psychological damage caused by the abuse eventually led them to speak out, in search of healing and wholeness, and in an effort to prevent future abuses. The Pope has promised that pedophiles will be screened from seminaries and will not be allowed to become priests in the future. "Efforts have already been made to deal honestly and fairly with this tragic situation," he said, going further than his predecessors on this subject. "Efforts to protect children must be continued," he said. But a large part of the problem, both in the eyes of Catholics and in the eyes of the rest of society, has been the fact that the Church's initial reaction to reports of abuse in an overwhelming number of cases, was to deny, close ranks and protect, not the children, but the accused priests. The greater scandal is not that some priests are pedophiles, but that the Church systematically protected them, hushed things up, paid people off, and moved priests to other parishes where they could reoffend. A priest occupies a position of trust and even love. He may be perceived - especially by children - as a symbol of faith, even of God, and to betray that position for selfish lust, is despicable. Christ Himself said, "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he be cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones." But what has turned many people's stomachs is not so much the action as the reaction - the reaction of the Church, that is. These are handsome words from His Holiness. But handsome is as handsome does. It's one thing to think you can keep pedophiles out of seminaries, but it is quite another to keep vigilance, to make sure that, if and when such situations arise with any priest, swift and sure action is taken to remove him, not from the parish, but from the priesthood, and he be turned over to the secular authorities for justice.
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