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	The Damnable Catholic Bishops of Ireland By Rod Dreher Beliefnet November 28, 2009 http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/11/the-damnable-catholic-bishops.html The Irish government commission has just released its report on the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, and sadly, it's what we've come to expect. Excerpt: Clergy were able to molest hundreds of vulnerable children because of a "systemic, calculated perversion of power" that put their abusers above the law, the Irish government said. The damning verdict on the conduct of church and secular authorities followed a three-year investigation into allegations of child abuse by priests in Dublin going back to the 1960s. Investigators who were given access to 60,000 previous secret church files accused four Archbishops of Dublin of deliberately suppressing evidence of "widespread" abuse. Archbishops John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan and Kevin McNamara, who have all since died, and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who is retired, all refused to pass information to local police, the report said. Evidence was kept inside a secret vault in the archbishop's Dublin residence, with suspect clerics moved between parishes to prevent the allegations being made public. For their part, Gardai frequently ignored complaints from victims, effectively granting priests immunity from prosecution. The inquiry found that church authorities nurtured inappropriately close relations with senior police officers. Got that? Even the police colluded with the Catholic hierarchy to shield its child-raping priests from accountability. More: The inquiry, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, dismissed the claims of former bishops that they did not know sex abuse was a crime. It concluded that the the church hierarchy was preoccupied with "the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets". It added: "All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities." That is the key point of the entire sex abuse scandal, in this country as well: the utter guilt of the bishops. The pederast priests were never more than a small minority (and, of course, this kind of cretin exists in every church); some at least (but not all) were driven by dark compulsions. This is, regrettably, part of our fallen humanity. What enraged me, and what I think is even more damnable than the crimes against children themselves, is the fact that bishops who were not driven by compulsions, and whose responsibility it was to protect the innocent from these predators, valued their own position more than the innocence of children, more than the protection of Catholic families, more than justice, and ultimately, more than Jesus Christ. And there has been, and will not be, justice coming from the Church against those men for what they did to Catholic children, Catholic families, and the Catholic faith -- all in the name of preserving their position. Cardinal Mahony is still in power in Los Angeles, for example. Cardinal Law, who was driven from office, landed in a cushy position at a Roman basilica, courtesy of Pope John Paul II. The clerical mafia, lavender and otherwise, looks out for its own, no matter what it costs to the integrity of the Catholic faith. Where is the true repentance? Where? It doesn't exist, at least not that I can see. What's done can't be undone, but if these bishops were truly sorry, they should retire to a monastery or some ascetic place, and spend the rest of their lives in penance. Fat chance of that happening with most of these men. Would that there was a man of John Profumo's character among that sorry lot. Here's how the fallen British cabinet minister redeemed himself: Suave and debonair, married to a glamorous movie star, Valerie Hobson, Mr. Profumo seemed to be leading a gilded life. But after his fall, he withdrew permanently from public office, refused to discuss the scandal and, instead, turned to charitable work among the poor in the hardscrabble East End of London. ... By working in the East End, washing dishes and tending alcoholics, Mr. Profumo's friends said, he paid his dues. One friend, Lord Deedes, told the BBC on Friday, "He atoned for his mistakes and I think will, on death, receive his reward for that." More: Just a few days after he quit politics, Toynbee arrived at Toynbee Hall in the East End, asking if there was anything he could offer. It was a relationship that was to last more than 40 years. Profumo had private money of course, so he could devote himself entirely to charitable work, and for four decades he avoided the spotlight, including the 1989 movie 'Scandal' which dramtatised the affair. Friends believed that the remainder of his life was a process of atonement. 'No-one judges Jack Profumo more harshly than he does himself. He says he has never known a day since it happened when he has not felt real shame,' said his friend Jim Thompson, the late Bishop of Bath and Wells. But it never overshadowed the work he did at Toynbee Hall. Profumo and his wife, the actress Valerie Hobson, worked tirelessly for the charity, as he became chief fundraiser, using his old contacts to raise funds. Lord Longford said he felt 'more admiration [for Profumo] than for all the men I've known in my lifetime'. A helper at Toynbee Hall was more succinct, saying: 'We think he's a bloody saint.' As his wife said of him: 'It isn't what happens to a man, it's what he does with it that matters.' Where will you find a disgraced Catholic bishop, shamed Protestant televangelist, or ruined Orthodox hierarch quietly doing that? Damian Thompson, the Telegraph's Catholic blogger, is outraged by what the bishops and senior clergy have done to the Catholic faith in Ireland. Excerpt: [T]his will make the Catholic Church even more loathed in Ireland than it already is. The greatest scandal, of course, lies in the acts perpetrated by wicked clergy against the innocent. But it's the secrecy and deceit of the Church authorities that resonates most with me. For, although I was educated by Irish brothers, I can honestly say that I've never experienced clerical paedophilia, or even met a priest or brother who was to my knowledge a classic paedophile. But I have encountered, many times, the arrogance of senior clergy who believe that almost anything can be kept secret from the laity if it might "damage the good name of the Church" (ie, inconvenience or embarrass them). And I associate the worst abuses of power with the mean-spirited Jansenism of the Irish Church and the Irish clerical diaspora. True Christianity, whether in its Catholic form or some other, will always be loathed and persecuted by the world. It can't be otherwise. If we Christians are not thought of as a threat to the way of the world, we should worry that we're not doing what we ought to be doing. What an unspeakable tragedy, then, for our leaders to commit so many egregious "unforced errors" (to use a sports metaphor that's not remotely sufficient for the gravity of these crimes), and to make the lot of Jesus's followers so much worse. (And I mean this indictment not only against the Catholic bishops, but also Protestant and Orthodox clergy who engage in similar corruption). A few years ago, a dear Catholic friend told me about an ex-Catholic he knows who had been forced by his priest as a boy to perform oral sex. To this day, this man cannot drive past a Catholic parish without physically gagging at the mere sight of the church. Can you imagine the torment, not only the torment itself, but facing that kind of psychophysiological barrier to communion with Christ and His Church? That poor soul may have left the Church, but it's my prayer and indeed my conviction that Almighty God will have more mercy on him on the Day of Judgment than he will on the priest who destroyed that child's capacity to believe, and the bishops who allowed demons like that priest to have their way with the faithful and their children. Thank God, there is mercy for all of us (for if not, who among us would be saved?), and redemption from our sins, no matter how heavy and foul-smelling. But not without true repentance. In any case, we personally might be redeemed, but the consequences of our sins are, sadly, lived out through the generations.
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