BishopAccountability.org
	No More Excuses in Church Abuse Scandal By Michael Den Tandt Toronto Sun April 17, 2010 http://www.torontosun.com/comment/editorial/2010/04/16/13614446.html Those convicted of armed robbery in Canada can expect to go to jail for five years or so. But the average sentence for a sex crime is four years. Sentences in sex crimes involving children tend to be even shorter — often as little as two years. Why do we consider the violation of a child to be less heinous than the robbery of money from a bank? Recent statements from senior Vatican officials about the church's global sexual abuse scandal have been surreal. Each week it seems there's a bizarre new comment — justifying, defending, equivocating. We did what we thought was best at the time. It was different then. It happened long ago. The media are out to get us. Rot. We didn't know in 1962, or 1972, or 1982, that the sexual violation of a child was a grotesque crime against every moral law? Every sane person knows it is an abomination. People haven't changed that much in 30 years. Child sexual abuse is the theft of a person's soul. Why are sentences so light? The Criminal Code says, in section 152: "Every person who, for a sexual purpose, invites, counsels or incites a person under the age of fourteen years to touch, directly or indirectly, with a part of the body or with an object, the body of any person, including the body of the person who so invites, counsels or incites and the body of the person under the age of fourteen years, is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years …" That's what pedophile priests and all other pedophiles deserve. Not a transfer. Not a harsh talking-to. Not absolution, because they're old and their crimes occurred years ago. They deserve the harsh light of justice and prison — 10 years as a minimum, not a maximum. There is no statute of limitations here. The need for justice does not fade with the years. The church and its servants are not above the law. Until the Vatican and its representatives acknowledge this, truly understand it, they will continue to grope in the dark for public understanding.
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