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	Mccaffrey: Cardinal O'Malley Issues Another Insult By Arthur McCaffrey MetroWest Daily News June 18, 2010 http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x1372401156/McCaffrey-Cardinal-OMalley-issues-another-insult NEWTON — Boston's Cardinal Sean O'Malley rarely says much in public, but his latest pronouncement on his special mission to Ireland makes one wonder why he changed a good habit. Commenting on the pervasive clergy abuse in Ireland, he told a Boston Herald reporter: "Our hope is that people will recognize that this is a human problem, not just a problem that exists within the church..." So this isn't about the Church, right? These are the failings of our common humanity, says Ireland's next best hope. Predatory priests simply reflect the fact that inside each of us there is an abusive priest just waiting to get out. Think about it - next time you're short of cash, just listen to your inner Bernie Madoff, so you can lie, cheat, and steal with the best of them. Once again this corrupt church refuses to take ownership of its own problem, and tries to deflect responsibility onto others. It is like BP blaming its oil spill on America's thirst for gas. Given that the Roman Catholic Church never speaks impulsively, what are we to make of O'Malley's remarks? Is this going to be the church's defensive strategy in Ireland whereby, using an Irish guilt trip to make us all accessories after the fact, it tries to minimize its own culpability? E.g., " We are all sinners, so pat, pat, on the head, go and sin no more," If so, what a message from an alleged leader who was selected for this special Irish mission because he's supposed to be one of the best and the brightest the church has to offer. What an insult to our intelligence (and humanity)! Would O'Malley really have us believe that it was not the fault of Catholic seminaries whose recruitment and training policies created breeding grounds for deviant, perverted behaviors? Or that it was not the fault of the products of those seminaries who used their special powers and privileges to lure innocent children from the confessional and the classroom to their bedroom? Nor the fault of the racketeering bishops and cardinals who shipped felonious priests back and forth across state lines to avoid detection and capture? And not the fault of the Vatican insiders who dismissed charges of cover-up as so much "petty gossip," and likened their embattled pope to a Holocaust victim? And of course, it can't be the fault of Bennie or JPII who always put protection of the institution before the rights and justice of victims. No, says our Super-Cardinal, it is not a Catholic problem, "it is a human problem... and please excuse me while I nip into the nearest phone booth to strip down to my red singlet and tights, before leaping into the air to fly to Dublin to fight crime and deal with the all-too-human failings of those poor dumb Irish.' That image would normally have me laughing out loud if I were not already crying.
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