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	Tone-deaf in Rome New York Times July 17, 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/opinion/17sat4.html&OQ=_rQ3D1Q26partnerQ3DrssnytQ26emcQ3Drss&OP=26500c53Q2FH5c,HRmuolmm8LHL%29Q2A%29H%29Q2BHQ2AQ2BHmIwEwmEHQ2AQ2BoT8MVQ3B8!Y There was not much to like in the Vatican’s news conference this week about its pedophilia scandal, but among all the defensive posturing and inept statements, there was one real stunner: The citing of the movement for the ordination of women as a “grave crime” that Rome deems as offensive as the scandal of priests who sexually assault children. Calls for ending the ban on women priests are only a blip on the ecclesiastical radar screen. Yet Vatican officials gratuitously raised them at the news conference, while they offered limited antidotes to the crimes of sexual abuse and the long history of bishops dithering and covering up these crimes. They doubled the internal statute of limitations to 20 years for defrocking abusers. Yet they failed to emphasize the problem as a state crime as the American bishops did after being forced to dismiss more than 700 priests. “It’s not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law,” one prelate airily declared, insisting Rome’s existing “guidelines” — not mandates — are sufficient for prelates to obey civil laws.
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