Victims Praise Abuse Archive; Question Vatican Censorship

By Barbara Dorris
SNAP
March 8, 2013

http://www.snapnetwork.org/italy_victims_praise_abuse_archive_question_vatican_censorship

The National Catholic Reporter disclosed today that Vatican servers are blocking users from accessing www.bishopaccountability.org.

The famous author George Bernard Shaw once said that “all censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions.” By blocking the site BishopAccountability.org, the Vatican is proving Mr. Shaw very correct.

BishopAccountability.org provides a valuable service by providing facts about clergy sex abuse. They do this without being partisan and without skewing information. They are archivists of information, not any sort of propaganda organization. It is one thing for Vatican officials to turn a blind eye to these facts, as they have done for years, but it is quite another to attempt to prevent others from seeing them as well.

The very name of this organization shows exactly what church officials are afraid of; being held accountable for their decades of inaction on clergy sex abuse. Today, they finally took action, but once again, it was the wrong one. By refusing to allow themselves to be held accountable, they prove ever more how it is true that it is people, not polices that are the problem.

This is a cowardly move, and it should be known as such. We applaud BishopAccountability.org in their work, and the fact that they are trying to be silenced today proves just how much of an impact they have made, and despite this setback, will continue to make.

(Note: It is still possible to access the website from other servers, only Vatican servers are blocking the site).