LITTLE ROCK (AR)
Bilgrimmage blog
May 8, 2019
By William Lindsey
The emeritus pope recently published a statement about the abuse horror show in the Catholic church which makes absolutely no mention at all of the roots of this horror show in clericalism, and which takes no responsibility, on the part of the clerical governing sector of the church, for this horror show and the cover-up of clerical abuse for years. The emeritus pope’s statements blaming the Catholic abuse horrors on the 1960s, not clericalism, were followed by a statement by the emeritus prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Müller, affirming the emeritus pope’s analysis and suggesting that the clericalism explanation of the abuse situation in the church is “ideological.”
Here’s a recent statement by one of the people who knows more than anyone else about the Catholic abuse story, Thomas Doyle. This is the opening part of an essay entitled “The Sexual Abuse Crisis is Not a Crisis” that I’d like to recommend to you in its entirety:
The clerical leadership of the Catholic church has been aware of sexual violation of minors and vulnerable adults for centuries. This tragic reality is a critical problem, even though it has been buried in secrecy. The secrecy ended in the mid-80s, when the media exposed the church’s cover-up of a prolific priest-perpetrator in Louisiana. Often referred to as a “crisis,” it is, in truth, not a crisis. It is something much worse. It is a worldwide manifestation of a complex, systemic and self-destructive condition in the church. It is giving us a view of today’s version of the Dark Side of the institutional church.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.