LOS ANGELES — The church files are filled with outrage, pain, and confusion. There are handwritten notes from distraught mothers, accounts of furious phone calls from brothers, and perplexed inquiries from police following up on allegations of priests sexually abusing children.
Over four decades, particularly under Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, parishioners in the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese repeatedly tried to alert church authorities about abusive priests in their midst, trusting that the church would respond appropriately.
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‘‘Not once over these past years did you ever raise any questions about our policies, practices or procedures in dealing with the problem of clergy sexual misconduct involving minors.’’
Sorry about that. We're raising those questions and criticisms NOW that the archdiocese's secret files have been released and your criminally incompetent management of clergy personnel and total lack of concern for children's welfare have been revealed to the world, your eminence.
sad that child abuse is condoned but birth control is not. seems backwards to me, unless child abuse is a core foundation going back 1000 years with the church. why else keep it hidden for so long?
Pburega: The Catholic Church does not condone child abuse anymore than homosexuals as a group condone pederasty. I suspect that you would not countenance an indictment of the entire homosexual community on grounds that a few of their number engage in sex with pre and post pubescent youth. Why then falsely accuse the Roman Catholic Church of condoning the same conduct merely because of the criminal activity of a few? After all, the Catholic Church has never taught that it was OK to abuse minors (or any other human person, for that matter). As for the Church's teachings on birth control, do some homework first and learn the meaning of the idea of a total gift of self within the context of conjugal love, and then we can have a discussion about how "backward" the Church's teachings on birth control really are.