The Pope and paedophiles

The pope seems like a good man, humble, compassionate, honest, brave. He’s been vocal on climate change, so kudos there. But his visit to Ireland doesn’t seem well thought out. People here are raw after one atrocity after another has come to light. The Catholic Church reigned supreme in Ireland for nearly a century, and its abuse was institutional in scale and medieval in design, with victims in the tens of thousands. As a result, the pope won’t get the warm greeting that awaited Pope John Paul in 1979.

The extent of the church’s crimes in Ireland has only recently come to light. Within recent months, adults my age in other countries have learned that their parents weren’t their biological parents. That they had been sold illegally as infants by nuns, who imprisoned their mothers as slaves in work camps (also known as the Magdalene Laundries). The discovery of nearly 800 baby corpses in a septic tank in Tuam is also quite recent, one of many “mother and baby homes” run by nuns where babies failed to thrive--similar to the workhouses run by the English during the famine. The church’s treatment of women and children made Dickensian London look like Disneyworld (women were given a number when they arrived in the laundries, and called by that number, for instance). There were also industrial schools, where boys were preyed upon by paedophile priests.

It is estimated the number of Roman Catholics attending a weekly service in Ireland fell from 90 percent in 1972 to 31 percent in 2011. It’s surely fallen further still, as atrocities have since come to light.

Does the pope think he can heal all of this by dint of his personality? The church’s credibility in Ireland is so low that it is hard to see what could repair it. Here’s an idea: don’t have someone implicated in the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report lead a mass.

The Irish Times had an article last weekend about Cardinal Wuerl, now archbishop of Washington (replacing an archbishop who had to be released of religious duties after having sexually abused seminarians and minors). From the Times:
"Cardinal Wuerl was bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, from 1988 to 2006. His handling of child sexual abuse allegations there was examined in the grand jury report published last Tuesday."

During his time in Pittsburgh, a ring of priests “used whips, violence and sadism in raping their victims”.

"In his evidence to the grand jury one such victim, “George”, told of being introduced to this “ring of predatory priests” by Zirwas. George recalled that these priests gave favoured boys special gifts, “specifically, gold cross necklaces”. The grand jury concluded these gold crosses “were a signal to other predators that the children had been desensitised to sexual abuse and were optimal targets for further victimisation”.

"George wondered how none of this “created suspicion on the part of diocesan administrators”. However, the report concluded that “the grand jury’s review of records revealed that the diocese was aware of the conduct of these predatory priests and the records corroborated George’s testimony”.

Wuerl was part of the system that transferred priests around so that they became someone else’s problem. Here is the final paragraph of the Times article:

"Cardinal Wuerl will give the keynote address at 2.30pm next Wednesday afternoon, on “The Welfare of the Family is Decisive for the Future of the World”.

If that is not unrepentant arrogance, I don’t know what is. Many people in Ireland are registering for tickets for the papal mass--and not going as a protest. Amnesty International will have a protest at the same time as the mass. That is how Catholic Ireland looks today.
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