Re: Pope Benedict’s address to US Bishops on Ad Limina Visit to Rome

Kristine Ward
National Survivor Advocates Coalition
Nov. 27, 2011

It takes hubris for Pope Benedict to tell his bishops that the Catholic Church has led in the fight against sexual abuse of children.

Issuing self satisfied pats on the back while children remain in danger, only further diminishes the Church’s credibility and deepens the laryngitis in its moral voice.

For the Pope to insinuate the Church is a leader and reformer in the movement to protect children from sexual abuse is counterfeit. We hope Catholics out of a false sense of respect and loyalty don’t buy this.

We feel for the Catholics who must be embarrassed by this papal approach and ask them to speak with their wallets and redirect their contributions until the Pope’s words and Catholic Church’s actions match up for the protection of children.

The Church to this day, while waving a moral flag, hasn’t even come close to the Penn State Board of Trustees response: no bishop has been fired.

We would like to see an investigation of bishops by a former FBI director or some one of the same rank and caliber as the one initiated by Penn State. Then we might be getting somewhere with the Church.

It is possible that if Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict had been morally outraged and acted accordingly when the Boston incarnation of the scandal broke children who became post 2002 victims of Jerry Sandusky and other perpetrators might have been saved.

But when massive news coverage outed both perpetrators and cover-up bishops we got a whitewash from the Church of how moving priests from parish to parish, and getting and following bad advice from psychiatrists was a good formula that only needed the tweaked with the addition of a fingerprinting program.

Again, today, the Pope comes up short.