The child sexual abuse scandal has reached the Pope. As a lapsed (bigtime lapsed) Catholic, I am at a loss to describe my feelings and thoughts. I am in mourning. I am jubilant. I am crying now. I am a chaotic messy ball of emotions.
Ratzinger covered up when he was just a lowly Bishop and not just when he became the Vatican's enforcer. The church already knew this when he was made Pope. That is what truly hurts. This is the infallible holy emperor of my childhood faith.
Go below the orange squiggly if you want to know more. I am practically incoherent. Thank you to all the commenters who helped me improve this diary.
Here is the relevant information and a brief excerpt from one of the articles:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/...
http://www.euronews.com/...
It's inevitable that all bishops of the day, including Ratzinger, handled abuse complaints against priests in-house, said the Rev. Fergus O'Donoghue, editor of the Irish Jesuit journal Studies.
"The pope was no different to any other bishop at the time. The church policy was to keep it all quiet — to help people, but to avoid scandal. Avoiding scandal was a huge issue for the church," he said. "Of course there was cover-up," he added. But worse was "the systematic lack of concern for the victims."
Remember how hard some people tried to "shoot the messenger?"
http://www.youtube.com/...