In an effort to save what little face they have left, the Catholic Church in Germany set up an abuse hotline for people calling in to seek advice and report abuses. Nice try. Except that on the first day the hotline was so overwhelmed with calls that it had to be shut down.
Apparently, over 4,000 alleged victims of physical and sexual abuse by Catholic priests called for help; far more than the handful of therapists assigned to deal with them could answer. In the end, just 162 out of 4,459 callers were heard before the system was shut down. The head of the project, Andreas Zimmer, admitted that he wasn't prepared for "that kind of an onslaught'.
And the scandal continues to grow.
Earlier in the week stories surfaced that Bishop Mixa, an ally of the Pope, was accused of beating children, though the allegations have been denied. Still, several children have come forth to say he beat them with fists and a carpet beater while screaming; 'The devil is in you and I will drive him out!'
Bishop Stephan Ackermann, who was appointed the bishopric of Trier last year, reported that 20 priests are suspected of having sexually abused children between the 1950s and 1990s, and that three of the cases had been passed on to public prosecutors, with two more soon to follow.
And there is still anothe rcase of pedophilia that Pope Benedict allegedly knew about, this time in the U.S. The Reverend Lawrence Murphy spent years molesting children at a school for the deaf in Wisconsin, but when the case came to the attention of the Vatican, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then led by Cardinal Ratzinger before he became pope, declined to take action.
When the problems of the Catholic Church and it's abuses, from sexual to physical to emotional, reach all the way to the highest peaks of the churcvh, then the people deserve to hear the Pope respond.
But he stays silent.
Unlike the victims.
Wow, there's just a few problems in the Catholic church, huh!
ReplyDeleteHe's just like the emperor with no clothes and his flocks are acting like the emperor's people. All they have to do is open their eyes and mouths to see and speak the truth. When that day comes the scandal will be over.
ReplyDeleteWell, there was just too much on my desk to take care of it all. I just didn't see these. After all, that's why I have a secretary..to filter all this shit. I have prayers to do after all...it's my major job-talking with God.
ReplyDeleteActually, you are mistaken. The Pope has not been silent on the issue of abuse.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.vatican.va/resources/index_en.htm
Both for the Wisconsin case, and for a clearer understanding of the situation in general, as well as why it appears to people in the Vatican that the situation in the press is not an objective seeking of facts and an unbiased reporting of news, you need to read and carefully ponder the article by Cardinal Levada.
http://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_card-levada2010_en.html
I'll add that the priest in Wisconsin who was conducting the trial of Fr. Murphy has written an article in which he affirms that the trial was in fact still in progress when Fr. Murphy died.
The fact is that both as cardinal and pope, Benedict XVI has been vigorous in fighting against child abuse, particularly since his Congregation took over responsibility for handling the cases in the early 1990's.