March 07, 2003
Rod Dreher has the last word on the Vatican's rightful "business" in today's WSJ
"Finally, a Rapid Response
Why didn't sex-abuse scandals stir Vatican action the way war has?"
The Vatican's monumental efforts, both diplomatic and pastoral, to avert war with Iraq have focused the attention of the Holy See and summoned its energies behind a cause like no crisis in living memory. Hardly a day goes by without Pope John Paul II denouncing the march to war, meeting personally with world leaders or dispatching high-level diplomats--such as Cardinal Pio Laghi, who came to Washington this week--to beseech the belligerents to stand down.
[...]
And why do these bishops [beleaguered by the Church's scandals] still serve, despite their damnable failures and despite the damage they have done to the church's moral credibility? Because the Holy See allows them to. Accountability is virtually nonexistent. Defenders of Rome have said it is arrogant of Americans to expect a bureaucracy that oversees a billion Catholics world-wide to pay much attention to the mess in the American church. That excuse is no longer valid. We now see that Plainly, Rome does not see the sex-abuse crisis as a priority.
To be sure, an Iraq war threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, hence Rome's understandable level of concern. That said, it is instructive to note that on a matter in which it has no direct ability to affect events, the Vatican is consumed by two-fisted activism. But on the priesthood crisis, where Rome's direct intervention could do a world of practical good, the Holy See operates largely hands-off. The scope of the scandal has been known at the church's highest levels since at least 1985, but you can count on one hand the number of times John Paul has addressed it in public.
AMEN, Mr. Dreher, and thank you for saying so much more ably something I tried to articulate a few weeks ago.
Rather than hectoring President Bush about fighting this just war, the Pope should be consumed with rooting out the corruption in his Church, which, while it doesn't actually kill parishioners physically, has committed a kind of
soul murder on untold numbers of Catholics and former Catholics.
While some may think I am "anti-Catholic," I most certainly am not and I'm definitely pro-Christian and when you have corruption, abuse and malfeasance and what amounts to almost the tacit sanction of same by its leaders and priests in any kind of Christian church it gives
all Christians and Christianity a "bad name" (and of course, many of those who suffered those abuses are still "hurting" and need to be ministered to.)
Perhaps His Holiness has never heard that fine inspirational song that goes "Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me."
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