[%title%] What are they trying to do? Become Atheists? Not a word about god, no apologizing. No talk yet of compensation or restoration to victims of clergy and sexual abuse - don't get a mention.  Perhaps they should start taking stock and doing some body counts. Stem cell research included. The price is indeed getting higher. We have had the loss of the morally outraged Catholic bishop or Catholic politician and the plethora of 'moral and ethical issues' eternally raised by the church have dropped to their lowest in more than 50 years. The collective sigh from a relieved population that the eternal moralizing of the Catholic church has at last been brought to a stop.

 

Now that these crimes are out in the open and now that women and children can be restored to their rightful place in society they too will be able to take a sigh of welcome relief knowing that at last their may be a real opportunity for justice and equality. For them the church has nothing to offer in the way of spirituality, community and the proper way to live and they simply wish to be compensated through both financial means and through change in the way the church operates.

 

What the church may not like to comprehend is the fact that the noise will not die down until there has been full restoration to those harmed beginning with those sexually abused and on through each layer of criminal activity until full restoration has been made by the church. An endless stream of apologies is simply not going to cut it with people who have lost faith in all that this church puts out. For them the only thing the church can offer that will restore them in their lives is money. They simply have nothing else of value to offer. A price needs to be established to show the proper concern and value of an individuals life. I say set the rate at US$1 million per year from the time of the earliest abuse.

Desirable changes to way the church operates would include the release of all available data together with the funding to permit victims to be employed in the tasks of managing, gathering, collating and publishing. There are many areas in which victims can be employed where the best that they can bring can also be included in changes into the church. Many believe strongly in the need for a minimum joining age of 16. The church needs to move quickly to setting up support systems which are managed and co-ordinated via the victims themselves so that those who no longer wish to participate in the religious aspects of the church have equal representation as so many church or religiously implemented attempts simply end up discriminating on the basis of belief. This has unfortunately left many without fair representation.

 

Now that the rights of women and children can at last begin to be raised back to the levels they should have always held if we were ever to be a society who simply cared appropriately for our children and ensured they have equal rights as a human being regardless of their age. The ending of this sexual abuse era can only be of benefit to mankind. The excuses and stalling of the Catholic church can only attempt to delay that simply through ignorance or stupidity as there are simply no other options, choices or excuses left for the church.

 

It really is time to tell our politicians and the Catholic and other churches and religions that their times of exploitation are up. It is time to act appropriately or your out. It is as simple as that for more and more people today. Many are wanting to ask those Catholic and Christian politicians more and more increasingly difficult questions. 

 

Where does a Catholic politician stand today in regards his religion and the safety and the protection of children? Where do they stand on statute of limitations laws and laws which prevent the church from being made accountable through our legal system. Where do they stand in regards employing the Catholic church to provide extension of government services to the general population.

 

What sort of politician will remain silent about these matters today? 

 

JohnB

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POPE has been accused by a leading theologian of engineering a worldwide cover-up of clerical child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and of having made worse everything that is wrong in the church.

The accusations have been levelled by Pope Benedict's longtime critic and former colleague, Swiss theologian Fr Hans Kung, in an open letter to the Catholic bishops of the world, published in this newspaper today.

It is devastatingly critical of the pope and urges the bishops not to be silent where the current church crisis is concerned but to set about reform and call for another Vatican council.

Timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of Benedict's election as pope next Monday, Fr Kung says in the letter "there is no denying the fact that the worldwide system of covering up cases of sexual crimes committed by clerics was engineered by the Roman Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger (1981-2005)".

He continues: "During the reign of Pope John Paul II, that Congregation had already taken charge of all such cases under oath of strictest silence. Ratzinger himself, on May 18th, 2001, sent a solemn document to all the bishops dealing with severe crimes ( epistula de delictis gravioribus ), in which cases of abuse were sealed under the secretum pontificium, the violation of which could entail grave ecclesiastical penalties.

"With good reason, therefore, many people have expected a personal mea culpa on the part of the former prefect and current pope.Instead, the pope passed up the opportunity afforded by Holy Week: On Easter Sunday, he had his innocence proclaimed urbi et orbi by the dean of the College of Cardinals [Cardinal Angelo Sodano]."

Fr Kung says that "when it comes to facing the major challenges of our times, his [Benedict's] pontificate has increasingly passed up more opportunities than it has taken".

Such missed opportunities included, he says, "rapprochement with the Protestant churches", "reconciliation with the Jews", "the opportunity for a dialogue with Muslims", and "reconciliation with the colonised indigenous peoples of Latin America".

Also missed was "the opportunity to help the people of Africa by allowing the use of birth control to fight overpopulation and condoms to fight the spread of HIV" and that of making "peace with modern science by clearly affirming the theory of evolution and accepting stem-cell research".

He says that "with a return to pomp and spectacle catching the attention of the media, the reactionary forces in Rome have attempted to present us with a strong church fronted by an absolutistic 'Vicar of Christ' who combines the church's legislative, executive and judicial powers in his hands alone. But Benedict's policy of restoration has failed."