Dealing with the topic of child abuse is unfortunately nothing new to the Catholic Church. Unfortunate for the children that is. So while Pope Francis has time to criticize people for “building walls” – which the Vatican is surrounded by – why doesn’t he have time to oversee this horrible epidemic?
It’s even more concerning when the Vatican releases a new training document that basically has bishop’s looking the other way. According to The Guardian, the new document states:
“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds.”
That piece alone is disturbing enough, especially when it comes to child abuse. So it’s “not necessarily the duty of the bishop” to report these things? What kind of training is this? Child abuse is a horrible problem that the Catholic Church has spent $3,994,797,060.10 on since 1950 to deal with. Since 2001 though, the Vatican has had a training course in place for newly appointed bishops that is supposed to help with this disturbing practice.
Unfortunately, as the web magazine Crux points out:
“It’s more than a bit surprising, therefore, to discover that at least last year, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the body created by Pope Francis to identify “best practices” in the fight against child abuse, was not involved in the training.”
So the people that created the training did not participate in the training? I believe that Pope Francis needs to make this a priority. Also though, Crux also reports:
“What’s the point of creating a commission to promote best practices, and putting one of the Church’s most credible leaders on the abusive issues, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, in charge of it, and yet not having it address the new leaders who will have to implement those practices?”
Child abuse in the Catholic Church is a real thing. It’s a real problem. It’s not going away because they hide the offenders behind ancient stone walls. So could we please address it with the same fervor as we treat how many rounds our guns are allowed to hold?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4pAGm-gtnk&w=853&h=480]
