Supporting The Catholic Church Means Supporting The Rape And Sexual Abuse Of Children
The truth hurts: Make no mistake, if you support the Catholic Church, you support the rape and sexual abuse of children.
Earlier this week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court released a sweeping grand jury report on child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The report documents the rape and sexual abuse of more than a 1,000 children by more than 300 “predatory priests.
Even more damning, the report describes in detail the systematic and widespread effort of church leaders to cover-up the crimes, and in so doing church leaders protected and enabled pedophile priests to continue to rape and sexually abuse children.
The grand jury report explains in great detail that the rape and sexual abuse of children were not isolated incidents, but widespread and systematic, and occurred with the full knowledge and tacit approval of church leaders:
The abuse was occurring not only by its own people, but on its own property. Children were raped in places of worship, in schools, and in diocesan owned vehicles, and were groomed through diocesan programs and retreats. The bishops weren’t just aware of what was going on; they were immersed in it. And they went to great lengths to keep it secret.
However, the report does not come as a surprise. In an important sense, the report is old news, and only confirms what everybody learned a long time ago: the Catholic Church is filled with pedophile priests who rape and sexually abuse children with impunity and without fear of punishment from church leaders or secular authorities.
NPR reports:
In 2002, The Boston Globe revealed that Catholic authorities in the Boston Archdiocese had engaged in a massive cover-up of sex crimes committed by area priests, and investigations in other parts of the country have since uncovered similar patterns of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy. The ongoing scandals amount to a deepening church crisis.
In fact, we have known for decades that the Catholic Church was protecting and enabling pedophile priests. We have also known for decades that the church has made considerable efforts to deny the charges, always trying to deny and push accusations under the rug, often by re-victimizing the children raped and sexually abused by priests in the first place.
Yet despite overwhelming evidence that the Catholic Church is a profoundly and irredeemably morally corrupt institution that allows children to be treated as disposable sex toys for predatory clergy, Catholics continue to support the church. In so doing Catholics fund the cover-up, and make the continuing rape and sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy possible.
In short, supporting the Catholic Church means supporting the rape and sexual abuse of children. And that means that every practicing Catholic is complicit in the rape and sexual abuse of children by predatory priests.
Bottom line: If you support the Catholic Church, you support the rape and sexual abuse of children. Full stop.