Pope should not ignore the crisis in U.S. church

News stories about a document to be released by the Vatican in the next several weeks indicate that Rome will reaffirm the Catholic Church's belief that homosexuals should not be priests. There has been no mention in the stories of whether the document also focuses on the crisis in the American Catholic Church relating to sexual abuse of minors by priests. We hope the omission is the result of reporters' not having access to the "instruction."
It would be the height of hypocrisy for Pope Benedict XVI to lend his important voice to the issue of homosexuality but remain silent about the hundreds of cases of child abuse by priests in the United States. If the pope wants a reminder of just how harmful the revelations have been to the church, he should get a copy of the grand jury report in Philadelphia.
The scathing critique of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia accuses the former archbishops and other leaders of concealing and facilitating clergy sex abuse of children for decades, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Jurors, who investigated the diocese for more than three years, found that at least 63 priests sexually abused hundreds of minors and that Cardinals John Krol and Anthony J. Bevilacqua "excused and enabled the abuse," the newspaper reported.
"... The behavior of Archdiocese officials was perhaps not so lurid as that of the individual priest sex abusers," the grand jury report states. "But in its callous, calculating manner, the Archdiocese's 'handling' of the abuse scandal was at least as immoral as the abuse itself."
Defiling God's name
And if that is not enough to make Pope Benedict react with anger and despair, he should read carefully the following statement from the jurors: "What we found were not acts of God, but of men who acted in His name and defiled it." Among the victims described in the grand jury report was an 11-year-old girl who was raped by her priest and became pregnant. The priest took her in for an abortion. Also, a 12-year-old boy, who was repeatedly raped by his priest. The priest told the boy that his mother had approved of the abuse.
The grand jury report also says that the cardinals typically removed priests from parishes only when faced with the threat of lawsuit or scandal and some archdiocesean leaders regularly lied to victims and their families when asked if an abuser had a prior record, the Philadelphia Inquirer story said. Priest abusers were transferred to other parishes to hush up allegations; as a result, other children were victimized, the newspaper added.
The cover-up by the hierarchy of the church of hundreds of sexual abuse cases documented throughout the country has been an issue that has received little attention by the Vatican. Indeed, in the most publicized case, former Boston Diocese Cardinal Bernard Law not only avoided any punishment for protecting abuser priests, but was rewarded with a cushy assignment in Rome by the late Pope John Paul II.
We have long criticized the church for only focusing on priests and deacons and for giving cardinals, archbishops and bishops a pass.
Pope Benedict must not allow this injustice to prevail. If he only focuses on the issue of keeping homosexuals from becoming priests and says nothing about the child-abuse crisis in the American church, he will be opening himself up to justified criticism from the Catholic faithful and those outside the faith.