Is Pope Benedict Passing The Buck?

On Wednesday, Pope Benedict XVI commented for the first time on the subject of the Catholic Church and alleged child sex abuse charges. The Pope said that he was “deeply ashamed” and that the entire situation was “handled badly.”

But then, in what appeared to be an apparent slap in the face to the thousands of victims of these perverted, sexually deviant priests, was when Pope Benedict alluded to the fact that the entertainment industry via violence, pornography and popular culture in general shared culpability in this crime. 

Even if this were true, I was under the assumption that ‘men of the cloth’ are held to a higher standard and moral code than the rest of sinful mankind? Isn’t that why they took that oath, that vow of celibacy? To forge an even closer relationship with God than the rest of us? Isn’t that why the Catholic Church, in its’ infinite wisdom, endowed them with all of that pomp and circumstance, fancy titles and attire? These men or former priests were elevated to a position that placed them next to the Christ. Nothing in the secular world matters when you are supposed to be on a higher spiritual plane than the rest of us average sinners.

For Pope Benedict to imply that all of us outside of the Catholic Church have a moral responsibility to curtail our First Amendment rights in order to curb or stop the depraved sexual appetites of sexual predators is downright ludicrous!

As a society, we do bear the responsibility of providing a safe and nurturing world for ourselves and our young ones. The majority of society does. But the Catholic Church is a world unto itself and it is time that the Church start taking responsibility for the actions and practices of its’ members instead of passing the buck. The Catholic Church has no right pointing fingers anywhere else but within. And saying that the sex abuse scandal was “handled badly” is the understatement of the century!

It wasn’t HANDLED at all! These sex offending priests were shuffled from one parish to the next. One city, one state to the next. The proper ‘handling’ of this matter would have came from the simple act of picking up the telephone and dialing 911 for the police! That is what the world outside of the Catholic Church does.

I am sure that all of those innocent children who were victims of these pedophile priests, and are now adults, are absolutely flabbergasted at what they heard on Wednesday. I don’t blame them. A spiritual leader of the magnitude of Pope Benedict is supposed to bring spiritual healing, love and insight to those that look to him for leadership. All Pope Benedict XVI accomplished was throwing more salt into wounds trying to heal.

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