Catholic Church Must Own Up to Problems

(Aired on April 5, 2010)

It was a tough Easter for the Roman Catholic Church. The Church has been trying to get out from under a myriad of allegations about coverups involving abuse of young children, and the Church's failure to come clean on the issues, and deal with the offenders. Many had hoped the Pope would have something to say during his Easter services about the issue, but he was largely silent. The Pontiff did say that Easter is a time of pardon and truth but made no mention of the current controversies.

The problems are magnified by the fact that abuse has gone on for a long time and there has been relatively little done to curb it. Priests have been moved from parish to parish, basically moving the problem too. There are accusations that the Church in several countries mishandled and covered up episodes of sexual abuse of children by priests. The Vatican has countered the accusations by blaming the media. The Preacher to the Pope, as he is called, got other religions up in arms by comparing what he called the persecution of the Church to Anti-Semitic hatred of the Jews. As one leader said, that's a very bad analogy. Coupled with this, the dean of the College of Cardinals said yesterday that the faithful wasn't listening to what he called "petty gossip."

But that it's more than petty gossip is pretty obvious, and the Church's clumsiness in handling the situation has hurt its image greatly. Within the Church, many leaders are calling for change. Belgium's top Roman Catholic bishop denounced what he called the "guilty silence" of the church officials in the scandal. He criticized the church for often worrying more about the reputation of priests and abominably exploiting the abused children. The leader of Germany's Roman Catholic Bishops said the church must examine its "dark aspects" and called for a new beginning. He said the church could not be inactive on the issue. If the Church's leaders acknowledged the inactivity, and admitted there were problems, that would be the first step towards getting out of the hole that is threatening to widen and engulf not only Roman Catholocism, but many other faiths as well.