Benedict: Church will never stop deploring abuse
Pope Benedict XVI condemned the abuse of children by priests Monday, saying the church will never stop deploring such behavior, the Associated Press reports.
Benedict told members of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for the Family that the church has shown its commitment to loving and respecting children and ensuring their basic human rights are respected, the AP reports.
"Unfortunately in some cases, some of its members — acting in contrast to this commitment — have violated these rights, a behavior that the church hasn't, and won't ever stop deploring and condemning," he said.
Benedict's comments came as he is finalizing a letter to the Irish faithful concerning Ireland's massive church sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
Irish government-ordered investigations published last year documented decades of abuse by priests as well as the church's Dickensian network of residences for troubled Irish boys and girls where physical, psychological and sexual abuse was rampant.
In addition, the investigations showed how the Dublin Archdiocese covered up the abuse.
The U.S.-based victims support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests called Benedict's comments Monday "meaningless and self-serving."
"How many times does the pope get to 'condemn' clergy sexual abuse while doing virtually nothing to stop it?" asked Barbara Dorris, the group's outreach director. "How many times will he try to divert attention away from the complicity of bishops and focus exclusively on the crimes of the predators?"
Comments
I say, "Ah, Pope, Stuff it!" This church is a corrupt enterprise and yet Benedict keeps talking about massive scandals as though they are outliers and exceptions. The man is out to lunch. And he has the gall to criticize Islam, raise Pius to sainthood, invite Holocaust deniers back into the Vatican fold while taking on the moral turpitude of women who would abort babies, churches that would ordain women as well as gays and scientists who would develop embryonic stem cell lines. He is into everything, here, there and everywhere, except what he should be into as the Church father, which is a thorough clean up of the Catholic conglomerate of rascals. The Catholics should present their Papa a powerful vacuum cleaner for his next birthday if he should survive until then-- considering disturbed women have a penchant for tripping the man on his way to mass--he may not.
Ravensfan Anon
Posted by: Anonymous | February 9, 2010 7:43 PM