Upfront

Infallible Force or Fallible Farce?

As a child I was taught, along with the Catechism and that I was a sinner, that God was a bloke and his representative on earth, the Pope, was infallible.

I knew that our local priest was a man of dubious intentions, who liked to sit little girls like me on his knee and ask intimate questions.

I was aware too that the nun who beat my bare bottom at my junior boarding school was not trying to save my soul and that the priest who probed my “impure thoughts” in the confessional had a sinister interest in such matters. But I still believed that the Pope was infallible. 

Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, is the pontiff today when the Catholic Church is awash with global child sex abuse scandals.

After damning reports revealed a lasting cover up over child abuse by the Catholic church in Ireland, the Vatican tutted and, like Herod, washed their hands.

But in this case, surely, all roads lead to Rome and to Pope Benedict?  The Vatican might want to remain aloof, not least because with moral responsibility might go lawsuits and financial compensation claims.  

Thousands of cases have been coming out of the presbytery .woodwork across the globe involving priests simply moved from parish to parish to continue preying on the innocent children they were ordained to save.

So isn’t it time for the Vatican to heed the bible’s admonition to “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

A child protection policy introduced and enforced by Rome might just be a start……

Patricia McLoughlin

Categories

• lifestyle
• Catholicism
• Pope
• Priests
• Religion

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