You have just been warned by none other
than a Cardinal,
who was one of the men who chose the new
Pope that you should keep your children well
away from any Catholic priests because you never
know if they happened to have that illness.
I’m not sure if it is air born or
spread by close contact. But what is certain is that it ruins people’s lives
forever.
It’s been rife in the Church
for centuries, but it is only now that it has been diagnosed as an illness by
none other than South Africa
But perhaps I am taking a liberty when
I say "diagnosed" because although Napier told BBC Radio 5 in a live interview that from "my experience paedophilia is actually an illness, it is not a criminal condition" he
has been back tracking ever since.
"What gets me is Bishops
appoint priests that they know have abused children to new parishes & more
abuse happens," Colm O’Gorman, who now helps an Irish
charity that assists abused victims.
 |
| O'Gorman was raped in his teens by Father Sean Fortune, one of Ireland's most notorious paedophiles |
Napier told the BBC that two
priests he knew had been abused as children and had later started doing the
same thing themselves. Because of their background he believed they were not
criminally responsible for what they did.
That’s the modern cop out for crimes by turning them
into an illness to make them seem less serious than they are by making out that
the perpetrators can’t help what they do.
Som e expert
will tell us one of these days that murder is an illness.
Napier has since claimed he was "taken out of
context." But how you get taken "out of context" in a live broadcast
only a Cardinal
will know.
He has been Twittering away with these
conflicting words of wisdom . "I apologise to
Victims of Child Abuse offended by misstatement
of what was & still is my concern about all abused including abused abuser.
Therefore Paedophilia must be treated. What must be punished is the Crime of
Sexual Abuse of Children." As if
there is any difference.
"How can society deal justly, fairly & equitably with the abused,
who has suffered incalculable damage, then goes on to abuse?" was another one of his quotes. "Such abuser
should received treatment to make good the damage done
to him."
"In prison or out
of it, that’s for experts to decide," he added after having given us the impression that he
was the expert on the subject.
His remarks also gave us a good idea of
which side he is on.
So it seems that if anybody has an
illness it is this Cardinal. He has foot-in -mouth disease. And one wonders if any criminal action
was ever been taken by his church against those two abusing priests he said he
knew.
If we
assume that this is an illness that is passed from
generation to generation, that makes the Catholic
Church even more culpable for the spread of the disease among the
children of its 1.2-billion followers.
When it com es
to paedophilia the Church has been a rabbit warren of deceit with
cover ups being far more important than a cure. Victims were bribed or
threatened with excom munication to
ensure their silence.
The situation was so bad that even Pope Benedict XVI, who has just resigned, issued a
document telling Bishops to hush up cases of abuse.
And the Church’s condonation of the practice
couldn’t have been better illustrated by the attendance at the Vatican of
Cardinal Roger
Mahony, who was among the 115 cardinals who have just chosen the new
Pope.
 |
| By hook or by crook was what he preached |
He had been Archbishop of Los Angeles
(1985-2011) which recently paid $10-million com pensation
to four men molested by the Rev Michael Baker.
Mahony’s contribution to the spread of
the Church’s sickness was to allow Baker to continue as a priest for four years after
he had admitted molesting children. Mahony’s cover up was eventually blown and Baker
was jailed for 10 years in 2007 after pleading guilty to 12 offences.
This however was just a small part of Mahony’s
Christian work in trying to ensure that the Rom an
Catholic name remained pure.
As part of the 2007 agreement the
diocese paid a record $660-million to settle 500 clergy abuse lawsuits. Documents
showed how Mahony had done his
utmost to protect molesting priests.
"People say, Why didn’t you call the Police," the unrepentant
cleric said. "In
those days no one reported these things to the
Police, usually at the request of the families. What I did was consistent with
what everybody did, in the Boy Scouts, in public schools and private schools
across the country."
That seems as good an excuse as any don’t
you think, especially for a pillar of the Catholic Church.
I liked that "usually at the request of the families" bit.
And you would expect a church to set a far better example than to go along with
what everybody else was doing that was so utterly reprehensible.
Thankfully with the help of Cardinal Napier’s vision the Church has another heaven sent excuse
for keeping the law at bay. Priests who molest little boys and girls are not
criminals so there’s no need to call the Police.
Now, with a clear conscience, the Church
can administer its tried and tested remedy for this illness – move the bastards
to another parish.
Yours faithfully,
Jon, who thanks God for his good luck in not having
gone to a
Catholic school and for having a voice so bad that I would never
have qualified for a Catholic Church choir and that I didn’t have an
angelic face that might also have got me in.
