The scandal in Ireland is all too familiar: thousands of children abused and neglected as some Irish bishops protected the allegedly predatory priests.
Over the weekend, Pope Benedict XVI took 24 Irish bishops to task for the sex abuse crisis in that country, calling the scandal a "heinous crime."
They were strong words, and according to the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center, it is evidence that the Vatican has changed course in the eight years since the sex abuse scandal erupted in the United States. Benedict is now pope, and his attitude appears to be different…
… But some U.S. victims do not. For example, Alexa MacPherson, who was abused by her priest in Boston when she was a child, is not impressed that the pope said the abuse was a "heinous crime."
"I mean, everybody out there knows that's it a heinous crime, it shouldn't have happened; if it happened once, it never should have happened again," she says. "What's he going to do about it at this point? I mean saying it and doing something about it are two completely different avenues."
Given her experience in Boston, where the archdiocese asked her to serve on an advisory board that stopped meeting after the headlines died down, MacPherson does not believe the Vatican has radically changed.
"I think they're just going to pay people to shut them up and hope that everybody forgets about it."
And Bernie McDaid, a victim who met with Pope Benedict when he visited the U.S. in 2008, says he is let down.
"I don't care if they clean up all of Ireland tomorrow. I mean, that’s a good thing," he adds quickly. "But they've got a whole world in front of them that they need to clean up that they haven't. This is 2010! That's what I keep coming back to. And here we are again with the same issue." Read complete article, comments and more - by BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY – NPR : National Public Radio
Kids Are Being Hurt!!!
"Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well-considered, and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit." Erik Erikson
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