Too soft
Molesters should be booted from Church

Coinciding with Pope John Paul II’s strong statements Wednesday, it appeared a much talked about “zero-tolerance policy” for priests would be issued by the Catholic church.

However, the stance of many attending the pope’s two-day conference unfortunately softened.

The proposal currently gaining support calls for a special process to remove any priest who has “become notorious and is guilty of the serial, predatory, sexual abuse of minors.”

So far so good. But in cases where a priest isn’t considered “notorious,” it would be left up to the local bishop to decide if the priest is a threat to children and should be thrown out or allowed to enter into rehabilitation.

But giving bishops and cardinals this subjective power is part of the problem. After all, wasn’t Boston’s Cardinal Bernard F. Law the man responsible for much of the current controversy when he spent years hiding molestation claims and covering up wrongdoings?

There’s nothing wrong with the Catholic church’s strong belief of forgiveness, but priests can be forgiven of crimes eventually without serving mass ever again.

However, with all this talk of forgiveness and rehab in response to “zero-tolerance” initiatives, the pope remains a supporter of the hard-line approach. The pope said Tuesday that priests molesting children “is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society.”

Also, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Washington, said Wednesday, “I would say it is pretty clear that the Holy Father is calling for zero-tolerance.”

So even with the pope’s strong stance, it appears some bishops and cardinals still wish to keep certain sexual abusers in the priesthood if they’re not seen as a threat.

Gee, that’ll make parents comfortable about letting their kids become altar servers.

credits

TCU Daily Skiff © 2002