Author: Andrew Sullivan

A reader writes:

You're starting to get the emotional tunnel-vision people sometimes accuse you of.  (It is sometimes a very good thing – such as the passionate way you went about digging for information on Iran last June – but sometimes you seem to dive headfirst into the pool before checking the water level.)  To wit: the "new" documentary on the BBC that seemingly implicates the current Pope in covering up child abuse scandals aired four years ago. Yes, the article about the documentary (from September 2006) was reposted today, but likely only because it is relevant to current events.

It did not receive much attention then because its claims are dubious.

The incredibly "secret" document "Crimen Sollicitationis" and its subsequent update by Ratzinger are surprisingly public information. Indeed, "Crimen Sollicitationis" – including the updated version – does not call for secrecy of the allegations or prohibit the involvement of the criminal justice system; it calls for the secrecy of the Vatican court's procedure, which is highly common. Also, your favorite Catholic reporter John Allen has a 2003 rebuttal to the charge that "Crimen Sollicitationis" contains instructions on how to commit child rape and get away with it. Finally, criminal charges were brought against the clergyman who raped the maker of the documentary when he was 14 (the priest committed suicide before the trial began), so the claims that the Vatican is set up as a protection for child rapists is somewhat undercut again.

The dubious nature of the article probably explains why it is in the Entertainment section of the London Evening Standard and not the News section. The writer even calls him Thomas Ratzinger!

Friedersdorf is trying to get to the bottom of the controversy. Bartlett responds:

If it turns out that I misheard or misunderstood what David told me I promise a full retraction and public apology to AEI. In the meantime, my inclination is to believe anything David tells me and treat with deep skepticism anything I hear from AEI to the contrary. The organization has lost an enormous amount of credibility by firing him and hiring Republican political hacks like Marc Thiessen. That’s a statement I will never need to retract.

Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, 11.44 am

A reader writes:

My life as a survivor of sexual abuse has been horrific. But at least some light is finally being shone on the criminal deception. My story is found here. Another way the Church has hidden these priests from justice is allowing them to go to poorer countries where the local bishop does not even check the priest's background. My abuser is still hiding in Mexico and since today is his birthday, I share this with hopes that it will call for international outrage and cooperation in bringing these rapists to justice.

Another writes:

I’m guessing that the reason why Amy Davidson is

outraged is that she didn’t go to Catholic school.

I went to Catholic school in the 1960’s and 1970’s and some of the stuff I either incurred or witnessed would make your hair curl.  But more amazing was the attitude of parents and other adults with regards to the actions of Nuns (and they were just as bad) and priests. 

I would come home with bruises and my mother’s attitude was that I deserved it, that the priests and nuns were always right.  If a priest got “funny” with you once you started to develop (they hit on girls as well), you were just lying or over-reacting (we had one priest at the Catholic school I attended nick-named “Father Feel you Up.”) 

So Amy Davidson is outraged that no one paid attention to deaf kids?   Adult Catholics back then were just so in awe of the sanctity of the church, they let a lot of things slide.

Ethan Bronner today:

“Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, anchored by his Likud Party, views Jerusalem, west and east, as the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people, where it can build where it wants. The Palestinians and their supporters throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds view East Jerusalem as holy and as rightfully under Palestinian sovereignty.”

Not false, but surely misleading. The entire world, including the US, has never accepted the legality of the occupation and settlements over the 1967 line. As the WaPo puts it today:

“The United States, like the rest of the world, has never recognized Israel's sovereignty over territory occupied in the 1967 war.”

It isn't Likud vs the Arab world; it's Likud vs the rest of the world.

The National Catholic Reporter gets the importance of this moment:

We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history.

Its editorial demands a personal response from the pontiff to clear evidence of his own personal complicity in cases of child rape and abuse and their subsequent cover-up:

The Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role — as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) — in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

We urge this not primarily as journalists seeking a story, but as Catholics who appreciate that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary response. Nothing less than a full, personal and public accounting will begin to address the crisis that is engulfing the worldwide church. It is that serious.

I think it's that serious too. But this Pope could not face such a press conference or even a more dignified "credible forum". The entire edifice could crumble to dust.

Heartbreaking – and unintentionally revealing – details from Milwaukee's paper:

Budzinski, whose sign language was spoken by his daughter GiGi, said Murphy would come into their dorm at night, take them into a closet and molest them. Budzinski, who detailed abuse at the hands of Murphy to the Journal Sentinel in 2006, said he told Archbishop William E. Cousins and other officials about the abuse in 1974 when he was 26. The archbishop yelled at Budzinski, he said. He left the meeting crying.

From that 2006 two-part series:

Murphy, who was fluent in sign language, became a key link to the hearing world for the many deaf children who, like Budzinski, were unable to talk with their hearing parents.

"Back then there was no way to communicate," said his mother, Irene Budzinski, 89. "I never learned sign language. When you had a deaf

child, the public health nurse would say, 'Send them to some school.'

We were looking for a good place.

"Who would think any harm would come to a young child?"

Steve Geier, 55, of Madison, who became deaf after a high fever, remembered being left at St. John's at age 8 as his mother and father walked back to the car. His mother, he said, had tears running down her face.

"Here is my mom and dad, talk, talk, talk, talk, and I am looking at them," he said. "My suitcase gets put down, and my mom and dad said we have to go home. So I go running after them. They said 'No, you stay here.' It was confusing and I cried."

Murphy would console him.

"[A]sk yourself why Catholics like Ms Lopez simply cannot or will not engage with it in any way whatsoever. It's distressing in the extreme. The church deserves its defenders (as even the guiltiest parties do). It is a dark day when its usual stalwarts will say nothing," – Democracy In America.

"An important question is whether the Church should investigate and discipline severe ethical transgressions of its leaders as do other major organizations, including corporations. It appears that when it comes to ethical and leadership failures, Pope Benedict believes the answer is "no," that the Church—which serves God—should not be held even to the same standards as responsible corporations—servants of Mammon," – former GE executive Ben Heineman in Business Week.

And this is the case Benedict is making: because we are the church, we need not observe the same moral standards as secular institutions. Even child rape must be dealt with entirely internally and secretly – and even then, no actual firings in any way commensurate with the offense. And now that we know that Ratzinger chaired an actual meeting that agreed to transfer a pedophile priest to therapy and another parish, rather than fire him immediately and report him to the authorities, we know how far up that attitude goes.

That's why there really is no solution apart from a mass resignation at the top of the Church and some attempt to start over.

It seems mercifully as if the worst of the abuse is behind us. But those who enabled the abuse still run the church. This strikes me as somewhat similar to the US torture issue. By now, no serious person can deny that the US tortured prisoners and that the president authorized it. But few can actually own this yet and follow it to its inevitable conclusion. Similarly, it is so mind-blowing to think of the Catholic Church as an international conspiracy with respect to raping and abusing children with impunity for decades that few of us can get out of the denial that everything is somehow still ok.

But it isn't ok. If the Pope had any true sense of personal responsibility for enabling the abuse and rape of children, he would resign immediately. And if the Pope cannot take that personal responsibility for something so vile, something that wounded so many, something that violated core, basic levels of human trust, then what is he doing as a moral leader of any kind?

His clerical power may remain; but his moral authority is finished.

A brutal and personal attack:

I … think that for David to have leveled the charge that Arthur Brooks caved in to donor pressure, knowing that the charge would be picked up and spread beyond recall, knowing that such a charge strikes at the core of the Institute’s integrity, and making such a sensational charge without a shred of evidence, is despicable.