Vatican Issues New Sex Abuse Rules

The Catholic Church's leadership has been getting a lot of bad publicity lately, ever since it was learned that the pedophilia of some of its priests was not restricted to the United States (where the scandal first became know). It seems that the same types of sexual crimes against children was also happening in Ireland, Germany, Switzerland and many other countries.

That would have been bad enough, but instead of reporting the pedophile priests to the proper law enforcement authorities, the church tried to hide the crimes. They did this by moving the priests to new dioceses. Of course this didn't solve the problem -- it just provided the pedophiles with a new start and a lot of fresh unsuspecting victims (and it made the church liable for the abuse of these new victims).

Sadly, this was not the work of one or two in the church hierarchy but the coverup involved many in the Vatican -- including the current Pope. Although his subordinates have tried to cover for the Pope by falling on the sword themselves, a letter uncovered by the AP containing the signature of Cardinal Ratzinger (the current Pope) shows that he was directly involved in the cover-up of the pedophile priests.

But the church still won't admit its culpability in the cover-up. Instead, they are trying to float some counter-publicity to attempt to blunt the criticism of the Pope and the church. As part of that effort, they have released to the press some "new" rules regarding child abuse accusations against priests. Here they are:

1. The local diocese will "investigate every allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric."

2. If the allegation "has a semblance of truth" then the diocese will report it to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the organization formerly headed by the current Pope that was guilty of covering up for pedophile priests).

3. The local diocese should report the allegation to local civil authorities if it is required by local law.

That sounds a lot better than it actually is. First of all, these are not new rules. They have been in effect for years (and obviously have not worked). All they did was gather these rules into one document and release it to the press in the hopes of making it look like they were actually doing something. How can the release of rules that have not worked in the past possibly solve the church's problems? It can't. This just shows that the church thinks its problem is just a public relations problem, and not a real problem of protecting and covering up for pedophile priests.

Secondly, ALL allegations of child abuse by clerics should be reported to law enforcement authorities -- not just in those localities where the law requires it. With its history of covering up for and protecting child abusers, the church simply cannot be trusted with these important investigations. All of the allegations must be investigated outside of the church by a law enforcement agency (just like it would be with any other organization).

Finally, the releasing of these "new" rules does nothing to absolve the Pope or any other church officials of their past crimes (and hiding allegations of child sexual abuse is a crime). The only way for the church to put these crimes behind it is for all those guilty of covering up the crimes to resign -- including the Pope.

Good publicity is not going to solve this problem. The resignations are an absolute must.