BULLET-PROOF VESTS FOR BISHOPS!

Yesterday, July 15, the Vatican did not help its already damaged reputation, when it declared a new set of rules dealing with both abusing priests and ordained women in the same document, suggesting, by juxtaposition, that both groups are involved with equally "grave" offenses. This Vatican document with its bizarre twinning of ordained pedofiles and ordained women shows a stupidity and absence of sound moral judgment probably unequalled in church history. To equate as "grave crimes" pedofilia and ordination of women has caused a great negative outcry from fair-minded men and women and an abundance of sharp criticism in op-eds, editorials, and letters to the editor. The ordination of women is a mere blip on the church radar screen. There are no victims; priests' abuse of children appears as a raging hurricane, leaving untold thousands of children psychologically and spiritually wounded. Have the curia people, who publicly juxtaposed these issues, lost all sense of moral judgment and personal embarrasment as they appear in public as though everything is just fine? It is not the emperor who has lost his clothes!

The new document deals with statutes of limitation, administrative processes, and canonical trials relative to priests; it says nothing whatever about those bishops, who quietly reassigned miscreants and thereby exponentially multiplied the number of victims. In the US, not one cover-up bishop has ever been arraigned before church authorities for his part in the scandal. On the contrary, Cardinal Bernard Law, poster boy for cover-ups and driven from Boston by his priests and people, was welcomed to Rome by JPII and given rectorship of a prominent church, significant curial posts, and a six figure income. The armor of clericalism shielded him from any accountability just as this present Vatican document continues to shield all bishops from any accountability. Our bishops' own National Review Board has tellingly declared, "The exercise of authority without accountability is not servant-leadership; it is tyranny".

This document also provides, that regarding the delicts mentioned, cardinals and bishops are to be judged, by mandate of the Pope, by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. But no item of a bishop's possible delinquent behavior, it's punishment, or any process for judgment is indicated, despite the long history of bishops secretly reassigning pedophiles "to avoid scandal". They have no warrant for the immunity they incredibly possess from harsh judgment and punishment. When reports of two government commissions revealed the extent of abuse by priests in Ireland, Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, apparently aware of the immunity of his fellow bishops, announced a policy of "fraternal correction". He called on five bishops to resign because of their complicity in reassignments of pedofiles. Four did resign. Later Martin emerged from a meeting in Rome with B16 in what the press characterized as a "chastened mood". Did the pope tell him that calls for resignations could only come from the pope? And in the present document, judgment of bishops is put in the hands of the CDF. A further example of the pope maintaining the immunity of bishops? And his own tight control?

This document shows the clericalism that is at the heart of our church's problem. The official church doesn't see women as equal to men! Remember JPII when he refused to acknowledge the existence of Sister Theresa Kane when she addressed him. And now putting ordained women in the same bag as ordained pedofiles! And bishops in their bullet-proof vests from which the bullets of genuine criticism and accusations bounce away, unnoticed! This is the clericalism that must be driven away by the forces of truth and justice! In the meantime, we Catholics are embarrassed at the ineptitude and ignorance of the real world displayed by our supposed leaders.