Clare’s blog, aka rantspace

So, the Pope’s apologised to Australian victims of clergy sexual abuse. So far, not so good. Because he didn’t tell victims it was going to happen (check out this page of my site for what should be the minimum requirements of such an apology, to see how the Pope fell short), thereby keeping them in quite unnecessary suspense. Secondly, he chose to do it during a mass for clergy! How inappropriate is it to be saying the apology – as part of a prepared speech – to the group of people who contain the perpetrators, rather than the victims?? The victims couldn’t even be there to hear it in person! Thirdly, he seemed to place equal or greater weight on mentioning the shame of (presumably non-perpetrating) clergy and the damage caused to the church’s witness, as to the needs of the victims. And fourthly, he referred specifically to sexual abuse of minors, thereby completely ignoring those many adults also abused by clergy.

So given that this apology falls well short of what he should have said, and where and to whom it should have been said, it will be very interesting to see just how much action happens when the dust from WYD settles. Let’s just revise the checklist the Pope imposed on his clergy for future action:
1) these misdeeds should receive unequivocal condemnation
2) victims should receive compassion and care
3) those responsible must be brought to justice
4) it is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment
5) the Church must work together to combat this evil

Isn’t it interesting that out of 5 action points, three of them (points 1, 3 and 5) are things that the church should be doing already – but obviously isn’t, or the Pope wouldn’t need to exhort them?

But I still think the most inappropriate part was to do it at a mass for clergy, thereby not only effectively offering the apology to the perpetrator group, but specifically excluding the victims who should have been able to be there to hear it.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Catholic, Churches handling complaints, High moral ground, Real sins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.