THE DOMINION POST – OPINION: Former prime minister Helen Clark had a simple piece of advice for colleagues in difficulty: "If you're in a hole, stop digging." It is advice the Vatican would do well to heed.
Watching assorted cardinals and bishops attempt to dodge blame for the church's horrific record of child abuse is akin to watching fish flap about in the bottom of a boat. The more the prelates wriggle, the more deeply the hooks sink.
The Vatican has blamed the media and the permissive values of the 60s and 70s, it has compared offending rates within the church with rates in other institutions, it has preached the virtues of forgiveness and, just to demonstrate how completely it has lost touch with notions of right and wrong, it has attempted to draw distinctions between paedophilia (sexual relations with children) and ephebophilia (relations with mid-to-late adolescents).
Instead of recognising that it is getting deeper and deeper into a hole, it keeps digging. While the Pope apologises and urges Christians to repent for sins, senior church figures keep looking for scapegoats. >>> | Saturday, April 17, 2010
HT: Judah's Journal
