Catholic Priests

A senior Catholic spokesman, Cardinal McCarrick, formerly Archbishop of Washington popped into New Zealand last month and spoke to the newspapers about paedophile priests. It was, he said, a reflection of the 60’s “when anything goes….and the sexual mores went down and down.”.
Asked how widespread the abuse was he made the comment: “When all is said and done, you are still talking about less than one out of 25 priests over a period of 60 years.”
It was a surprising admission. Critics in America have been saying for some time that the rate of priests offending is at least 4% of the total but this is the first time I have heard a senior Catholic churchman admitting that this figure could be accurate.
Think for a moment of the implications. Since 1984 there have been about 60,000 active priests in the United States and on these figures the church has been harbouring around 2,400 paedophile priests over the past 20 years. This is a very high number and proportionally much higher than equivalent figures in the total population.
Why is this so? Critics have argued that forced celibacy is a key reason for priestly offending but the Cardinal denied that claim saying that other churches which have married clergy have the same rates of offending. A claim which he did not substantiate and one which is, in the absence of any evidence, debateable to say the least.
One of the saddest aspects to this situation is that Rome still retains a directive issued by the present Pope when he was Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Vatican Office for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Office of the Inquisitor General). The directive orders that whenever there is even a hint of child abuse by clergy the local church must set up a tribunal to investigate the case and report to Rome and this entire process is to be covered by church secrecy. According to Reuters, the directive was sent to Bishops confidentially and asked them not to divulge the information contained in the letter to the media.
We can only hope that the frankness of the Cardinal is a signal of a new openness in the church so that attempts to cover up criminal actions by the priests will no longer be permitted.