pEEDO PRIESTS BETTER THAN WOMEN

Thursday 15th July 2010: When the committee at the Vatican announced further measures against paedophile Catholic priests, it also announced measures against the ordination of women. The unequal measures are outlined below. These measures leave, even for objective observers, no doubt that the Catholic Church now officially believes that its paedophile priests are better than even the most decent women.

Image from Wikipedia The Vatican dominated by phallic architecture

From this time forth the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have an additional 10 years to report crimes committed against them by these men of God. This period starts from the victims’ 18th birthday and now lasts 20 years. No measures were introduced whereby clerical colleagues would be required to report the sex crimes of priest to the civil authorities.

Not surprisingly, critics of the Catholic Church are saying that all this will do is prolong the time during which victims of the paedophile priests are ignored. It extends the period during which the actions of paedophile priests are overlooked and in which the paedophile priests are moved from the parish where the crimes were originally committed to pastures anew while enjoying the protection of the Church. This is the same Church that gave their paedophiles the necessary status for them to be trusted enough to commit their crimes against innocent children in the first place.

While announcing these new measures against paedophile priests, the Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi also announced any women ordained as priests and the bishops that ordained them would be excommunicated immediately. This was because the ordination of women priests was one of the “gravest crimes under Church law” and was in the same category as heresy. Although child sex abuse is also labelled a “grave crime,” Lombardi did not announce the immediate excommunication of the church's perpetrator priests.

The Vatican has never called for the immediate excommunication of paedophile priests, many of whom die while still under the protection of the Church and are buried with the full religious rites afforded any good Catholic. That the Church should call for the excommunication of women priests and the men who have ordained them, no matter how clean their reputations, smacks of double standards. Lombardi’s announcement makes official the Catholic Church’s belief that paedophile priests are better than all women.

Image from Wikipedia Vatican Coat of Arms

Also read The First Married Gay Bishops by the same author