Poisonous Pontifications / Part 2
After reading two years ago, the A Pope to be ashamed of expose by Helen and Harry Highwater, especially the part where,
“In 2001, as the decades-long pattern of priests' abuse first started to be reported, Ratzinger wrote a letter to bishops reminding them that church policy since 1962 mandated that the church itself would investigate, bypassing worldly police authorities, and required victims of priestly abuse to take an oath of secrecy.”
-This to me raised some serious accountability issues. Why does the Catholic Church leadership want to be so blind to pedophilia concerns within their ranks, with the enormous epidemic of already proven cases? Denial of these incurable compulsions cannot be for what “Blind Faith” was meant.
More questions abound with the recent Mountain Home case. Obviously, something out of the ordinary happened. Are we to presume that the person, which Rev. Raul Covarrubias, “misconducted” with, was an adult? Or, is the Catholic Church commanding definition of sexual abuse dissimilar from that of Idaho’s law? For example, is it possible that a church ruling of “consensual sex” is redefining a case between a minor and one of their authority figures that would be considered a slam-dunk statutory rape in Idaho courts?
Are the church leaders, so out of touch with their congregations that they think these clouds of suspicions will simply dissipate? It’s only human nature for us to jump to worst-case scenario conclusions, when considering the churches ancient history of not being forthcoming -with thousands of cases sounding much like this one.
I used to have faith that this is not the type of separation of Church and State, our forefathers envisioned; but with the Mountain Home Police being kept fully out of the investigation, now I’m not so sure.
As difficult, an issue as this must be for the Idaho diocese, their continuing stagnation will only further poison the churches once sacred holy waters, if they are not soon more forthcoming.
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