Saturday, April 19, 2008

Laws on Abuse

Cardinal William Levada, a high-ranking Vatican official whom Pope Benedict XVI hand-picked to succeed him in his old job as head of the Vatican's office, offered early signs on Friday that the Vatican will change its internal, or canon, laws concerning the church's response to sexual abuse allegations; a matter that has become the main topic of the Pope's American visit. The changes would follow adjustments made some time ago involving the church's statute of limitations with regard to some particularly offenses. The Cardinal suggested that laws meriting amendment may involve statutes of limitations regarding abuse cases. This seems to be the first step in trying to actually clean up the problems in the church. Many times priest that had been caught for sexual abuse where just given a warning and preceded with their job as nothing bad happened. Why has it taken so long for people to realize that this is a serious problem? Do you think that all of the priests that sexually abused other members are finally going to be punished? Or is this all talk and we are not going to see any improvement in our churches?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think that any priest who has touched a little boy or girl should be treated the same way as any other petophile. They should be taken to court, charged, and imprisoned. However, the catholic church is too powerful, and this is likely never going to happen. It is good to see that the catholic church is making some progress towards reprimanding the perverted clergy. I personally dont think that these offenders will ever recieve more than a scolding, but we can always hope that they will be incarcerated.