I can no longer support a system in the Catholic Church that hides abuse of children to preserve its own reputation.
What is going on? To place articles that discuss this travesty on page 14 of the Aug. 17 publication demonstrates that the Church and some of its leaders are still trying to contain their failures for their own sake and not the sake of the victims.
I no longer have any faith that the bishops’ conference or, for that matter, the hierarchy of the Vatican are placing the victims first. The men who committed these abuses should not be allowed to find a hiding place to atone for their sins. They are criminals, and they should be prosecuted and sent to a prison system that will punish them in a more just way.
Any priest, bishop, cardinal or pope who was a predator, or allowed the predators to continue in ministry knowing that they would harm more children, should go to prison and make a public atonement to the victims.
I thought that when Pope Francis was elected pope that these perpetrators would be called out and punished. Based on what we are finding out about the Catholic hierarchy regarding the Pennsylvania scandal, the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the questions raised about Cardinal Donald Wuerl, remembering Cardinal Bernard Law and the scandal in Boston, I see the Catholic Church as a political system that protects its own before the people who put their faith in justice and God.
Patricia Marino lives in Charlotte.
Each week, I read the Catholic News Herald and each week I notice in the diocesan calendar of events section that there are listings for various “pro-life” and “Respect Life” events taking place around the diocese. In other parts of the newspaper I see myriad articles about other “pro-life” and “Respect Life” topics and current events. I have, for many years, been dismayed by the frivolous use of these terms. It seems that the majority of these articles are actually about anti-abortion events or news.
How refreshing it was, then, to see an article in the July 6 edition entitled “IHM Respect Life contest essay winners named.” The article reported that the three winners of this contest had as their subjects: Human Trafficking (First Place), Gun Control (Second Place) and Dyslexia and Disabilities (Third Place). It seems that the hard work of these three students focused a much-needed light on what the late Cardinal Joseph Bernadin called the “seamless garment approach” to Catholic teaching about the dignity of human life.
In my many years of being a committed Roman Catholic, I have too often found those who refer to themselves as pro-life are actually only anti-abortion and often reluctant to associate themselves with other life issues such as those the students at IHM wrote about.
We, as Catholic Christians, do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which parts of Church teaching on life to support. The death penalty, euthanasia, racism, abortion, gun control, human trafficking, disability, immigration and nuclear disarmament are only a partial list of those issues which belong under the umbrella of “life issues.”
In the same issue of the Catholic News Herald there appeared a letter by George Burazer who, with great eloquence, called on all Catholics, especially our bishop and pastors, to speak more often and passionately of the plight of undocumented immigrants fleeing the death and violence in their own countries only to be treated shamelessly by Americans.
It is imperative that each of us who would call ourselves “Catholic Christians” examine our consciences and ask whether we can view these issues as a whole or choose to rend the seamless garment into pieces. As Mr. Burazer quoted in the June 22 issue, “we must do better.”
Paul Kiley lives in High Point.