The scandal began years ago when an American priest admitted he was molesting deaf children in his congregation. Its not the first time Catholic priests have been caught molesting boys (in fact its pretty much the status quo), but the difference this time is that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005) was directly involved and chose to ignore the abuse & refused to put a stop to it.Similar scandals in Ireland, Switzerland, Italy, Netherlands, Africa, South America and the United States have left the Catholic Church in damage control mode, trying to whitewash their involvement in the scandal while simultaneously denying any form of cover up.
Governments and concerned parents are constantly laying charges and lawsuits. There is a grow list of resignations of priests and bishops. The latest is John Magee who resigned yesterday, following DECADES of sexual abuse in Irish Catholic schools and Catholic Church cover-ups. Two more Irish bishops are expected to resign in coming weeks and four others have already resigned in the last year.
Cardinal Brady admitted he swore two boys to secrecy in a cover up after they were abused by Brendan Smyth, the notorious Northern Irish pedophile priest who died in 1997. Brady denies threatening or bribing the boys. Cardinal Brady is currently refusing to resign.In the last decade hundreds of American priests have been arrested for being pedophiles, a list so long that "Catholic Priest" has become synonymous with the word "pedophile". In the USA the church tried to cover up the scandals by shuffling priests from location to location and simply ignoring the problem.
Then Reverend Lawrence Murphy, a Catholic teacher at a school for deaf children in Wisconsin molested over 200 boys between 1950 and 1974 (he was moved to another diocese in 1974 during a cover up). The Murphy case was eventually forwarded to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1996, which decides on canonical trials, which at the time was led by Cardinal Ratzinger. Father Murphy admitted to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that he had committed the sexual abuse, but Ratzinger chose to ignore the abuse. He didn't so much as defrock or discipline Murphy, but instead helped him to cover up the scandal by cancelling any trial on the matter and ordering the investigation dropped.
These facts have since come to light and the Catholic Church is now in damage control, denying that the current Pope had any involvement in the cover up and denying there was ever a cover up.Father Murphy is now dead, but as head of the canonical trials what other cover ups was the current Pope involved in? He was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 1981 to 2005, a period with many sex scandals within the clergy.
From a religious perspective how can we trust a religious leader who has been actively involved in cover ups, conspiracy and sexual abuse?
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