Sun, 26. February 2012
Questions for the Vatican
- Why do you not do the same?
- Why do you cover up for the many, many paedophiles inside your organisation?
- Why do you always put the interests of the priest and the church ahead of the child's interests?
- Why do you retain paedophiles in your Religious Club, supporting them and protecting them?
- Why do you not terminate them and report them to the police?
In this example we have seen more integrity shown by a local sporting club than by a billion-strong religious conglomerate, headed by unctuous bishops, sanctimonious cardinals and a pious pope, who still will not properly address this monstrous scandal.
I read a recent blog post which questioned "Why do we give special privilege to churches if there are no standards to judge them by?" and that is a very good point. There are no standards but plenty of privileges. Here in Australia we have a national government organisation (ASIC) to regulate company activities. At a state level, we have a government body (Dept. Fair Trading) which regulate community organisations - such as sports clubs, charitable bodies and my own astronomical society etc. - who have to register and meet certain standards, in the public interest. Astonishingly, no-one regulates the churches. They answer to nobody (in both senses) and this is probably true world-wide.
If you want a job in the child-minding industry, you are required to pass certain tests to prove that you are a fit and proper person. However, no-one regulates the churches. No minimum standards are applied, neither to those whom they employ, nor to control how they operate. There is no scrutiny required by authorities prior to employing a local priest, nor are there any sanctions required when they are found wanting. When that happens, they place the blame on the the victimised children and protect the guilty priests by posting him elsewhere.
Governments are myopic with regard to religious groups. Whilst they have correctly introduced high standards for employee selection in the child-minding industry, they have developed no standards for the selection of priests or bible class teachers. Both seek and obtain access to children and the appalling result is there for all to see - and it's not limited to Catholics. Authorities clearly recognised the potential for dangerous creeps to obtain direct contact with children in kindergartens; and they put sensible measures in place to bar them. It's not too hard to work out that there's a problem in the church industry; and it's incomprehensible that churches have remained so untouchable, with so little public scrutiny or debate about applying minimum standards to them, as applies to all other groups in the community .