She cites the appointment of Marie Collins to the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Half the members of the new commission are women, including Hannah Suchocka, a former Polish prime minister under Lech Walesa.
Breda writes in her article: "Here in Ireland, we had Bishop Jim Moriarty resigning because he “failed to challenge the culture”, not for any personal action that harmed a child.
"However, that was his personal decision. Bishops have not always been held to account by the Vatican for active failures in child safeguarding, although it was possible to remove the so-called Bishop of Bling, German bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who had carried out lavish renovations costing some €31 million."
Does Ms O'Brien know something about Tebartz-van Elst that the rest of the world does not know?The bishop's story has nothing at all to do with the topic Ms O'Brien is writing about in her article."
It is, at least, worrying but also most confusing and maybe misleading.
Clerical child sex abuse is a most difficult topic. If the churhces have done a lot in recent years, they have hidden far more over far many more years.
One might ask is the postion in the churches today as healthy as Ms O'Brien might think?
2 comments:
I am not in her head, but the point she seems to be making is: if the church can sack a bishop for mere extravagance, why can't they sack them for failures in the child safeguarding area which is so much more important?
I think we'd all agree with that, no?
Does the word 'although' not imply a different understanding to the one you give?
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