They failed to protect the youngest and most vulnerable in their charge.The numbers from the study commissioned by the Catholic Church on the sexual abuse of children by priests are horrendous:
The human toll amounted to 10,667 children allegedly victimized by 4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002, but the studies caution that even these numbers represent an undercount.
But I found most chilling the following quote from the NYT article:
The review board's report on the causes of the crisis said that board members could not find a single expression of outrage in church correspondence from a supervising bishop about any priest that the bishops knew had been accused of abuse.
While I know there are lots of wonderful priests, it will be a long time before the Church hierarchy will have any moral authority to pronounce judgement on anyone or anything else.
Posted by Geodog at February 27, 2004 03:11 AM | TrackBackMy apologies, but my web hoster has turned off commenting, due to a flood of obscene spam bringing the server to its knees. I hope to have this weblog transitioned over to Wordpress in the near future, so that I can have commenting up and working again. Until then, please feel free to send me your comments via my email contact form.. Please ignore everything below this comment.
Couldn't find the exact email link. Agree with the above post re: the RCC's dirty dealings.
About Jenny and her needlepoint:
I was thinking that perhaps what happened, happened because like the needlepoint pillow, Jenny's life was *unfinished*. I believe that physical death is far from the "end" (don't think there is an 'end'). Perhaps the unfinished needlework piece was a way to incarnate that truth. Had the pillow been finished, the children would simply have been given it at a certain time.
Because it was unfinished when she died (physically), the children will have to *finish it themselves*. They are the continuing threads of Jenny's life, so they will grow up, learn to do the needlepoint, and finish what their mother began.
Just as their lives will be a continuation of their mother. (As above, so below)
"She is the Needle; we are the thread.
She is the Weaver; we are the web.
She changes everything She touches..."
And sometimes--often--that change is very painful. It's part of the Trip.
All IMO and YMMV of course.
B*B
Posted by: Demi on February 29, 2004 06:37 AM