Easter sermons deal with the issue of child abuse

The issue of child abuse perpetrated by Roman Catholic priests rumbles on. Several senior clergy used the opportunity of their Easter sermons to mention the issue.

However the message from the Vatican appears to be somewhat at odds with its own clergy. At Easter Mass in St Peter’s Square a leading cardinal, said that good Catholics were not affected by “petty gossip”. He was referring to a child sex-abuse scandal that has engulfed the Church. The Pope himself did not refer directly to the crisis in his Easter address, although he said humanity was suffering from a “profound crisis” which required a ”spiritual and moral conversion”.

The crisis in the Catholic church has arisen after new allegations of clergy abuse have surfaced in European countries such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland.  Such allegations have been common in Eire and the United Kingdom for many years, but there seems to be a great tide of complaints now issuing out of other countries.

Although the Vatican has taken measures to deal with the issue of child abuse within the church, one is still left with the impression that it hopes that the crisis will just fade away, and that this is all something stirred up by the media. This is not going to help. The nature of these allegations is such that they tend to surface many years after the actual abuse, which means that they are likely to carry for some considerable time. The Pope’s appeal to spiritual forces is particularly frustrating, because it certainly didn’t protect children from abuse in the past, and it is unlikely to do so now. What is needed is an acceptance that the church has failed children, and it must do all its power to make recompense to victims and protection children now.