[John Voncher, Child Abuse and Human Rights Contributor]
According to Psychology Today and related research, more than 29 million catholics have been abused by priests and members of catholic orders. The sheer scale of the horrors perpetrated by the catholic clergy worldwide and the dawning reality upon catholics that the church had actively sought to deny victims redress and protection, has brought universal disgrace to it.
As many of such abuses took place during the incumbency of Pope John Paul II and had affected hundred of thousands of children worldwide, many Catholics are considering his current fast-tracking to sainthood by the church now quite bizarre and out of touch. That is because he was the very same church leader who actively protected priests from being brought justice for their crimes against the children and in many cases, had not only protected the priests, but had allowed them to be moved around within their services to the church to do it over and over again to the children.
The late John Paul II had been a fervent supporter of the Fr. Marcial Degollado, a Roman Catholic priest who died in 2009 and whose Order, Legion of Christ had been responsible for the sexual abuse of over 30,000 children. Degollado had raped underaged boys, fathered a least one child and reputedly had kept relationships with at least two women with whom he had up to six children, two of whom he had also abused.
It was only when Benedict XVI became pope that the decadant priest was removed from the ministry to spend the rest of his life in penance and prayer up to his demise.
The authors Jason Berry and Gerald Renner write in Vows of Silence: “The greater problem was the [clergy’s] pathology of lying and John Paul’s failure to confront the sexual secrecy honeycombed through ecclesiastical governing. The Roman Catholic hierarchy showed no maternal grace. Bishops and cardinals, lacking children of their own, had coddled child molesters in a weird parody of incest.”
They write that Pope John Paul’s first statement with regard to reports of the sexual abuse of children by priests indicates that John Paul was more concerned about the effect of the scandal on the church rather than the effect it had on the victims: “As priests we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination in succumbing even to the most grievous forms of the mysterium iniquitatis at work in the world. Grave scandal is caused, with the result that a dark shadow of suspicion is cast over all the other fine priests who perform their ministry with honesty and integrity and often with heroic self-sacrifice. As the Church shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations, all of us…are called to embrace the ‘mysterium Crucis’ and to commit ourselves more fully to the search for holiness.”
John Paul II – a denier of the full role of women in the church and the equal rights of homosexuals
John Paul II was firmly against the full integration of women into the Catholic church and in particular rejected the notion of women priests. Now where did Jesus Christ ever say in the bible that only men could be priests was never pointed out to anyone, least of all the learned pope. I guess, ‘saints’ don’t have to explain their beliefs to anyone.
A firm belief that homosexuals were evil and an almost fanatical opposition to same-sex marriages characterized the reign of this pope who the current church leadership considers a fit and proper person for Roman Catholics to pray to if they want a ‘miracle’. Well, its too late for the millions who have been abused under John Paul II’s watch, but lets hope that upon hope that upon his ‘beautification’ to sainthood, he will see fit to perform the miracle of full financial compensation to the 29 million or so Roman Catholic children who have been raped, sexually and physically abused by the monsters calling themselves ‘servants of Christ’.
Related Articles
- Protests over John Paul beatification (guardian.co.uk)
- Rushing the Sainthood of Pope John Paul II (newsweek.com)
- Pope who ‘betrayed’ Catholic church gets bumped down to make way for John Paul II (dailymail.co.uk)
- Pope Ratzinger talks himself hoarse spouting bull over the Easter period (freethinker.co.uk)
- Pope praises John Paul II ahead of beatification (thegreatone22.wordpress.com)
- Pope praises John Paul II ahead of beatification (telegraph.co.uk)
- Pope begins Easter as John Paul beatification nears – Reuters (news.google.com)
- Pope praises John Paul II ahead of beatification (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Pope praises John Paul II ahead of beatification (sfgate.com)
- Hold the Halo (nytimes.com)
- ‘Divine Reason’ Behind Humanity, Creation: Pope (newser.com)
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