The great catholic denial of abuse

The past year in aprticular has exposed factual revelations that are not new re the clergy abuse in the Catholic church. What is also not new is the constant denials of the church presented for public consumption they are applying an "open an transparent" policy called a "Path to Healing" applied for all complaints.

What they fail to mention are the secret archives held by each Bishop full of complaints current and historic and the churches practice of "sanitising" sensitive records and documents. This again is a fact. Why I ask has this country failed to address these matters with positive action as has been done in the U.S. and other nations. Is it because our legal representatives lack the skill to do so, or are in fact afraid to be the initiating catalyst to matters that the church have successfully kept under wraps with confidentiality agreements. Such agreements are immoral and merely compound and continue the desparate secrecy of a desparate church still duping the public with factual statistics.

It appears people overall do not care anyway... unless it becomes an issue in their own lives. The good old "not in my backyard" mentality that is prevalent in NZ society today merely assists matters that warrant public accountability to remain hidden.

Abuse is abuse people. Weights and measures are not applicable to breaches of professional misconduct. "Bless me Father I have sinned"... say 12 Hail Mary's and your sins are absolved!!! says it all.

Any comment or opinion on this matter? Or does a plane need to hit a catholic cathedral somewhere in NZ for the point to be made that seems to pass over everyone's head? Any victims or survivors out there?

i'm very skeptical of those issues too mantbon, scary stuff... i guess no one wants to rock the boat.

Hopefully it will be dealt with soon. However , I hope it is done in a sensible way and not the witchhunt that characterised sexual abuse claims in the 80's and early 90's.

Having gone to a catholic primary and secondary school I think the whole thing is disgusting, particularly the church's willingness to sweep the problem under the carpet. If this is what happens when priests are made to be celibate then the catholic church needs to make some siginificant changes and allow priests to marry.

At my secondary school there were always rumours of dodgy priests but I never saw or heard any thing definite.