The Great Catholic Cover-Up

Hitchens:The pope’s entire career has the stench of evil about it.

In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing “abuse”?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for “therapy” by a decision of then-Archbishop [now Pope] Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger’s deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to “pastoral” work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.

It gets much worse. In 2001 As head of the Vatican office that used to be the Inquisition, the now-Pope ordered clergy to not share or divulge any of this to law enforcement under penalty of excommunication.

Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism!

Sex scandal embroils Catholic Church in Brazil

The priests involved have disappeared and the Church is not providing contact information about them. Why am I not surprised.

I was raised Catholic and a cousin is a parish priest. When he took over the parish, located in a low-income immigrant area, it was slowly dying. He has transformed it into a vibrant, meaningful community with many services where thousands now come. The laity is involved. There are over 60 nationalities among the churchgoers, many of them recent immigrants. Watching what he’s doing vs. the Vatican cover-ups, it seems impossible they’re both part of the same institution.