Too many Catholic Bishops don't get the problem of pedophilia

The Vatican's Archbishop Silvano Tomasi (Vatican's permanent observer to the U.N.) offered a statement responding to allegations that Vatican officials have done too little to deal with sex abuse within the Catholic Church.

He said that “available research” estimated that between 1.5 per cent and five per cent of clergy had been involved in abuse, the Guardian reported.

Children were more likely to suffer at the hands of relatives, family friends or babysitters than clerics, he argued.

The Archbishop also quoted research published in the Christian Science Monitor newspaper which suggested that most congregations affected by child sex allegations in the US were protestant churches while the problem was also common in the Jewish community.

Yeah, Right. The Archbishop testily says "Get off our back! The Protestants and Jews have clergy who sexually abuse children, also. We're not the only ones!"

The Archbishop is being defensive and entirely misses the point regarding what the Catholic Church is being blamed for. The Catholic Church is not the only institution that has pedophiles who join them, gain power over children and use that power to sexually abuse those children. The Catholic church is not being blamed for the existence of pedophiles. They are being blamed for accepting them into the organization, putting them in positions of power, trust and authority where they can abuse children, and then for defending those pedophiles and hiding them instead of stopping them and exposing them. How many of the other denominations have an organizational culture that makes defending the pedophiles in their midst more important than protecting children from such predators who use their positions in the church?

The Catholic Church is not being blamed for the existence of Pedophiles. It is being blamed for providing pedophiles positions of power and trust over children and for hiding the pedophiles after they have committed their crimes and protecting them from punishment for their horrible deeds. Such criminals should have been rejected in the process of selection as Priests, and when the selection procedures failed, they should be removed, punished, and exposed to the public for what they are and what they have done.

The Archbishop and his fellow Catholic leaders are not protecting the Church by concealing and protecting the pedophiles who join them. They are instead making those pedophiles representatives of the Catholic institution.