Friday, January 11, 2002

So, the Vatican has announced that it is setting up new procedures to deal with accusations of sexual abuse by priests --- procedures which allow it to try the priests in total secrecy, in processes directed by the Vatican directly. And it seems that some cynics are deriding the move:

...several critics within the Roman Catholic church, none of whom wanted to be quoted by name, said the new rules were unfortunate because they seemed to focus on protecting potential perpetrators rather than their victims, who have long complained that the church's steps to address the problem were inadequate.

Since we've got one of these cases in our own backyard, I'm in a bit of a position to comment. As this article notes, Cardinal Law transferred all-but-convicted pedophile John Geoghan into a new parish job "after being warned that he could be putting more children in danger".

Why would he do such a thing? Clearly the problem is that he didn't have an alternative process to follow. Now that he's got a process which directs him to do something different, his flock has nothing to worry about. Right?

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