The group End Clergy Abuse issued an open letter to the cardinals who are meeting informally this week before the start of the May 7 conclave. SNAP, the main U.S.-based survivor group, also identified cardinals who themselves have problematic records in a new database, highlighting a new level of scrutiny of all possible contenders for the papacy.
The developments come amid real questions about how prominent the abuse scandal is featuring in the discussions about finding a new pope. After two decades of unrelenting revelations about abuse and cover-up that have discredited the Catholic hierarchy, many church leaders would like to think the issue is in the past, the survivors said.
“The sexual abuse crisis is not a matter of the past. It is present. And nowhere is its devastation more visible than in the Global South,” the survivors said in the open letter.
I mean if they have rules against fraud and bribery you would think having rules against sexual assault and abuse would be a no-brainer. Yet here we are … still.
We’re no closer to criminalizing insider trading by elected officials than prosecuting religious leaders for raping our children — for centuries. That’s proof enough we’re fucked as a civilization.
When I said “they” I was referencing the Vatican.
I was alluding to the fact that their “rules” are historically for sale, and the modern judicial system as a whole is a crock of fetid shit.