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.
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.