Corruption in the Church

April 15, 2010  
Filed under Opinion

Lately, the biggest sex scandal in the news is one that is a little bit darker than the typical, “Brad cheated on Jen with Angelina!” Recently a leader of the Irish Catholic Church, Bishop John Magee, resigned due to allegations that he had failed discipline priests that had been abusing young boys. His last words were, “As I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies to any person who has been abused by any priest of the Diocese of Cloyne during my time as bishop or at any time, To those whom I have failed in any way, or through any omission of mine have made suffer, I beg forgiveness and pardon.” This resignation came after the Pope Benedict XVI issued an apology letter apologizing to the sexual abuse victims after the charges of abuse in Ireland came to public light.

But the funny thing about this letter was that the Pope didn’t call for anyone involved in this sexual abuse scandal to resign, and it seems that many situations of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic church are handled that way. In the 1975 there was a scandal in which accusations came up about two young boys who had to sign secret oaths about their sexual abuse. When the accusations were made known to Irish Cardinal Sean Brady, he didn’t pursue them with the police. Later, the man accused of the sexual abuse, Priest Brendan Smyth, admitted to molesting and sexually abusing around 100 children in Ireland and the United States.

If these stories are not enough then listen to this, in 2009 the Irish Police discovered hidden reports of sexual abuse spanning back decades within the church. When the church heard about these claims of sexual abuse, they were more concerned with the secrecy of the church than with the victims that had been abused. Out of 46 priests who have been accused of sexually abusing children, 11 of them plead guilty, while others are dead, or have not come forth.

For decades, the police and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland have not made any attempts to dig deeper into these sexual abuse scandals. Now, all it takes to bring these disgraces to light is one situation, like the present on in Ireland. Most religions have the same core beliefs and that is to do good, treat others the way you want to be treated, etc. So it is not the religions that are corrupt, it is the people that corrupt them. It is the rules of celibacy, and the hateful words found in the book of Leviticus. It is the misconceptions that people contort into what they want them to be. The Bible echoes that God is the ultimate judge, so why are Christians protesting homosexual military person’s funerals when it’s not their job to judge anyway?

I am not trying to say that religion is bad. But what I am saying is that people ruin the true meaning to religious beliefs. If you refuse to stand up for what is right then you are just as bad as the person who did it. If there is anyone who should be upholding the laws against sexual abuse it should be the church. So why is that not happening?

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Dana Peterson

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