Roman Catholic Church: The Bear Stearns of Pedophilia
by Nicole
Real Time host Bill Maher called the Roman Catholic Church "the Bear Stearns of Pedophilia," in the New Rules section of the latest episode of his HBO show (click HERE to view). "If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope. It's like if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat, but if you can't pay a million mortgages you're Bear Stearns, and we bail you out."
Certainly, it does seem to be a question of volume. To misquote Joseph Stalin, "one case of child abuse is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." After all, it's hard to explain why the Yearning for Zion Ranch in the Texas was raided, and its leaders arrested for child abuse, while Pope Benedict XVI is set to receive the red carpet treatment on his forthcoming trip to the U.S. .
During a BBC special investigation for the documentary series Panorama, reporters revealed the existence of an updated version of the 1962 document Crimen Sollicitationis (Latin for "The Crime of Solicitation"), which was authored by Pope Benedict XVI in 2001 while he was working under the former Pope John Paul II. In the missive, the then Cardinal, ordered bishops to put the interests of the church above those of the victims, and demanded that they keep quiet about the abuse under threat of excommunication.
In addition, under his policy of "Exclusive Competence," all abuse issues were to be handled directly by Rome, which dealt with the issue by systematically shuffling known perpetrators to fresh dioceses. This means the buck directly stopped at the Pontiff's office. Yet still, we're rolling out the red carpet rather than getting our handcuffs ready.
