More of the Same

On ABC's Nightline, March 31:

Report by Brian Ross on struggle inside the Vatican from 1997 onward over how to respond to reports of child sexual abuse by Macial Marciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ.

Abuse was further documented in "Vows of Silence" by Jason Berry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/pope-paedophile-priests-italy

Ratzinger finally went against Pope JP2 and Sodano to order an investigation but then didn't do enough after receiving the conclusions.

Also a report from The Guardian, March 28, "Pope faces fresh wave of child abuse scandals in Italy":

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/28/pope-paedophile-priests-italy

Hundreds are expected to come forward.
Benedict is under pressure 
to call for an emergency meeting
of bishops from around the world.

Maureen Dowd and Sinead O'Connor on the Pope

"Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday," writes Maureen Dowd in today's New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31dowd.html

She notes the ad in the Times on Monday by the Catholic League calling the situation not a pedophilia crisis but a "homosexual crisis" because some of the victims were 12 or 13 and had reached puberty.

Right, if the kid has reached puberty, he and the priest are just homosexuals, not predator and victim.

Sinead O'Connor also made this point last night on CNN's Larry King Show, challenging a defender of the Pope to define the word "post-pubescent" in the ad.

Her compassion and willingness to listen to the Pope's defenders was remarkable. She quoted President Obama's speech in Cairo last year, saying, "We'll give you our hand if you'll unclench your fist."

See the Larry King Show website: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/

She takes her faith very seriously and was ordained a priest in the late 1990s by Bishop Michael Cox of an independent branch of Catholicism, the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church.

On Sunday she published an account in the Washington Post discussing the Pope's stance on child abuse in Ireland.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html?loc=interstitialskip

She challenged Benedict XVI to order any cleric who committed pedophilia and any who knew about such a crime and covered it up (was an accessory) to "go to police tomorrow and turn himself in."

Holy Week is the time for repentance, she and Maureen Dowd noted.