Catholic Church Abuse Scandal: David Loftus

He’s headed in the right direction, I suppose, but like Jesse James’s apologies to Sandra Bullock, it’s too little and far too late. A mere admonishment of the rank-and-file is never going to make up for years of abuse and other transgressions, let alone put an end to whatever present and potential future abuses may be in the offing.

Pope Benedict needs to search his conscience on his own behalf, for one thing. Back in 1979, when he was Archibishop Joseph Ratzinger in Germany, a priest named Father Peter Hullerman was reported to him for abusing three boys. Instead of reporting the transgressor further up the line, Archbishop Ratzinger reassigned Hullerman to a new parish and ordered psychotherapy. The psychiatrist, Werner Huth, told the archibishop that Father Hullerman was untreatable, and that “He did not seem to want or be able to co-operate fully during the therapy. He had an alcohol problem and the assaults on the children mostly happened when he had been under the influence of alcohol.” Huth said Hullerman should never be allowed to work with children again, but he was, and committed several subsequent incidents of child abuse, with only a fine and probation to show for them as punishment.

The Roman Catholic Church made the same wrong choice in such cases that so many other powerful individuals and institutions have made: it chose its position, power, and image over its true role, mission, and responsibility to protect the weak and powerless. This reminds me of the ending to A Few Good Men. After the trial is over, one of the Marines who was tried for the fatal beating of their comrade says they hadn’t done anything wrong and the other replies: “Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.” But this shouldn’t surprise anyone: This is the same Roman Catholic Church that took 53 years to apologize to Jews for not fighting the Holocaust, and 359 years to apologize for condemning Galileo for his scientific impudence.