Catholics are as much to blame for clergy abuse as you are to blame for the WARS

[HiPointDem]

97. "The organization" is huge, and not a strict command hierarchy.

The responses of the Catholic Church to the sex abuse cases can be viewed on three levels: the diocesan level, the episcopal conference level, and the Vatican.

Responses to the scandal proceeded at levels in parallel, with the higher levels becoming progressively more involved as the gravity of the problem became more apparent. For the most part, responding to allegations of sexual abuse in a diocese was left to the jurisdiction of the local bishop or archbishop.

According to Thomas Plante, a psychiatrist specializing in abuse counseling and considered an expert on clerical abuse, "unlike most large organizations that maintain a variety of middle management positions, the organizational structure of the Catholic Church is a fairly flat structure. Therefore, prior to the Church clergy abuse crisis in 2002, each bishop decided for himself how to manage these cases and the allegations of child sexual abuse by priests. Some have handled these matters very poorly (as evidenced in Boston) while others have handled these issues very well."

John L. Allen, Jr., senior correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, characterized the reaction of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as calling for "swift, sure and final punishment for priests who are guilty of this kind of misconduct."[114]

In contrast to this, Allen characterized the Vatican's primary concern as wanting to make sure "that everyone's rights are respected, including the rights of accused clergy" and wanting to affirm that it is not acceptable to "remedy the injustice of sexual abuse with the injustice of railroading priests who may or may not be guilty."[114]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases#Church_responses


Since the 2002 cases, the US church has done the following:

In response to deficiencies in canonical and secular law, both ecclesiastical and civil authorities have implemented procedures and laws to prevent sexual abuse of minors by clergy and to report and punish it if and when it occurs. In June 2002, the USCCB adopted a zero tolerance for responding to allegations of sexual abuse.

The Charter instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by requiring background checks for Church employees.[121] The Charter requires dioceses faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and remove the accused from duty.

According to Catholic News Service by 2008, the U.S. church had trained "5.8 million children to recognize and report abuse," run criminal checks on volunteers and employees and trained them to create a safe environment for children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases#Church_responses


In addition to over a billion in US court settlements.

A better 'reform' record than the US government, imo.