SQLFusion - Re Vatican failed to pay heed from lessons in Canada

Re:Vatican failed to heed sex abuse lessons from Canada, March 20

Letters to the Editor

Toronto Star 24 March 2010

Once again the Catholic Church in Canada misrepresents to the public its efforts to deal openly with the problem of abuse by clergy. The document "From Pain to Hope" suggested guidelines on how to deal with allegations against its priests. There has been no mechanism put in place to enforce these guidelines and no commitment from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) to do so.

In June 2002 the full body of U.S. Catholic Bishops approved the "The Charter for the Protection of Children" and directed that a study be done to expose the extent of the problem.

In March 2004 this report was released. In 2003 the CCCB said it would issue figures as to how many people had been abused by priests (Star, Jan. 18, 2003). To my knowledge, no study has been completed and no figures have been released.

For the Canadian bishops to represent themselves as being open and progressive in their handling of this problem is not only disingenuous but woefully inaccurate.

Nancy Mayer, Toronto

Once again the Catholic Church is caught with its pants down with respect to sexual predation by clergy. But this time it also appears guilty of the much larger sin of covering up this crime, perhaps for centuries.

Much worse is that this crime was known by the church hierarchy, including apparently the Pope. The sexual predators were just sent to another parish with no warning to the members of the new parish.

Rob Evans, Willowdale

The Pope's concern that Catholics may judge abusive priests too harshly is misplaced and, regrettably, illustrates too well how detached his institution has become from their lives. I submit that all the great majority of his flocks has ever desired is for those priests to have been subject to those same courts and laws to which the citizenry at large is subject.

For the church to have sheltered, defended by acquiescence and, worse, relocated those offenders to repeat their heinous acts, bespeaks a judgment on the part of the church, not the layman.

M.R. Michaels, Burlington