Quote:
Originally Posted by tw
Which 'they' and which Cardinal? What happened to the report? Was that what the Pope's Butler was leaking to reporters?
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Pope John 23rd knew about the problem. He had Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, send out an official notification of how these cases should be handled.
Ottaviani was the most powerful Cardinal at that time. This was in 1962, and John 23rd was in his last year as Pope.
In 1983, Cardinal Ratzinger and others pushed through a revision to the Church law, explicitly including sex with minors, as a serious crime. Ratzinger was a very powerful Cardinal (later, Pope Benedict 16th). It wasn't until the scandal was circling the globe in 2001, that Pope John 2nd finally called it a serious crime ("grave sin"), and reinforced the position of the church that all such crimes should be reported to the local authorities.
2002 - Background checks for priests in the US only, required by the Church.
2005 - Pope Benedict accused in Texas, of covering up a case of church sex with minors. George Bush and others, helped exclude the Pope, from the lawsuit.
Check out "Vatican Responses" section here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sex_abuse_cases
for much more info. They tell you what the Vatican did, but don't tell you what the Vatican didn't, do, to correct this problem. For instance, if background checks were needed to help fight the problem in the US, why weren't they used in Australia, Philippines, Ireland, UK, and (perhaps), globally?
The Vatican denied it was a serious problem, for far too long. Then they denied it was a problem anywhere else except in the US and maybe Canada. Then it blew up in their faces, globally. I doubt if the Catholic Church will ever recover what it has lost.