CLERICAL SEX ABUSE AND HOW THE HOLY MASS WAS THE CHEESE IN THE ABUSE TRAP

Priests exist mainly to say the Mass.  Children are brought to Mass.  They trust the priest and get abused sexually. They serve at Mass and get abused sexually.  The Mass created an aura around the priest that made it hard for anybody to think he could do serious wrong.  The Mass supposedly provided spiritual food and grace to keep the priest from sin.  The Church knows from experience that truth always comes out so why did it cover up the clerical sex abuse?  The answer is the Mass became a placebo for evil and the suspicions of the superiors and even the flock.  It is as if the Church was sure the magic of the Mass would make things right.

Malta had 850 priests. It turned out that 50 of them were child sex abusers. That is a high number. The real number is higher. Generally the more victims that are abused by a person the more likely it is to come out. The figures do not take into account the cleverest clerical paedophiles. They do not take into account the abuser who rarely, but sometimes abuses. What about the priests who abuse children so young that they will never remember? They do not take into account the power of self-deception. The Catholic faith is self deception. Many of the abused delude themselves that the abuse didn’t happen for priests are so great and wouldn’t do such a thing. The figure is high.
 
What about priests who have resorted to molesting toddlers for they are too afraid to interfere with older children?
 
Naturally the level of clerical sex abuse in remote regions of the world and in developing countries would be worse than what it is in Europe or America.
 
A study outlined in The Case of the Pope states that 76 per cent of abuse by priests was never reported to the civil authorities. Only 6 per cent of priests were convicted. Only 2 per cent went to jail. And the Church wrote good character references and so on to keep the convicted priests out of jail (page 22). Anybody can to go a priest or bishop and get a glowing and lying reference.
 
Ratzinger in 1996 ordered the canon law trial of abuser Father Murphy who was dying to stop so that Murphy could die as a respected member of his order (page 23, The Case of the Pope). Murphy had raped and buggered about 200 deaf boys.
 
The Case of the Pope page 3 states that Catholic institutions have higher rates of abuse taking place than one would expect. If the Church really had supernatural power to heal lives and make people good you would expect the level of abuse to be strangely low. Or are we to believe that the power of God is restraining the child abusers in the priesthood as much as possible meaning that without him 50% of priests might be abusers?

The Murphy Report found that the Church rules and laws had facilitated the cover up (page 26). Under canon Law, if a priest is a paedophile, he can’t help it and so is not to be blamed if he molests children (page 28).

John Paul II protected Cardinal Groer who had sexually abused over 2000 boys and had him hidden safely away after his abuse had been discovered (page 30).
 
Is there any case of where the Church protected a priest who in order to save children from his child-molesting colleagues in the priesthood, spoke out and went to the police? There is none (page 33, The Case of the Pope).

The pope's letter to the people of Ireland in 2010 didn’t admit that the Vatican or Canon Law was in any way to blame for the clerical sex abuse culture of cover up (page 37, The Case of the Pope). The Pope has never urged bishops to report priests who they know are molesting children to the legal authorities (page 38, The Case of the Pope).
 
Richard Sipe stated that many clerical abusers feel they work so hard and do so much good that they decide that they are entitled to have some perverted fun with children (page 6, The Case of the Pope). I would add that the Church encourages this attitude with its doctrines that the priesthood is the greatest calling of all and that the priest does the ultimate good work which is giving the sacraments which give everlasting life and happiness to the flock. Jesus said that whoever causes children to sin would be better off drowned in the sea (Matthew 18:6). This is often cited by Catholics who condemn the child sex abuse. But Jesus never said that whoever abuses a child would be better off drowned. He is speaking of those who lead children into sins such as lying or stealing or whatever. It was the rulebreaking Jesus cared about. It was not the damage to people. The Catholics speak as if the victims of child sex abuse are sinners because of the abuse! For them they are not sinned against so much as sinful.
 
Pope Benedict XVI has no right to claim to be serious about reforming the Church when he has failed to fire Cardinal Levada, Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, who was known for having engaged in cover-ups and moving priests around (Page 17, The Case of the Pope). Cardinal Bertone who has stated that a bishop must not be obligated in law to turn a priest who admits sex abuse over to the police (page 19, The Case of the Pope).