My head is still spinning over Vatican response.

[Fresh_Start]

According to the Vatican statement, "we now know that in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5 percent and 5 percent of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases."

The Vatican statement quoted a Christian Science Monitor article that reported on a 2002 study by Christian Ministry Resources, which concluded that "most American churches being hit with child sexual abuse allegations are Protestant," and that a similar rate was found within the Jewish community.

The official position of the Vatican is 'but they did it too!!!!'

And still they believe they are on a higher plane of moral rectitude than the rest of us.

[WildEyedLiberal]

1. It's not untrue, but the Vatican is missing the whole point

The Catholic priest pedophilia scandal has certainly gotten the most media attention, and of course is atrocious, heinous, and abominable, but Catholic priests are far from the only clergy who molest kids, and a only small minority of priests are guilty of pedophilia. We just don't hear about the cases in the Protestant, Evangelical, or Jewish communities because those faiths don't have the strict top-down hierarchical structure the Catholic Church does, and thus there hasn't been an institutional coverup on the scale of the one perpetrated by the Catholic bishops. That is where the Vatican is digging its own grave deeper; by refusing to acknowledge, apologize, and rectify the AWFUL coverup of the crimes by shuffling pedophile priests around to different parishes, giving them the chance to rape even more kids, and promoting the bishops who did the covering up to a plush job in the Vatican.

[Fresh_Start]

3. its missing a lot of points

the cover-up which of necessity was executed by Church hierarchy was only one point they missed

the fact that they are still not accepting responsibility and are unwilling to make fair compensation to the victims of the crime is another point

the fact that they continue to deceive that they are the moral authority while abjectly failing to confess their sins and make amends for those sins is another

I imagine that they are the masters of moral relativism. One of the bishops a couple of years ago actually said kids are resilient, it wasn't that bad.

[JerseygirlCT]

5. Completely agree

I think the continuing problem and refusal to do anything substantive about it are tied directly to the top-down hierarchy of the RCC. It makes it all far too easy.

[EmilyAnne]

6. And also remember that they are talking about sexual abuse CASES. The institutional coverup you

mention, no doubt, was able to keep a lot of victims silent and a lot of abuse unreported.

[laconicsax]

2. They don't believe...they KNOW.

Remember, the Pope is infallible and when he points out mistakes made by previous infallible Popes, he is showing his infallibility.

[JuniperLea]

4. Waaaaa... the Protestants! The Protestants!

They are pedophiles too!

As if that makes it better on the Catholics.

Honestly, grow the fuck up already!

[TlalocW]

7. What does happen to the protestant pedophiles?

I'm hoping that they get sent to jail, but you so rarely hear about it because the press does seem to cover the RCC more in situations like this.

TlalocW

[BlueIris]

8. Oh, only between 1.5 and 5 percent.

Gosh, geeze, those victims must be exaggerating their pain or something.