But before, with JPII, or Benedict, or Pope Francis last month, you could always say “oh well this is being mishandled but the Pope did not know what was really going on”
This claim is especially tragically true of Pope JPII who lived under communism and was used to false propaganda against the Church, so for a long time he naively thought reports of abuse were ginned up by anti-Christian forces
This claim is that the Pope knew and ignored it
Meh, you're a bit more generous with your point of view than I am.
I'm nearly 50 years old, and heck, I remember hearing Priest/Altar boy jokes in school. Heck, I even remember some of my catholic friends who would talk about the "happy hands" priest at their school. Times were different then though - lol - and if you got stuck in a bad position with happy hands - "you should've known better". At least that's the way all the guys talked about it with each other. "Just don't go near that guy."
So we're talking the late 70's and early 80's when I became aware of that reputation of priests. Most of these investigations where they're uncovering nonsense goes back way further...with a history of the Church moving people around all throughout the century based upon allegations/suspicions. Not just here in the US, but around the world.
I just have a hard time, therefore, buying into the idea that anyone was really ignorant about this problem. It just strains credibility. You have a church that throughout the world engages in the same behaviors of moving around problematic priests to places where either they cannot do any more harm (best case scenario) or (regrettably) moving them to places simply because their reputation doesn't precede them there.
The scope of the problem and the length of time that it has been going on really makes it hard for me to swallow the idea that "Someone just chalked it up to haters lying about the Church". Maybe if these allegations were isolated to more secular countries and/or had just started - I could buy into that. But, once again, the scope of the problem and length of time it's been going on makes that proposition a difficult one to accept.
Maybe among the faithful/the parishioners that might make sense. They just didn't want to believe that was the case. But the church leadership - meh - I'm inclined to think they all knew.
Heck - look at pope Benedict. His BROTHER was the leader of a choir that apparently had hundreds upon hundreds of kids deemed credible over a span of nearly 60 years either violently or sexually abused. And they weren't aware of it?
Meh, my original take on this discussion stands. If I had to lay dollars to donuts - I'd venture to guess that you'd be hard pressed to find someone that supports the "progressive" nature of the current pope but is also calling for his resignation. And the converse is true as well about people who don't support his political leanings.
Unfortunately we seem to be in a place where everyone defines EVERYTHING based upon their party allegiance nowadays - and everything is filtered through that lens. Conservatives are willing to overlook virtue issues when convenient for supporting their guy - but latch on to other virtue issues when it's convenient to attack what they perceive to be the opposition. Liberals are the same way.
It's a pretty sad state of affairs, IMHO.
