Benny Blows Off Beantown

If I were a Catholic in the Boston archdiocese right about now, I’d be pretty damn furious over the fact that Pope Benedict XVI is going to visit Washington and New York, but isn’t going to stop over at the town which is the home of Red Sox Nation (and also, unfortunately, the epicenter of this country’s Catholic priest abuse scandal, as noted here).

(And by the way, we all know that the scandal occurred because of Boston’s “culture of liberalism,” which must be true because one of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s new Op-Ed columnists said it was so here, from the confines of PA of course as opposed to acting like a man and going to that city to say it personally.)

This Wikipedia article tells us about one of the many infuriating aspects of the scandal…

In May 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and later elected Pope Benedict XVI on the death of his predecessor, sent a letter[10] to all Catholic Bishops declaring that the Church's investigations into claims of child sex abuse were subject to the pontifical secret and were not to be reported to law enforcement until investigations were completed, on pain of excommunication. This enforced secrecy was in direct violation of the laws of most countries, including the United States and most European countries. The coverup related only to church officials, and the letter did not address incidents of victims reporting abuse to the police.

In response to the failure to report abuse to the police, lawmakers have changed the law to make reporting of abuse to police compulsory. An example of this can be found in Massachusetts, USA.

A meeting? A speech? A dedication? Anything whatsoever at all, Your Holiness? The city rates nothing from you as far as you’re concerned?

Try visiting this site to find out just how much of a snub you’re planning to inflict on people who have suffered at the hands of our church.