Now the Pope is directly implicated in abuse cover ups

The sex abuse scandal enveloping the Catholic Church moved closer to Pope Benedict XVI today with revelations that in the 1990s the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger failed to defrock an American priest who molested hundreds of deaf boys, despite receiving letters from a number of American bishops pleading with him to act.

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Although Cardinal Ratzinger's second-in-command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, went on to instruct Wisconsin bishops to begin a canonical trial for Father Murphy with the intention of having him defrocked if found guilty, that trial was stopped after the priest wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger begging for leniency on the grounds that he had already repented and was in poor health.

From here

This makes Cardinal Brady's pointed refusal to resign unless directly asked to by teh Pope make a lot more sense. I accept that the apologists will say that a comparativly small number of priests were abusers but the number involved in the covers ups - to say nothing of thier seniority now and then - is growing by the day. And we are told in Brady's case that "Ireland was very different in 1975". Perhaps, but the USA in 1996?

We are told that morality - the fundamentals of right versus wrong - spring directly from God. We are told that the RCC speaks as Gods representatives on earth and they are our moral guardians and guides.

In my opinion this continual exposure of senior leadership with direct links to cover ups of teh very worst crimes shows an organisation that has totally lost any moral authority. They talk of teh need for forgivness and renewal. Isn't that based on repentance and sorrow for teh sins committed? Where is teh evidence of teh sorrow or repentance here? Instead it's teh sin of Pride causing people to doggedly hang on to senior roles in the church, irrespective of how that seems to the congregation, to the clerics who are innocent, to the wider world and most importantly to the victims.

It really does seem like an organisation rotten to the core. We have had 28 or so pages with apologists defending Brady's refusal to consider resignation. I would very much like to know how the Pope can be considered fit for office after seemingly personally protecting a man guilty of 200+ assaults on children.