Wednesday, July 25, 2007

In God?s name?


Reading Pat Murphy's July 18 column, "A Shameful Day for Justice and Catholics," I was repeatedly reminded of David Yallop's superb 1984 non-fiction bestseller, "In God's Name." It remains for me one of the very best examinations of the Vatican's scandal-prone history—a very long and colorful history of duplicity, incompetence and indifference on a myriad of fronts.

It's very obvious reading about the U.S. Catholic priest sex sandals that continue to be an ongoing source of shame for the church that a lot of what was going on in the U.S. and elsewhere was classic Vatican "there's-no-problem-unless-we-choose-to-publicly-acknowledge-there's-a-problem" double speak and apathy.

Priests who molested were routinely transferred to other parishes, not fired or defrocked as they certainly should have been, even after they were proven or strongly suspected of molesting parishioners.

It's certainly not unique among organized religions by any means, but the Vatican does seem to have strangely cornered the market on making such double speak and apathy so unceasingly institutionalized.

It's something Yallop's book does a tremendous job of exposing again and again.

John Pluntze

Ketchum




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