Child Abuse in Pennsylvania

That'll teach them!

You know what ticks me off? The banners after the recent Toronto shooting reading “Danforth Strong.”

And, in just the same way, all the calls right now to fellow Catholics, or to fellow Catholic bishops, for prayer and repentance in reaction to the recent revelations about child abuse in Pennsylvania dioceses, or the homosexual predations of ex-Cardinal McCarrick.

This feels to me morally reprehensible. It feels like saying “Oh well, no one is to blame. It is everyone's fault. Nothing is to be done.” And, tacitly, nothing should be done.

This feels like denying and excusing evil. Which is to say, aiding and abetting evil. Avert our eyes, pick up our pace, and walk on. This is what the perpetrators would want to hear: it was everyone's fault. If everyone is guilty, no one is guilty.

The shooting on the Danforth, and surviving such shootings, has nothing to do with local people being either weak or strong. And while prayer is always a good thing, it is vile to suggest that Catholics in general bear guilt, or all bishops bear guilt, for what some priests or bishops did.

All evil is in the end moral evil. That means all evil is personal. It is a matter of free will. We cannot overcome evil without insisting on that basic point.

Ben Shapiro has suggested that the actions of some of the Pennsylvania priests are a powerful argument for the death penalty. This is really the worst crime imaginable; it is a crime that tends to destroy not the body, but the soul, of the victim, poisoning their recourse to faith.

“It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”

This does not preclude the possibility of redemption; which is why I cannot agree with Shapiro.

In fact, redemption in turn is not possible without first clearly acknowledging guilt; and, for the rest of us, clearly and unambiguously pointing out the significance of the crimes, and who is responsible for them. If the perpetrators themselves are to be redeemed, they must first be thoroughly convinced that they are at fault.

This may have been the fatal flaw in the standard approach by many bishops: instead of impressing upon the guilty parties the severity of their deeds, they swept things under the rug in the name of “forgiveness.” Ah well; we are all sinners. Pass him on to another parish....

You cannot forgive someone who is not sorry for what they have done. That is only encouraging them to go straight to hell by express coach.

Do not execute them. But the key response should be one of widespread public exposure, as promptly as possible. And, for mass shooters, no hiding it behind the fiction of mental illness.