Leaks concerning wrongdoings in the Vatican could not have come at a more embarrassing time for an already beleaguered Church. This, however, had no influence on the decision of Pope Benedict to admit 22 new cardinals into the College of Cardinals, a kind of Inner Cabinet of influential men tasked with the right (or privilege?) of selecting the next Pope.
There is disillusionment among the rank and file of the monsignors, some of whom are concerned about the apparent movement away from Italy of the papacy and are now intent on returning the papacy to Italy by lobbying for an Italian to be the next pope.
The Vatican which is a fully autonomous city within the city of Rome has been subject to numerous unsavory allegations from corruption and cronyism, to a resurgence of suspicions about the Vatican bank and its relationship to the mafia. This makes the church little more than a political organization in which there is a great deal of discontentment about how one of the world’s still most powerful organizations is administered.
Controversy is not new to the Catholic Church. One of the more lurid accusations revolves around sexual misconducts of priests from abuse of boys to full-fledged homosexuality practiced with the knowledge, albeit not consent of the various archbishops.
Father Hubert Patrick O’Connor was a Canadian Roman Catholic bishop of Prince George in British Columbia who was forced to resign following sex abuse charges filed against him He was convicted in 1996 of committing rape and indecent assault on two young aboriginal women during the 1960s when he was a priest and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
In 1988, a scandal erupted over allegations of widespread abuse of children at Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland (Canada). More than 300 former pupils came forward with allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the orphanage. When allegations of physical and sexual abuse started to surface in the late 1980s, the government, police and local church leaders conspired in an unsuccessful cover-up. A decade later, the Roman Catholic Church was judged responsible resulting in a $23 million settlement, and in the face of numerous pending lawsuits, the now infamous orphanage closed. Since the Mount Cashel scandal erupted, a number of priests across the country have been accused of sexual abuse.
In 1992,in an attempt to stem the continuing tide of accusations and allegations of misconducts by priests, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops unveiled tough guidelines, calling for fairness and openness to all allegations, stressing the need to “respect” the jurisdiction of outside authorities, and recommending counselling and compassion for the victims. However, there is little evidence to suggest that, the bishops’ guidelines notwithstanding, the sexual abuse problems have been adequately addressed. The Canadian experience is but one in hundreds of examples of sexual and physical abuse by Roman Catholic priests from the USA, England, Ireland, and Australia.
Child sexual abuse in the U.S. by Roman Catholic priests was first came to light nationally in the mid 1980s when a Louisiana priest pled guilty to 11 counts of molestation of boys. Since then criminal prosecutions of numerous Roman Catholic priests resulted in prison terms and large court financial settlements. This created a crisis for the Church in the Unites States as it did in other countries including Austria, Norway, and Argentina
By the beginning of the 21st century, it had now became clear that, priests and lay members of religious orders in the Catholic Church had been sexually abusing minors on a much larger scale than was originally believed. But what continues to fuel the wrath of the general public is the actions of Catholic bishops to knowingly hide these crimes and to reassign the accused to other parishes in like positions that allow them to continue their practice of sexual abuse.