Our Children Part II

Last March, I wrote a post following the terrorist bombing in Manchester England, which targeted mostly young girls attending a concert.   I asserted that if the West could not protect its most precious gift, its children, then it was in deep, deep trouble. (See my post Our Children, May 23, 2017 http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2017/05/our-children.html following the Manchester bombing).

Once again, I am sadly writing about the failure to protect our children and the heinous and egregious lapses of institutions that should protect them, and the inverted priorities of these structures.

Again, Pope Francis is in the spotlight (pun definitely intended as a reference to the film on topic).  Last week,  it was revealed that the Catholic Church had systematically covered up the sexual abuse of 1,000 children over 70 years with some 300 priests involved. 

I wish I could say I was shocked.  After the exposure of the massive cover-ups in the Boston Archdiocese and others worldwide, the church had announced that it put into place safeguards and a zero tolerance policy.   Francis turned his attention elsewhere—mostly criticizing the West for not doing enough on climate change, for having borders and not doing enough for Middle Eastern refugees, and criticizing capitalism generally.   He began to dial back the “zero tolerance” policy and made comments about forgiveness of these predators.  He enraged many Catholics by re-instating Fr. Mauro Inzoli (who had been defrocked by Pope Benedict for sex abuse,  and by giving the blessing at the notorious Cardinal Law’s funeral.   In a slap to victims in Chile, he accused the victims of slandering Bishop Juan Barros  for covering up abuse, and demanded proof of their claims (comments for which he later expressed regret).  The Vatican’s third highest ranking official, Cardinal Pell of Australia, is going on trial for sex crimes.

Now the issue is back with a vengeance. 

Francis is the most progressive and politically active pope in my lifetime.  And as with most progressives, Francis has exposed himself to charges of hypocrisy.   On the heels of criticizing Trump for allowing children to be separated from their parents, Francis is now faced with a crisis of his own.

C.S. Lewis, arguably the most important Christian writer and thinker of the last 100 years, wrote “Children are not a distraction from more important work.  They are the most important work.”  I argue that, especially in this time of fractured families, the most vital function of the Church and the Christian faith in general is the protection and nurturing of its children.

Instead, the Catholic Church, in a widespread way, over and over again, abused them. 

Francis responded with a letter that could have been written 5 years ago.  He expressed shame and repentance, and admitted “we abandoned the little ones.”  He admitted that the Church “delayed in applying these actions [to deal with the abuse].”   He offered little more that “prayer and fasting” as concrete actions the Church would take in the future.

We are well beyond that now.   This is a grave crisis for the Catholic Church, and a crisis often gives leadership the latitude to take immediate and radical steps to if it is to show that it is serious about this.  And symbolic moves are just as critical.   It needs to show that perpetrators of these acts and those that would cover them up will be expunged, exposed, humiliated, shamed, and where appropriate, prosecuted.   The first step needs to be a purging at the highest levels.   When the sexual abuse scandal at Michigan State came to light, its president and athletic director immediately resigned.  Pope Francis is the only person with sufficient authority to make symbolic and actual changes, and these changes need to happen now.    Following a high level bloodletting, Francis needs to make some bold initiatives, like permitting priests to marry and allowing women to become priests.   If he does not take bold and decisive steps, the Catholic Church will continue to lose members in the West, at a time when the pillar of Christianity is needed now more than ever.

During the same week that the crisis broke with the Catholic Church, we learned about another massive failure to protect our children.   The body of young Mollie Tibbets was found in a cornfield in Iowa a month after her disappearance and an illegal alien was taken into custody and charged with her murder.

After weeks of caterwauling about separating illegal border crossers from their children, protests from the open borders folks, politicians like Dick Durbin vowing to work full time for “Dreamers,” and others campaigning on the abolition of ICE, one of the so-called Dreamers took one of our own and separated her from her family permanently. 

The primary purpose of government is to protect its citizens from harm, whether it be harm from foreigners or from our own citizens.   Our government’s failure to keep people out that have no legal right to be here cost Mollie her life.

And the reaction from the Left has been predictably nauseating.   Some tried to divert blame by throwing around  buzzwords from the social justice lexicon like “toxic masculinity.”   Others, like Elizabeth Warren clumsily and coldly tried to switch the topic, “I’m so sorry for the family here…BUT…we need an immigration system that’s effective; that focuses on where REAL problems are.”

Illegal aliens murdering young women like Kate Steinle and Mollie Tibbets—two beautiful young women with bright futures--- ARE a real problem, Elizabeth.

The Catholic Church and our own government have had massive failures in their primary purposes.   The reaction of Pope Francis to the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the Left to Mollie Tibbets’s murder was weak, tepid and unconvincing.  In both cases, we are seeing leaders that are more dedicated to protecting their agenda and their institutions than our children.