Whilst of course it is very welcome that the official catholic establishment expresses its own horror and dismay at the extent of child abuse within its institition, the concentration on feelings, with phrases like "deep sorrow" and "heartfelt sorrow", and their sense of "deep shame" serves as a smoke screen in front of the legal reality.
The Pope was, and is, the CEO of a major international corporation in whose midst child abuse was carried out systematically and the institution itself participated both actively and passively to avoid it coming to light. And now we are asked to accept an apology and heartfelt sorrow in lieu of legal culpability. The idea that he is to do "penance" is simply insulting. He doesn't seem to acknowledge that he is legally obliged to conform to secular law.
The truth of the matter is that in any corporation, the CEO is where the buck stops. Since the Pope's administration of the corporation played a significant role in preventing these crimes from coming to light sooner, there is no legal difference between that and any other conspiracy to protect the criminally guilty.
As an accessory, the Pope should face charges along with all the Bishops who knowingly failed to act, who left child-abusers in post, or transferred them to fresh new pastures. And the hand-wringing apologies are simply not a way of addressing legal culpability.
There is a popular myth inside the Christian churches that representatives follow a "higher law", that of God's law. They popularise the notion that judgement before this mythical superbeing is somehow more fundamental and significant than being answerable to secular law, the law governing our societies.
And in the pretence of being deistically accountable, they seek to avoid being judged by a rather more mundane secular process. But that absolutely should not happen. The church is not above the law. Just because their representatives claim allegiance to a superbeing, that does not mean they have a "get out of jail card".
Once convicted and sentenced, they may well take solace from the fact that they have at least paid an earthly price for their crimes but any claims they might have to be dealing with the superbeing, far less actually following his will, must remain outside the scope of law.
Let them face charges in court and let them answer to our justice system. If they want to do religious penance as well then so be it but it absolutely is not a substitute for the legal process. The sooner prosecutors stiffen their backbone and address the legal issues, the better.
