What Does it Mean to Protect Children When ...

According to the Chicago Tribune's "Seeker" blog:

Cardinal Francis George said Pope Benedict XVI was able to say what the Church couldn't: that the sexual abuse of minors is a problem rooted in the moral relativism of our time.

The quotes from Cardinal George:

"We have avoided scrupulously as bishops trying to excuse ourselves in any way by saying well this is a societal problem," George said. "Others have said that and I think it is true ... Those were his original words: 'What does it mean to protect children when you live in a society with rampant pornography with all kinds of manifestations of violence?'

"Children are victims of all this," George continued. "If you're going to address this, address society. [Bishops] haven't felt free to say that because it looks like we're letting ourselves off the hook. But he's free to say it and he did and not at our prompting."

The Holy Father's point is a sound one (though the blogger doesn't think so). In our relativistic culture, even USA Today is willing to say: Hey, why not? to "child/adult sex." This should not surprise us. What with unrestricted Internet access in libraries, schools and in our homes, our culture seems totally unconcerned about putting  kids in the middle of a pornography tsunami without protection. In America right now, adults' sexual appetites trump innocence (just look at the shoulder-shrug attitude toward the public schools' abuse cover-up).

The greatest long-term harm of the sex abuse crisis in the Church will likely be the extension of the abuse scandal elsewhere, due to the loss of the Church's rare voice of sanity. The Church is here to instill a sense of sin. When the sense of sin is gone, hide your children. That's what makes this sin in priests so diabolical.

-- Tom Hoopes