The Vatican Priest That Fights Clerical Sexual Abuse - Monsignor J. Scicluna

Vatican Insider has a great piece on perhaps a little know but important figure in the sexual abuse scandals. That is is Monsignor J Scicluna. See "The abuse of priests against the children is enough to kill the faith".

We often forget to really pray for people like this and for people on Diocese abuse panels. Sexual abuse is a very dark place to start with that never can be fully understood as to the causes in my view. Add the Clerics that have been ordained and the Church and the horror increases greatly.

Monsignor Sciculuna has been with the Ratzinger sine 2001 so he has seen it all I suppose.

A few excerpts:
When the question about what it had meant in terms of his life path, to be involved in these huge scandals, is asked, his face turns serious: “I understood that the Church did not crumble, despite these scandals, and this is precisely because its foundations are supernatural. There is no other way to explain it.”

That is so true. When I enter the Catholic Church there was really no hint of the purgatory that was ahead . Though just around 200 miles south of me in the Diocese of Lafayette Louisiana the first major cases rocking a Diocese were happening. I am happy to say that Diocese came through that scandal (not without casualties) and has recovered. How to explain that to a large degree without it being supernatural.

Scicluma used strong words to underline the fact that violence shown towards minors by clergymen constitutes “an abuse of spiritual power”. “Yes, it is true – adds the Maltese prelate – there is a specific difference between repeated abuse by a lay person and that carried out by a priest, on victims that expect to see in them the figure of the “good shepherd”. Scicluma’s face darkens and he looks saddened. “If a priest commits the abuse, the trauma caused to the victim is even deeper, the spiritual trust that existed is destroyed and a person’s faith is lost”.

I think that is very true. Even though I spend a lot of time on this blog saying the Church must deal with the subject of Lay abuse within the Church a lot more and I spend time talking about that in other faith communities. In fact that is perhaps why the Catholic Church abuse is viewed with such horror and gets the attention it does by non Catholics. Non Catholics might not be aware of it and in fact dispute the claims of the Church about her self and the Priesthood itself. But I think they are at some level clued in that with Catholic Priests there is a reason this is so much more horrifying.

Its a good article about a man I knew little about till today.