". What it means is that people within the institutions are the ones who make the decisions. "
No Joe - it's people who run and control these institutions who make the decisions, just like it is the captains of industry or the boards of education, or the occupiers of the White House or The Prime Ministers office who make the rules
The rest just follow orders
If the thinking behind the rules are bad, the whole organisation is rotten and in need of reform
Inevitably, if things go wrong, them upstairs will pick one of their minions to take the blame - as is happening here
I don' believe that abusive priests are necessarily evil, even f what they did was
They were weak, often sick individuals as much in need of help as their victims.
It is the situation they were operating in that needs examining and reforming and until that happens your organisation will never be trusted again
I have always believed that religion should be totally voluntary and that those who run it should have no power other than that of spiritual advisors offering advice that has to be accepted or rejected freely by people who haven't been pre-conditioned to automatically accept it without question - rejecting totally the arrogant Jesuit boast that they could take a child and mould it like plasticine
These events took place in an atmosphere of fear of and domination by a clergy that had power beyond life itself - the power to threaten eternal damnation to those who stepped out of line.
Your churches, throughout the world, bacame part of the toxic mix of religion and politics and allowed themselves to become the weapons of monsters like Henry VIII, and Empires oppressing the poor of the world for gain and self aggrandisement - in doing so, the Church became as rich and powerful as those they served - richer even.
Right into the twentieth century, the Vatican stayed silent while church leaders supported dictators like Hitler, Pinochet, Salazar, and all those vicious torturers who terrorised entire third-world countries - all had Archbishops backing up their atrocities to make them respectable.
In all this, your religion got lost and its ordinary followers forgotten
Sure - there were exceptions - Archbishop Romero, Martin Luthur King and Desmond Tutu are among my heroes - or nearer home, Canon Collins, Hewlett Johnson - as far back as John Ball
I have a massive respect for the last Bishop of Kilaloe, Willie Walsh, who dedicated a great deal of his time to defending Travellers rights - but all these were embarrassing misfits whose work was largely rejected or ignored by the church - the hierarchy were probably part of the murder of Romero
Your Augean Stable is very much in need of a clean-out, before those who have been betrayed by it burn it down altogether
Stop blaming the few and start accepting that the problem goes far deeper than their individual actions
Respectfully
Jim Carroll