What Joes O says about the way the RC church operates today (especially in the USA, and lesser so in other western countries) is correct. Moves towards increased freedoms in the western world in the 60's and 70s gave more local and individual decision making freedoms, somewhat enshrined through Vatican 2 (I believe in the mid 60s to 70s) Adding to this was lower attendance in western RC churches, financial concerns, and questions arising from RC church scandals, such as internal pedophile. However, the RC Pope kept much of his power over the RC church on the books. I suspect many of the freedoms Joe refers to have not been extended nor accepted in many other world nations, those where many of the world's practising RCs live.

While I accept Joe O as an authority on some RC church doctrine matters, I do not accept his views as an authority on other RC issues (i.e. how the church handled cases of child sexual abuse) than any one else. He clearly has a pro RC church bias (not that there is anything wrong with that), as we likely all have other types of bias. I expect Joe is frustrated by what he sees as wrong, and is struggling to come to grips with what is important to him in a way that maintains his faith in the RC church (though he can speak for himself on this). An example of similar bias that comes to my mind is a mother of a criminal, who cannot see the bad in her child and grasps at any illogical reason to justify the bad behaviour. However, I do detect much frustration in Joe O with the church, as I suspect many others share. It is logical to retreat to what is more comforting, a place where you can make a real difference, the local parish and church. In frustratiion, I chose a different faith route....which some others did also. None are wrong, as inner peace is paramount.

Joe seems to explain away the way the RC church handled the pedophile priest cases as being a result of less control from the center, and more from the local parishes. I submit that this theory does not hold water under close examination. Below are some of the reasons I make this claim.

1)        Much of the reported sexual abuse occurred many years ago (50s, 60's 70's), when the Pope and RC Church center held greater control of local church affairs (no pun intended).
2)        Much of the religious freedoms Joe states are recent, and more pronounced in the USA.
3)        RC sexual abuse cases have been reported in many countries and have a similar pattern of denial, priest transfers, cover-up and a failure to inform the authorities, local parish structure or the faithful that the abusers were in their church.
4)        Some (if not much) of the countries where child sexual abuse occurred were countries where the RC church had much power and government acceptance and less power in the hands of the parish or the faithful….(i.e., Quebec Canada, and Ireland).
5)        Financial considerations have been paramount to the RC church. While many of the crimes occurred in the past, financial compensation occurs now…a convenient time to pass increased authority, including financial, to the local parishes.
6)        There are many cases of the transfer of pedophile priests by bishops to other locals….not innocent parishioners. Many of the transfers involved other bishops and countries. This leads one to suspect that knowledge of the abuse was broader than the local parish or bishop. Broad matters would tend to get the attention of Rome.
7)        In many of the cases children involved had advised authorities and more senor church representatives. In many cases this did not result in a change.
8)        Some of the priests having knowledge of the sexual abuse were promoted to higher levels in the church. This did not seem to be a career limiting thing (i.e. Bishop Lahey, who recently .was charged in Canada, and led RC church compensation negotiations for sex crime compensation).
9)        Many of the lay people in the RC church were unaware of what was happening in their own church and parish….even in cases where the Bishops knew.

As to the Pope speaking out, we all know he has the right to public ally state his personal view, or those he feels represents the RC church interests. Most in the liberated western RC churches do not pay much heed to what they do not support. However, this may differ in other countries, where church, state and personal freedoms are not as broad. There is a danger that the faithful would be less prepared to take the statements as likely as, let's say, those in the more freedom-loving USA. Additionally, papal statements can be used by bigots and shady political leaders as reasons to treat other folks badly.