Stop what, Peter? Stop seeking the truth? How can we ascertain the truth if we don't ask questions?

You're speaking of one case, Peter, the case of the most notorious offender in Ireland. Walsh admitted what he did, was sent for treatment, and was declared cured by a medical expert (with some reservations). He offended again, and was removed from ministry in 1990, prosecuted in 1995 and convicted and sent to prison in 1996. It took a long time, but in Walsh's case, something was done - and there were actions taken in his case from the very beginning. Not criminal prosecution, but intense residential psychiatric treatment.

But Walsh's case was not typical. It was one of the first to be prosecuted; so it's likely that many of those who came in contact with the case, did not know what they were doing.

But what about other cases? It's easy to assume the answers, but what really are the answers? There's no doubt that the church officials failed miserably in dealing with these crimes, but was their failure due to callousness or to lack of expertise? How would YOU handle a child who came to you about a situation like this? How would YOU respond if you were accused of failing to handle the child's complaint effectively? Can you or I honestly say we would have done better?

You can assume that all of these church officials are bad, bad people and they need to be punished to scare people into not doing this in the future, but is that really the case? I think we're a long way from good answers to this problem, and we need to keep asking questions until things start making sense. Assuming the answers isn't good enough. Getting your answers from newspaper articles isn't good enough, either. Too many details are missing from the news accounts, and too often the reporters add "spin" to the article - as evidenced by the differences between the Guardian summary and the Pope's actual remarks.

-Joe Offer-