Vatican Says Abortion Worse Than Child Abuse

The Roman Catholic Church in the United States (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like most of you (I hope), I was outraged by the Catholic abuse scandal in Ireland. Compounding the pervasive abuse were the efforts by the Church to conceal it and prevent the perpetrators from being held responsible. I attempted to document some of the early responses from Catholics, including those who will clearly continue to defend the Church no matter what atrocities its clergy commit. However, it soon proved impossible to keep track of all responses, and I had to be content with pointing out that Catholic doctrine itself facilitated child abuse. But now there has been another response, this time directly from the Vatican, that simply cannot be ignored.

The Irish Times is reporting today that Spanish Cardinal Antonio Canizares, described as a senior Vatican official, has been minimizing the importance of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse's report. In fact, the article describes him as suggesting, "...that the millions of lives lost through abortion represent a much more serious crime against humanity than clerical sex abuse."

While Cardinal Canizares deserves credit for agreeing that the behavior of the many perpetrators should be condemned, he was quoted as saying,

What happened in some schools cannot be compared with the millions of lives that have been destroyed by abortion. It (abortion) has legally destroyed 40 million human lives.

Suppose for a moment that he's right. What does this have to do with the latest (of many) evidence that the Catholic Church has been abusing children and attempting to hide it? What does it do with the fact that the Church has fought hard to limit the amounts paid out to victims and their families? What does it have to do with their continue efforts to help pedophiles escape criminal responsibility and continue to have easy access to future victims? What does it have to do with the fact that another Catholic abuse scandal is about to surface right here in the U.S.?

As Universal Heretic recently pointed out, "No other institution on the planet would be able to survive such monstrous scandals."