And next up, the pope will proclaim that the Antarctic is a little bit chilly.

Covering up the fact that priests commit child abuse, shifting them to other parishes where their record isn’t known and convincing law enforcement to suppress any charges (the latter was detailed in a stunning report in the Toledo Blade a few years back) aren’t bad handling. It’s immoral and I would imagine possibly criminal in some cases.

Benedict himself, according to a BBC 2006 documentary, pushed to keep the cases secret when, as Cardinal Ratzinger, he was head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, though the Catholic Church has disputed the BBC’s interpretation of the church documents cited in the story (personally, I find it hard to give the church any credibility on this issue).

In the prayer service from which that quote came, Benedict also asks “What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes?” Which in this context sounds like the “Well, maybe America does torture people, but we torture a lot fewer than Saddam” line of argument—hey, maybe the church did some bad things, but children are already swimming in a cesspool, so what difference does a little more abuse make? (In fairness, that is an interpretation, and he might have meant something quite different).

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