Vatican critics want an end to concealment

THE recent comment by Cardinal Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, who described the criticism of the Holy See relating to clerical child sex abuse as “truly incomprehensible” is absurd, unworthy and mischievous.

Sodano claims that those who criticise the Pope and bishops are transforming individual guilt into collective guilt; that this is manipulative and part of a cultural battle that challenges the moral truths propagated by the Pontiff.

Those who criticise are doing no such thing. They are seeking a degree of accountability and candour that has been concealed by decades of obfuscation and evasion to the point where too many bishops have lost the vital resource of their office — moral authority.