Reader's Blog: Don’t equivocate on ‘clerical abuse’
In many reports and comments in all types of media, the phrase “child sexual abuse in the Church” and variations on it, is being used instead of “clerical child sexual abuse”.
This is a classical case of equivocation, whether accidental or deliberate. While the phrase is explicitly factual, the use of “in the Church” instead of “clerical”, is sending the subliminal suggestion that lay members of the Church may be, in part, responsible for or involved in the abuse.
I am not a Catholic, but I have family, friends and acquaintances who are. It is unconscionable that they, and all other lay members of the Church, should be linked in any way by this equivocation to the clerical child sexual abuse scandal and the associated cover-ups.
Please eliminate, as far as possible, the equivocation. I am aware that, if quoting somebody who used the phrase, their words cannot be changed, but there are ways of highlighting the equivocation.
