The current leader of the Catholic church in Belgium is keen to 'move on' and look to the future, rather than examine the past. This was said in the light of yet more appalling revelations about child abuse carried out by Catholic priests in Belgium.
As the Belgians begin to come to terms with the extent and depth of their child abuse cases it is instructive to examine the recently retired leader of the Catholic faith in the UK. As a brief biog on Wikipedia has it, "Bishop Cormac Murphy-O'Connor found himself subject to public scrutiny regarding a priest in his diocese when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. During this time it was brought to his attention that a priest, Michael Hill, was a child sexual abuser.
Instead of reporting Hill to the police, Murphy-O'Connor allowed the crime to be covered up and transferred Hill to Gatwick Airport chapel, where the Cardinal believed he would not be able to molest children. In 1997, Hill was finally convicted as a child molester and jailed for sexually assaulting nine children. After three years in jail, Hill was given another five years for assaulting three other boys."
"In 2000, when O'Connor ascended to the status of Archbishop of Westminster, the case became known to the general public." It also emerged that Hill had continued to abuse children while at Gatwick.
Now although he has retired, he has been asked by the Pope to head a team investigating child abuse in Ireland. As the Guardian puts it, "Two official reports have pointed to decades of rape, coercion and sexual attack by predatory clerics whose activities, in the words of one of the reports, were "obsessively" concealed by the church hierarchy." Now O'Connor is on his way as head of the papal team. Get an 'obsessive concealer' to investigate other 'obsessive concealers.' What!?
When will one of these criminals be charged by the civilian authorities for aiding and abetting criminals or for perverting the course of justice?
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