Could it be that the Vatican is using the same PR firm as Tiger Woods?
After reeling from more than a decade of sex-abuse scandals, the Catholic Church still can’t level with itself or the outside world. Faced with an unconscionable –likely endemic–outrage, it seems satisfied to order incremental improvements in the detection and punishment of pedophiles in its midst. For example, it recently lengthened the number of years that canonical charges can be brought against sexual transgressors from 10 to 20 years. But bishops remain unaccountable for sexual abuse by priests on their watch.
The Church still sees no connection between celibacy and those who answer its vocational call. But worse than a myopic take on recruits, it has now perversely equated pedophilia with the ordination of women.
That was the upshot of its recent categorization of a crime and a tradition. They’re both awful, according to the Vatican. The broader context was the inclusion of an attempt to ordain women on a short list of “more grave offenses.” Also making the MGO list: pedophilia, heresy, apostasy and schism.
Actually, it’s more than female-priest candidates who should be offended. Heretics, apostates and schismatics would also seem to have a case.