The continued failure of religious institutions to respond effectively to criminal allegations is one of the most damaging problems that religion has, and it gives much ammunition to those who wish to remove worship of God from the face of human society.
When the Catholic Church covers up instances of child abuse, what they believe they are doing is being forgiving with the perpetrators, or believe that they can handle these issues in a more Christian manner than the secular authorities.
The problem I have with this attitude, however, is that very rarely is anything done about it, and the abuses can carry on for years. I have very little respect left for irreligious governments, but they are usually still willing to come down heavily on child abusers, perhaps because they have allowed every other degeneracy to affect our children that they are compelled to react strongly against the one remaining taboo. And it is definitely a taboo to them, a mere societal prejudice, and not the foul abomination and ignorance of God’s law that Christians know it is.
If the Catholic church were willing to punish it’s tenured criminals with the full force that the Bible instructs them to, then there would be little need for the weak measure of justice meted out by the state. But as they are unwilling to undertake this work themselves, they should inform those who will act in the children’s best interests.
This would show that Christians value just and protective laws, and it would dispel this air of secrecy and mysticism that terrifies many irreligious people into militant atheism. By standing up for national justice when it is in accordance with the word of God, and actively resisting it when it is ungodly, Christians can better hope to influence the world around them, and convince others that our moral compass is attuned in the same general direction as theirs is, even if they do not yet understand the source of is power.
When that happens, we’ll look a lot less like a secretive clique maintaining the status quo, and we’ll start to look like campaigners for what is right. Of course, this won’t change the opinions of the most hardline atheists, but it will doubtless make the ordinary people far less critical of the concept of religion as a whole.
It is probably only the intense tribal loyalty of many Catholics that allows their institution to continue in spite of such revelations of abuse. If such widespread criminality had been uncovered in the Anglican Church, it would be virtually deserted by its comparatively transient churchgoers. In fact, it has already been heavily abandoned, for lesser evils than occurred in the Catholic Church. If anything, it has been deserted for being too mealy mouthed and modern.
I would ask any Christian who sees the apathy and degeneracy within their church if they should seek out a more truly Christian congregation, or if they should continue to be preached to by hypocrites and sex offenders.
Alas, it seems that traditionalism has a strong hold on Christian hearts, even where, as Jesus Christ said, those traditions transgress the laws of God.
This probably accounts for the growing popularity of the Eastern Orthodox church in Britain. Christians who abandon the Catholic and Anglican churches are often unwilling to consider a more modern church, even where the newer church is a stricter follower of Christian doctrine as laid down in the Bible.
Therefore, a Church that maintains an ancient tradition, while being less open to corruption, tends to attract the more conservative Christians. It is probably a better outcome than going to the liberal churches, in any case.
But I believe there is an inevitable problem with having wide ranging Christian institutions. This problem is that they are, despite the best intentions of their congregations, open to being corrupted and waylaid by ambitious clergy, who use the unwavering loyalty of their congregations to achieve ungodly ends.
I would advocate that any individual Church that maintains a belief that the word of God in the Bible is the basis of all law, should avoid any attempt to place their congregation under the power of some overarching body.
The risks with appointing a leader of the religion is that you may put a man in the place of God, and if that man is not virtuous, the entire religion is corrupted by his diktats. An independent Church is better equipped to deal with individual crimes, if they do not have any history of abuse, and will not attract the ire of secular bodies when their power is minimal. Moreover, if one good church is corrupted, others will remain unaffected.
Of course, there is nothing to stop communication between different churches, but there are great risks when one attempts to place a central authority over many of them. In the end, those independent churches which stay true to the laws of the Bible should be united under the eternal dominion of Jesus Christ.
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