Under Their Radar

Michael over at AMERICAblog makes a good point about Cardinal Law's performing the service for JP2, and the apparent insensitivity of Church officials to the issue of sexual abuse perpetrated by priests. It is dispiriting, but expresses more eloquently than I could have how thoroughly a nonissue the Higher Ups must view such abuses to be. I'm including the last bit; the full piece is here.

I hate to disagree with Chris in Paris who saw Law's participation as a deliberate snub to those who criticized the Church over this issue. But in fact, it's much worse than that. The child sex abuse scandal -- which has gone on for decades (if not centuries) and which is hardly contained to the US (recent scandals have broken out in Ireland and Austria and elsewhere) -- is not even remotely on the radar for the Vatican or most cardinals from around the world. It barely registered on their consciousness and when it did it was simply as an example of the US's bizarre fixation on sex (a la Clinton's affair) and a lamentable case of Church leaders caving in to public opinion and abandoning priests just because the going got tough.

The child abuse scandal and Law? They weren't snubbing us; nope, they weren't even thinking about it.