Perceptions of the Roman Catholic Church

Curious about how atheists underpin morals and ethics I read an interview in the Globe and Mail with Sam Harris who has just written a book on the subject. I did not expect him to be sympathetic to religion and he lived down to my expectations. However, one of the things that he said about the Catholic Church made me sit up and take notice.

"Here is an institution that is more concerned about preventing contraception than preventing child rape."

This resonated with me because I have heard exactly this from practising Catholics loyal to the Church. I have often wondered about what perception the world must have of the relative importance in the eyes of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of something like contraception compared with the paedophile behaviour of priests who were reassigned many times over into situations which, in spiritual terminology, were "occasions of sin" for the priests and, more importantly, occasions of danger for children. What is the message that the Church has given to the on-looking world when it comes to the relative amounts of money that have been spent to buy silence, on out of court settlements, court-imposed settlements, lawyers' fees and the like compared to unfettered, no-strings-attached, gratuitous offers to pay for treatment and counselling for traumatised victims?

Please understand that what I am talking about here is perception. There is no shortage of apologists who will tell me that the reality is different and, of course, the hierarchy is very concerned. Didn't the Pope meet with victims, more than once? Haven't there been documents and statements from episcopal conferences? Maybe, but for perception to change there needs to be more than isolated events such as these. The perception remains that the Church is more concerned about preventing contraception than preventing child rape. Indeed, the perception is that the Church is straining out the gnat but swallowing a camel (Mat 23:24).

There is no perception that the Church hierarchy is genuinely interested, in an on-going way, to seek out and help victims of paedophile priests. The perception is that the cover-up continues to this day.

I was very pleased, even excited, when one parish of my acquaintence added to the Prayer of the Faithful during Sunday mass a prayer "for those who have been sexually abused as children by ministers of the Church." To my disappointment it was a once-off event and has not been repeated.

It seems to me that the leaders of the Catholic Church are not trying very hard to change these perceptions. Just how important is attending to victims and their healing relative to other priorities in the Roman Catholic Church today?