The sexual violation of young people within the Catholic church is the
poisonous legacy of a long tradition of contempt for human sexuality in
an institution which has privileged secrecy and unaccountable power over
transparency and participation. But the silence and darkness revealed
by the scandal must not be allowed to define the majority of Catholics
who are the living church, says Tina Beattie.
The scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic church as a result of the exposure of widespread and long-lasting sexual abuse of children and young people by priests in a number of countries created a global media and political firestorm around the institution. Many analysts and commentators have reached for images such as “tsunami” to describe what is happening. Two eminent church historians not given to hyperbole – Diarmaid MacCulloch and Michael Walsh – have described it as the worst crisis facing the Catholic church since the 16th-century reformation (see Michael Walsh, “The Vatican’s fix: abuse and renewal”, 22 March 2010).
https://www.opendemocracy.net/tina-beattie/catholic-church%E2%80%99s-abuse-scandal-modern-crisis-ancient-roots
The scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic church as a result of the exposure of widespread and long-lasting sexual abuse of children and young people by priests in a number of countries created a global media and political firestorm around the institution. Many analysts and commentators have reached for images such as “tsunami” to describe what is happening. Two eminent church historians not given to hyperbole – Diarmaid MacCulloch and Michael Walsh – have described it as the worst crisis facing the Catholic church since the 16th-century reformation (see Michael Walsh, “The Vatican’s fix: abuse and renewal”, 22 March 2010).
https://www.opendemocracy.net/tina-beattie/catholic-church%E2%80%99s-abuse-scandal-modern-crisis-ancient-roots