Father Thomas Macwan, the Catholic Bishop of Ahmedabad diocese, feels that Gujarat has hardly been impacted by the scandal. "Things have been very smooth here. No cases of sexual abuse have been detected here, and hence the question of losing faith in the church does not arise," he asserts.
Fr Macwan advocates that a sexual offender be moved to an entirely different, unrelated field, so that his chances of committing the same offence again are minimised.
"For example, someone with accusations of child molestation could be made to work with senior citizens for some time. If made to live and work in a different and conducive environment, with the grace of God, such problems can surely be cured," he says.
Fr Macwan feels mandatory celibacy has little to do with sexual crimes, as the rates are not any different from those in other sections of society. "Celibacy is a very high virtue, essential for someone who wants to work for the betterment of society, as there would be far less personal disturbances," he says.
2 hours ago
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You know, as I read more and more of the articles being published in the wake of the crisis, I find myself wondering about the way the hierarchy's handling it: how much of it is really motivated by a malignant cover-up "to save the Church's image," and how much of it simply just a result of gross (and dangerous) incompetence.
I think there's a combination of the two, probably in varying degrees as you go from diocese to diocese, order to order, but in any other corporation, people with that level of incompetence would be fired. By keeping them on the payroll and encouraging stuff like this to be written (not to mention his own public statements), Ratzinger is certainly not sending out he message that the public needs to hear. Let alone the action that they desparately need to see, either.
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