Sealed So the Pope’s updating the rules around sexual abuse crimes, but he’s also beefing up the laws on leaks. The two are in conflict. This is what the Church hierarchy doesn’t get: secrets are at the heart of the problem. Were there child abusers? Yes, there were, just as there were and are all the hell over the place, not just among priests. Nearly every institution having caretaker responsibility for children has had some problem with abuse. The Roman Catholic Church, however, has institutionalised hiding from and avoiding responsibility for the crimes of clergy. Happy as they are to put some idiot butler in jail for leaking financial documents, they have shuffled pedophile priests and cooked their finances to avoid responsibility, as if that would solve the problem. There’s a doctrinal problem they need to contend with. If the seal of the confessional is inviolable, then some things need to be sins beyond the reach of the “sacrament of reconciliation.” The Church cannot be a law entirely unto itself if it will not operate as openly as law, in fundamental principle, should. Not all the Ten Commandments rise to same level of harm. Murder and sexual abuse are not equivalent to talking back to your parents or petty theft. (If a priest steals your car, however, I think the civil authorities should be notified.) The Church operates in the world and needs to acknowledge this, not try to bury its secrets deeper.

Politics and Sex
How is it that sex scandals seem to fall along party lines? Democrats have sex outside of marriage and Republicans impeach them is starting to look like a pattern. Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, Eliot Spitzer . . . and here we’ve got a Labor Councillor in Wollongong sleeping with developers for favors and the whole council sacked. At least it was the ICAC recommending their dismissal, rather than an opposition instituting proceedings, but still. Can the left keep their pants on? Can the right try to keep their outrage muted? Frankly, Spitzer’s actions, unlike Clinton’s, need investigation: US$5,000 hookers probably aren’t being charged on his personal credit card, but it would be good to know if it was his own money he was spending. The Wollongong thing is just mind-boggling. Sleep with me and I’ll approve your development application? Weird.