More on the German Catholic church dust-up

I posted recently about the collapse of an independent investigation into child sex abuse in Germany's Roman Catholic church. Although the church promised transparency to investigators, it tried to block their efforts and censor the final report. As a result, the investigation was called off.

There's an article about this at SpiegelOnline. What I found interesting were the various opinions espoused by media. It didn't seem to matter whether the media outlet was liberal or conservative. They all rued the breakdown of the investigation and many said the Roman Catholic church remains unwilling to take a candid look at the pedophilia scandal.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"Problems with a system can only rarely be recognized and remedied from the inside. And the sexual violence in the Catholic Church also has intrinsic systemic causes. It is driven by a perception that an institution, pure on its own, has been tainted by perpetrators and only has to be purified again. That it is fueled by the loneliness and overwork of many priests. The problem will remain unresolved as long as the overriding question is: 'How are we perceived?'"

"This view from the outside cannot purify the church. On the contrary, it will only strengthen the awareness of its own problems. But only when the church recognizes these problems will it turn from its own reflection to focusing on the victims, who have been largely ignored in this whole fight. And then to the people, in order to make the church credible again for their sake."

Sounds accurate to me. And that's not the left-most opinion. It's time for the church to face its ills -- and change. It will still be an organization based on utter nonsense, but perhaps fewer priests will rape kids.