Comment: The church child abuse scandal

April 12, p8

For those of us who happened to follow the Dutch TV program Pauw & Witteman, or read a report on it, the recent statement of the Dutch Cardinal Simonis regarding the sexual assaults of priests on their defenseless victims is appalling in its tactlessness (Tami, Bogor, West Java)

Your comments  

You are all so quick to bash Catholic priests and the Roman Catholic Church with this scandal because everyone is throwing stones at them now. But what can you say about the other holy priests who are products of the same church? What can you say about Father Damien who went to a leper colony and lived there for many years to help the lepers until he became a leper himself?

What can you say about Father Maximilian Kolbe who volunteered to take the place of a fellow prisoner (in the concentration camp) who was condemned to slow death by starvation in a bunker during World War II; thus suffering the very fate that his fellow prisoner should have obtained? What can you say of the 3,000 plus Spanish priests and nuns who were murdered in Spain during the 1930s civil war without any justice obtained until now for the simple reason that they belonged to the clergy?

Cherie
Jakarta