It’s not only Ireland that is battling the Catholic church and their long list of abuses against children. In Bridgeport, Connecticut, the Diocese is attempting to keep thousands of pages of court files, numerous lawsuits dating back to 2001, from being released to the public. They attempt to show they have actively been fighting to prevent further abuses, but their obvious need to protect the identities of known offenders only goes to show how protective of their members this organization is.

The whole affair feels surreal. Even the group representing some of the abused sent a letter I can only describe as insanely polite given the fact they are abusing kids:

So we ask that you put the safety of children, the healing of victims and the overall benefit of the church itself (particularly the trusting, generous parishioners) above the short term discomfort of church officials who fear having to face tough questions — in the news media, from parishioners or in open court — about how much they knew and how little they did about these horrific crimes

Discomfort? I know I keep asking this question of “why is no one in jail?”, and maybe some of you are annoyed by it, but nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer. Imagine that instead of a Church committing these abuses, it was a day care center. Would people be sending carefully worded letters asking them politely to stop their attempts to cover up what happened? No, no, and no.

It looks like the Church won’t be able to keep a lid on it anyway, but I find it personally insulting and telling that the Catholic Church is opposed to justice. They simply have never felt child abuse is a big deal. Are we now supposed to believe that without them, society would simply fall apart? Yeah, not so much.