Who's the victim here?

The classic definition of chutzpah is of a defendant who murders his parents and then asks the judge to have mercy on him because he's an orphan.

We have a new contender.

According to today's Times:

ROME — The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland on Monday, citing reaction to a recent Irish government report that said the Vatican had discouraged efforts by bishops to report cases of sexual abuse to the police.

If you're wondering, the report of the Irish government, over 400 pages, is very strong in its condemnation of the church's responsibility for the rape of children all around Ireland by Catholic priests.

Last week, the Irish prime minister, Enda Kenny, denounced “the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism and the narcissism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day,” in a speech that represented the government’s sharpest-ever direct attack on the Roman Catholic leadership.

The prime minister told Parliament last week, “The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation.’ ” Mr. Kenny added that the Vatican had not listened “to evidence of humiliation and betrayal” with compassion, but had instead chosen “to parse and analyze it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.” The Irish Parliament also passed a motion denouncing the Vatican’s role in “undermining child-protection frameworks.”

Any decent human being, or any organization with the slightest regard for human rights and human dignity, would be so humbled the the only possible response would be abject apology, or, in the case of the organization, to dedicate all its resources to compensate the victims and help them to heal.

Of course, the Catholic church, having no regard for human rights and human dignity, takes the opposite approach, recalling its ambassador in affront over the Taoiseach's comments, noting that, "the decision “does not exclude some degree of surprise and disappointment at certain excessive reactions.”

Yes, believe it or not, in this situation, the injured party is not the rape victims, or the government officials who stand up for them, but the criminals who were at the receiving end of "certain excessive reactions".

Chutzpah, anybody?

Ratzinger on child rape: STFU

Yes, another day, another chance for the Catholic Church to come out strongly against child rape and for the child victims.

Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow.

Instead, today the Pope's anger was directed at news organizations that have the temerity to report on the crimes of the church and its employees, agents, and officers.

Warsaw Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz said the church should take notice of individual tragedies and treat sex abuse cases very seriously, but at the same time he criticized the media for "targeting the whole church, targeting the pope, and to that we must say 'no' in the name of truth and in the name of justice."

National Catholic Reporter vs. Ratzinger

Who would have thought?

I'm told that tomorrow's Palm Sunday (actually, someone told me yesterday that Easter is a week from tomorrow, so I just figured the Palm Sunday thing out), and even Catholics are starting to challenge Ratzinger to come clean on the child rape story.

The Holy Father needs to directly answer questions, in a credible forum, about his role -- as archbishop of Munich (1977-82), as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1982-2005), and as pope (2005-present) -- in the mismanagement of the clergy sex abuse crisis.

We urge this not primarily as journalists seeking a story, but as Catholics who appreciate that extraordinary circumstances require an extraordinary response. Nothing less than a full, personal and public accounting will begin to address the crisis that is engulfing the worldwide church. It is that serious.

They go on:

Like it or not, this new focus on the pope and his actions as an archbishop and Vatican official fits the distressing logic of this scandal. For those who have followed this tragedy over the years, the whole episode seems familiar: accusation, revelation, denial and obfuscation, with no bishop held accountable for actions taken on their watch. Yes, there is a depressing madness to this story. Time after time, this is a story of institutional failure of the deepest kind, a failure to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a failure to put compassion ahead of institutional decisions aimed at short-term benefits and avoiding public scandal.

The strategies employed so far -- taking the legal path, obscuring the truth, and doing everything possible to protect perpetrators as well as the church's reputation and treasury -- have failed miserably.

It's high time that people within the church are taking this issue seriously, and holding the church management responsible for their crimes.