Benedict XVI defrocked nearly 400 priests

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25788864

The statistics for 2011 and 2012 show a dramatic increase compared with previous years, according to a document obtained by the Associated Press (AP).
The file was part of Vatican data collected for a UN hearing on Thursday.
It was the first time the Holy See was publicly confronted over the sexual abuse of children by clergy.
Church officials at the hearing in Geneva faced a barrage of hard questions covering why they were withholding data and what they were doing to prevent future abuse.

 

A pretty big deal as I understand that fewer Priest's are leaving the seminary's.

 

Good for him, the old Flakhelfer.

 

He should've done more than defrock them.

 

Indeed. They should have all faced jail time!

 

They might now. Being a priest does sort of provide some cover. Being a defrocked priest not only takes that away it rather highlights the individuals.

 

How so?

EDIT:

And you will always find that even though I have a rather sweet/forgiving nature, I have no tolerance for sexual abuse. Perhaps one day if I'm brave I'll post my story. But I'm not feeling so brave today.

 

I'm not sure exactly which concept you wanted me to elaberate on but:

1) Cover from being a priest.
a. Most, especially in a congregation, respect the priest and are it often takes a very strong case to shake this.
b. For that reason and others I suspect prosecutors seem to be leary of prosecuting them.
c. The church has had a habit of moving priest around if "rumors" of such activities started to circulate which may have prevented them from achieving the "critical mass" needed to prosecute.
d. The church does have considerable resources and in many/most cases would stand behind the priests.

2) Defrocking removing that protection and highlighting it.
a. Obviously many of the churches resources are no longer available.
b. If a priest is defrocked there is the implication that they did something wrong. Thus instead of a higher than normal standing on the guilty until proven innocnent scale they have a lower standing on it. Both to investigators, juries and the public there's already an implicaiton of wrong doing.

Abuse of any kind by those in positons like that of a priest or teacher should nt be tolerated. Sexual abuse tends to be one of the worst types IMO in part because the victim often feals that they are at fault and sometimes judged so by some of their community.