Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II Book

Good god.

However cynical I've been about the church's response to the systematic sexual abuse of children, it was vastly insufficient to encompass the sheer callous disregard of the hierarchy and the personal lack of accountability from Pope John Paul II. I especially didn't know that Maciel and his Legion had solid allegations of sexual and drug abuse dating back before JP2 was even the Pope, but that their performance of traditional hardliner Catholicism and flattering obedience to power-addicted hierarchs meant that people who could, should, and DID know better kept Maciel's machine of financial fraud and endless sexual abuse flourishing for decades. Vows of Silence paints a picture of a hierarchy dripping with disdain for the laity, eager to blame their own problems on external factors like the existence of homosexuality, modern culture, and most egregiously, from a high-ranking archbishop in charge of investigating the scandal, a conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons. They were offered a billion chances to take charge and act with leadership and accountability to reform themselves and hold the clergy under them to the most basic of moral standards, and time and time again they postponed until it hit them financially, at which point they rushed in to protect their earthly treasure and get their congregations to bail them out of messes that were entirely foreseen and avoidable.

I've been sad, I've been morally outraged, but now I'm just fucking angry. The Papacy of John Paul II is an altar built to the god of the powerful and unaccountable, preaching mercy to powerful male sexual predators (if there is a group of people who has received MORE unearned mercy than powerful male sexual predators in the last 2000 years I'll be shocked). The system is set up to release from all responsibility the perpetrators of horrific acts while holding their victims to levels of conduct that would make the most long-suffering saint cry to heaven for vengeance and justice.

The church wrapped itself in the worst excesses of the world while wasting no opportunity to tell the rest of the world it had found the only truth and that it was above exactly the kinds of things it perpetrated systematically. Don't come calling the world to repentance if you won't lift a finger to address the wooden beam of pride and hubris in your own eye.