The Catholic Church is being punished for its covering up of the abuse and moving priests around to give then fresh new hunting grounds when allegations were made in their old parish. It’s a systemic issue being punished at a systemic level.
You don’t actually just get to pay a little fine if you fuck a child.
Oh and ‘Church asked to pay’ is only in the headline because a very similar case happened in Ireland and a rogue minister on his last day agreed to have the government pay the fine which is the alternative- everyone, Catholic or not, asked to pay the fine.
I don’t deny they covered it up, but I just think the guilty individuals should pay.
I assume they would do jail time and then pay for damages to the child and the family of the child. Then again, I don’t know much about repercussions of those types of crimes. I tend to date older men, and didn’t major in law.
Ireland operates differently than other countries.
The whole point is that instead of turning over priests who committed crimes to the police where those individuals would do jail time, per your request, the Catholic Church actively worked to prevent those crimes being told to police, actively worked to move priests to a new parish where they could CONTINUE committing crimes, and actively worked to discredit the victims. Those things are not the act of an individual.
Yes, the individuals should do jail time, but the organization that actively aided the crimes should pay reparations.
The church is a guilty institution, it provided abusers with authority and power over their victims, and actively covered up crimes and enabled abusers to continue committing crimes. While demanding money and devotion from it’s millions of followers, many of whom were the victims. Abusers should be punished for their crimes, but we’re talking historic abuse, most perpetrators are probably dead. The church should most definitely pay reparations.
