Reply #9: Whitewashing.

[darkstar3]

Let me put this into a personal scope so it's easier to understand. When you hurt someone physically or emotionally, it's often possible to apologize and move on. But when you do something egregious, when you step so far over "the line" that it's on the distant horizon behind you, you can't just apologize and move on. Example:

"I'm sorry I forgot to call and tell you I'd be home late from work." - Acceptable. Everyone in the relationship can move on.
"I'm sorry I fucked your sister." - Yeah, no one's moving on from that one.

The Church doesn't just get to apologize and move on from the topic. They don't get to whitewash this just because they've recognized that they did something wrong. They still haven't done anything to correct the systemic problems that led to such egregious behavior, in contrast to your claim that they "will do what we can to right the wrongs".

And your whitewashing gets even worse when you realize that people apologize publicly all the damn time. As one example, politicians have apologized for illicit affairs and other out-of-office behavior unbecoming of a stateman, and they've also apologized for things they've done on the statehouse floor. Hell, for a while there, it was almost a new fashion for politicians to apologize. So how can you possibly claim that "you rarely if ever find saying sorry for some past activities elsewhere"??

The Catholic authorities who made this confession haven't done nearly enough, not nearly enough to respond to this abhorrent situation, and if they deserve anything, it is our scorn for providing "too little, too late."