Rome, Italy, Apr 10, 2010 / 15:20 pm
The Catholic Church is "not a modern republic" pointed out Giuliano Ferrara, director of the political Italian daily Il Foglio, in an editorial on Friday. He argued that the conflict in the media today between offering information and promoting a secular ideology—with ideology winning out—is behind the coverage of the sex abuse sandals.
Commenting on the "steady drip" of accusations against the Pope that continue to question his disciplinary response to sexual abuse of minors by priests, the director of Italy's Il Foglio newspaper wrote Friday that it must be noted that the Catholic Church is not a "modern republic, founded on statute law, on penal action, (or) on the control or repression of criminal offenses."
"The Church occupies itself with sin, that is a more complex thing than the crime, that doesn't lend itself to being classified in the same way, that has an aspect of individual judgment, case by case, different from equal, homologous, standard procedures of law," he explained.
"Its inhabitants are souls, not citizens," Ferrara wrote, suggesting that the Church also couldn't be considered an "open society."