Humility and Solemnity Won’t Suffice Interview Excerpt Página 12 March 17, 2013 [Translated into English by BishopAccountability.org. Click below to see original article in Spanish.] http://www.bishopaccountability.org/Argentina/news/2013_03_17_Mallimaci_Humility_and_GRASSI_Spanish.pdf Excerpt of Interview with Fortunato Mallimaci, Sociologist, Researcher at Conicet (The National Scientific and Technical Research Council, an Argentine government agency), and Professor of Social Sciences and Religion at the University of Buenos Aires. Bergoglio did not excommunicate Julio Grassi, the convicted pedophile priest. Will he confront the problem of pedophile priests? He’ll have to confront it because it’s not an individual decision: extremely powerful churches in the U.S. and Europe decided to confront it, for ethical reasons and for reasons of credibility, and, in the case of the United States, financial problems, namely the cost of trials. In Argentina, the Episcopal Conference did not make a statement concerning Grassi’s sentence, and also in the cases of Bishop Edgardo Storni and Christian Von Wernich, who are still in good standing with the church. More recently, in the churches of [North America], pedophile priests have been placed in the hands of the law and suspended. It should be acknowledged that Benedict XVI’s stance has been more rigid. These allegations are more viable in societies accustomed to report such cases than here in Argentina; because it is patriarchal, machista, with little appreciation for the victims, not only does the Church stay silent, but so do our political, economic, cultural and media organizations. And when cases are reported, most of the time they are brushed under the rug by state institutions or by the courts.

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