Blaming others is a national pastime. We have all seen people use excuses to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. It’s a lot easier to hide behind a lame excuse then to own up to the truth and take our medicine like we should. Most of us have used some kind of cover up to avoid being accountable for what we have done. Blaming others for our wrong doing is so old it is in the Bible. When God ask Adam why he had eaten from the tree of forbidden fruit, Adam blamed his wife. When God has Eve why she had done it, she blamed the snake. Since the time of Adam and Eve, blaming others for what we have done is a common failure of people. I understand human nature, but what I don’t understand is when a religious leadership uses a blame defense for their own serious wrong doing.

When Catholic church Bishops and leaders began to learn about priest pedophiles, their reaction was cover it up. Send the priest off to some rehabilitation center and then transfer them to another area. If necessary, make secret pay offs, but keep a lid on it so no one, particularly, law enforcement finds out. Then when the ugly truth began to become public knowledge, the leadership reaction was denial and stonewalling. Deny the extent of the known problem and give out as little information as possible and only when legally required to do so. After lawsuits were filed some dioceses tried to avoid paying what they owed by filing bankruptcy and claiming that church property belonged to the parishes and not the diocese even though historically their position had been just the opposite. As they were required to pay more and more money, bishops hired the same P.R. firms who advised politicians when accused of wrong doing. Following advice, the church leaders adopted the tactic of blaming the victims of sexual abuse for being greedy and unreasonable in asking for compensation. When the settlements continued to cost money in spite of every effort on the part of church leadership to avoid paying adequate damages, the tactic became blame the advocates along with the victims. Lawyers who were willing to represent victims of priest sexual abuse were added to the list of those who were being blamed by the leadership. Bishops claimed the victims lawyers were the the problem – not the pedophile priest or their bishops. The National Catholic Reporter (December 29, 2006) reports that church leaders are taking an aggressive public stand against attorneys who represent victims. The message they promote is that the victims are asking for excessive amounts and the money comes from parishioners to line the pockets of the lawyers. Lawyers, they claim, and not the priests or Bishops are the real problem. Bishops around the country seem to be reading from the same page because while professing great sympathy and regret, they continue to blame the victims and their lawyers. Bishops talk about "a conspiracy between advocacy groups and attorneys to enrich lawyers at the church’s expense." Instead of standing tall, admitting their wrong doing and paying their fair share for the harm done, they blame the victim and hide behind excuses.

I say it is shameful for church leaders, leaders of any church, to make excuses and blame others for their own fault. It is what we have come to expect from corrupt politicians and greedy CEO’s, but it is not what we expect from our spiritual leaders.

As the NCR points out so very well: "It is discouraging that bishops and their advocates are still attempting to cast the sexual abuse scandal as something other than a colossal failure of pastoral response and management by the bishops."