Cardinal Murphy O’Conner, as reported previously on cloudsoup, criticised the conflict in Iraq on grounds of cost. At the time we pointed out the huge misspend of money caused by the Catholic Church’s having to recompense the victims of its child-abusing priests.
Since Cardinal Murphy O’Conner’s plea to watch the pennies, the Diocese of Orange, in Los Angeles has announced it is to pay $100m (£53m) to the victims of sexual abuse by clergy members.
As the Cardinal is keen to give money to the impoverished, and as his church’s priests seem incapable of controlling their urges to abuse children, we wonder if the Catholic Church mightn’t arrange to sexually abuse only poor children to make sure the compensation paid at a later date serves a redistributive function.
