The prelates’ silence spreads and grows
Like a cancer, now who knows:
How many kids did the Church abuse?
A tiny few, they avow to the pews.
The thing they forget is what does you in,
Is rarely the crime or the failing or sin.
A lesson learned late, by Richard Nixon:
It’s the cover-up, putting the fix in.
Pederast priests won’t be prayed away,
The priests of prey will have to pay.
The prelates are the Pope’s first woes,
As they are the truth’s worst foes.
The Church hierarchs can’t get it alone,
The raped ex-kids just won’t let it alone;
At bottom, which rates as more repulsive:
Unctuous cardinals, or priests compulsive?
Rare may be a priest who molested a kid;
Most priests are mostly blameless;
Yet the norm is bishops who hid what they did;
Bishops are mostly shameless.
Comes round their curse of priests excused,
Saving the Church, not kids they used.
Those higher-up get a big, fat finger
For their cover up, a big fat zinger.
Be careful who you would besmirch,
Like the kindly priest who serves.
Hold your ire for the Holy Church
And its band of Holy Perves.
That priests do wrong is not the worst;
It’s that the Church put itself first.
The Pope, being Catholic, knows full well,
Who gets the hottest spots in Hell.
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Edward Roeder is a Washington-based journalist. He can be reached at “Edward.Roeder@Yahoo.com”.
