Mick Forgey

A Nobel Peace Prize-winning bishop alleged to have abused teenaged boys during the 1990s was sanctioned by the Vatican, which limited his movements and prohibited him from contact with minors or with his home country of East Timor. Meanwhile in Yakima, Washington, after a whistleblower raised concerns about the previous bishop's handling of sexual abuse allegations, the now-retired bishop received a formal reprimand from the Vatican.

The dignity of the human person is the foundation of all Catholic moral teaching. As Christians, we believe that human life is sacred, that people are more important than things, and that society must protect human dignity. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, this dignity is rooted in humans' "creation in the image and likeness of God," and it is inalienable and intrinsic — that is, it is not based on any quality or action of the individual person.

The Vatican's mishandling of the allegations of sexual misconduct against Cardinal Marc Ouellet is simply hard to fathom. Twenty years after the explosion of abuse cases in the Boston Archdiocese shined a harsh light on the Catholic Church's disgusting propensity to doubt sexual abuse victims and protect their abusers, have church leaders learned nothing at all?