A priest who specialized in investigating those who grossly abuse their office (molest children, having affairs with their parishioners, things like that), Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald, spent twenty years researching the problem and concluded, in a personal report to the pope, that there was no rehabilitating them. His recommendation: remove them from contact with the public as the only sure way to prevent them sinning again. In fact, to totally isolate them, he suggested buying an island, setting up some kind of facility there, and then assigning them all to it so as to completely cut them off from the lay population and stop them from doing further harm.
The kicker? Fr. Fitzgerald submitted his report in 1963.
That's right. Almost half a century ago the Church was warned there was a serious problem, and that the only solution was to isolate the predators from their prey. If only they had acted on it at the time, what a different world we'd be in today.
Ah well. What a world, what a world, what a world.
--JDR
P.S.: On a lighter note, I discovered today that there's apparently a serious Beatles fan in the Vatican, which is a nice thought: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/12/vatican-makes-peace-with-_n_533976.html
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