THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

THE POPE'S SELECTIVE MORALITY | 2005-04-02

The Pope had nothing to say about repeat child molesters, except that he wants to protect them from the death penalty.

After all, this is the same Pope who refuses to take action against all the bishops who caused thousands of little boys to be raped by moving boy-raping priests around. Like the professional pro-life movement, what bothers him is what it is fashionable to care about.

The Pope has never said a word about child molesters except that they should not get the death penalty. He has never apologized at all for the decades in which his Church took the fashionable line that boy-raping priests should be "rehabilitated."

But when this nice juicy case of the brain-dead woman came up, the Pope had plenty to say. He said that life is infinitely precious. Like the pro-life movement in general, the Pope started off saying life is endlessly precious. No matter how ruinous to a family it may be, a person should be kept on life support forever.

Life is infinitely precious, they all said. Pain is not important. Even if a person is crippled from the neck down and desperately wants to die, he shouldn't be allowed to.

But that was DAYS ago. Nobody remembers them saying that.

Now suddenly pain is everything. They are saying Schiavo is dying in agony, and that is why she should be put back on life support.

Oh, there was another line they used. They said that medicine should not intervene when it comes to ending a human life. Of course, if it were not for medical "interference" Schiavo would have died years ago.

But who cares? It all sounds good, it all sounds SO nice.

And it is making piles of money for the pro-life bureaucracy.