Out with the pervs, says bishop

Today's Tablet – the Catholic weekly – tells us that a German bishop is keen to get the subject of pervy priests into the open.

The subject should be tackled "unsparingly", he has said at a workshop during a festival in Osnabrück. The paper continues:

Bishop Hans-Jochen Jaschke of Hamburg said paedophile priests should not be moved from parish to parish but should be suspended. "The Church should be particularly ashamed when it is guilty in such situations because of the high moral pedestal on which it stands," Bishop Jaschke said after listening to the story of a victim who had been abused for years by a priest. The German Church had reacted far too late and the bishops had not issued guidelines on the subject until 2002, said Bishop Jaschke. He said in the archdiocese of Hamburg the Church was now cooperating closely with the police and the prosecutor's office.

But most of the damage has been done. Why weren't popes and prelates more upfront earlier, instead of covering this scandal up and producing secret documents?