Proposed $47 million cuts in the program of nutrition for Women, Infants and Children will make it that more difficult for pregnant women and small children, literally, to survive. These cuts are extended by Pentagon spending increases.

On Monday evening, Irish television station RTE One revealed the existence of a 1997 Vatican letter to the Bishops of Ireland, forcing them to back down from mandating that bishops report abusive priests to the secular authorities. The letter came with a threat attached, that if the bishops took action against a priest and the priest appealed to Rome, Rome would back the priest and the bishop would end up with a black eye.

The saddest part of the whole thing? This threat worked.

Last week I wrote about three big scandals that no doubt gave Pope Benedict nightmares. Now, with a big story in the NYT, the nightmares continue, as bishops and canon lawyers — speaking on the record — call out the failures of then-Cardinal Ratzinger to deal appropriately with allegations of priestly child abuse when that was part of his office’s responsibility.

There are predators, and then there are enablers.

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about child sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests, deceptive Wall Street bankers, or DOJ-sanctioned torture. The game being played right now is the same, in all three venues: avoid accountability.

I’m sure that wherever he is now, John Lennon is smiling wryly at the Vatican’s inadvertent efforts to make his flippant prediction come true.

The Catholic Church, like its famed universities’ football teams, thinks the best defense is a good offense. In football, though, truth is not the goal or a casualty of bad playing.

In dealing with the current crisis in the Roman Catholic church of child abuse by its priests, the symptom the church is confronting is the abuse, but the underlying disease is a love of power. So long as Benedict addresses only the symptom and not the disease, real healing cannot occur. He called for “decisive action” and “complete honesty and transparency” in his letter to Ireland. A good place to start might be for more bishops to offer their resignations, and for Benedict to start accepting them.

Yet another abuse scandal tied to Pope Tricky Benedict.

The Catholic Church is really experiencing a similar decline that other respected institutions have felt in recent years. And like those other declines, it’s entirely of their own making.

If you are, like me, confused about the answer to this question, please raise your hand….or better yet….ask your Congressperson, Senator and the President: Why is a pedophilia-ridden, pedophilia-hiding, child-abusing Church allowed to write laws controlling women’s rights?

Written by Jodi Jacobson, editor of RHRealityCheck.org – News, commentary and community for reproductive health and justice.