Witch Hunt

Am I the only person astonished by the latest round in the now long simmering sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Europe? Belgian police have taken to raiding offices and—I’m not making this up—opening the tombs of former archbishops .

Digging up dead clerics? Isn’t that just a little extreme? I’m not in Europe, and I don’t know the facts on the ground, but from a distance this and other late stages of official pursuit of evidence of sex crimes has some of the features of a witch hunt, which doesn’t surprise me. Add sex to religion, mix in the feeling many have of the ongoing power of the church (much exaggerated in the popular imagination by The DaVinci Code , etc.), and you have the ingredients for collective frenzy.