The pope is ticked off with Belgium. Belgium is taking its duty to protect its young seriously, and is not offering special treatment to the Catholic Church. The police are investigating recent claims of child sexual abuse by predatory priests. According to a news report: Last week, Belgian police raided the home of a retired bishop, opened the grave of at least one archbishop, in their search for hidden documents, and detained Belgium's nine current serving bishops as they met, seizing their mobile phones and only releasing them after nine hours. Pope Benedict is having a fit. He called the raids 'deplorable' and demanded that he and the Catholic Church have role in investigating abusers in its ranks.

Right. The abuse cases in Belgium follow a pattern that has gone on around the world. The Belgian church has apologized for failing to root out past abusers and has promised to crack down. We've heard that before.

This past April, the 73-year-old  Belgian bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, admitted to abusing a boy and resigned, the first European bishop to step down after confessing to abuse. How many haven't stepped down? And how many involved in the world-wide cover-ups, the obstruction of justice, including the current pope, have not stepped down?

May the Belgian police carry on with their investigation. Godspeed to the Belgian police.