Non Apology, Apologies.

In one of those recurrent child abuse scandals involving the Catholic Church on a regular basis, the Los Angeles diocese has forked out several hundred million dollars to victims of abuse. There was a statement by the Cardinal of the diocese that seemed rather odd:

"Once again I apologize to anyone who has been offended, who's been abused by priests, by deacons, by religious men and women or by lay people ... It should not have happened and should not ever happen again."

The first part of the statement, which I have put in bold, is an apology to those who have been offended. That is the sort of language you use to get rid of noisy protests about wardrobe malfunctions or some other baseless complaint by whingers with nothing better to do. It sounds as though the Cardinal automatic response before correcting himself was to launch into a 'non apology' apology. Maybe it was just a slip of the tongue, but it sounds to me as though he doesn't believe that his organisation has done anything seriously wrong.