I have been harsh in some remarks, but I really like Benedict. I pray for him every day, and did so when he was a cardinal. In an interview years ago he said he liked to vacation in a cooler spot than Italy, but the salary of a cardinal was not enormous. I sent him a substantial gift and asked him to use it for himself – he wrote back that he couldn’t do that but that he would use it for the CDF library. I got a Christmas card from him that year, which I put out every year until I lost it.
Both John Allen and Jason Berry (Vows of Silence – about the Legion of Christ – I funded the documentary) think that Ratzinger had a real change of heart after he started reading dossiers on abuse – and I suspect that he saw sanitized versions. When he became pope, he acted against the some of the most prominent abusers, abusers who had protectors in John Paul and probably Sodano.
Ratzinger made a dreadful mistake in Munich and should own up to it. He should never have turned such a sensitive case over to a subordinate and not followed up on it. He should also have found some way to discipline the worst offenders, or at least the most prominent offenders, among the bishops who enabled abuse.
He is paying for these failures now – his mistakes will be all his pontificate is remembered for. I wish he would own up to his mistakes and confess to the Church that he has not been a perfect bishop and pope – but he has tried. And how well could any of us handled such responsibilities? An open and sincere confession would clear the air, and only his incorrigible enemies would continue attacking him. But defensiveness will provoke only more attacks and make people wonder how badly he has failed.
I suggest that people pray that the Pope ask to discern God’s will and to ask for the power and strength to implement that will, come what may. It’s time for Benedict to take up his cross and order his bishops to do likewise on pain of excommunication; it’s obvious that those “false shepherds” won’t do so on their own.
If I have ever seen anybody who never claimed to be a perfect Pope and bishop that would be Ratzinger. So to hold him to these incredible “in hindsight” standards seems unfair. You think in the 1980 he should have handled personally the Hullerman case, showing the same awareness of the problem of sexual abuse that we have today. To be honest I don’t think I would have, or you or pretty much anybody else. Based on a-historical standards we can spend our lives asking each other to apologize for our good-faith mistakes. Is that meaningful? Does it do any good to anybody ? Just asking….
Nice post. I just came back from praying in our parish chapel. I offered up five decades of the rosary for Pope Benedict and the entire Church.
And he needs to publicly command his so-called “defenders” to shut up before they turn Catholic orthodoxy into its worst liberal-secularist caricature, just like our Lord commanded St Peter to drop the sword after he hacked a lowly servant’s ear off. Real big & courageous of St Peter that time. Seems to me now the growth in papal cult over the centuries has created a spirituality that celebrates St Peter’s worst traits as if they were virtues.
L.T. is right. As a convert who once believed that as long as things are “orthodox”, they are good, I have come to realize through the conduct of papal defenders such as Cdl. Law that orthodox practice is necessary but not sufficient for Faith. It makes me wonder how superficial my faith has been all these years.
I always pray for his holiness Benedict XVI.
May G-d give him the streght to purify and purge the church of those bishops that cover up and contributed to the evil of abuse.
Cero tolerance to those priest who abuse them and no more moving priest from one diócesis to another.
I agree with L.T. as well. Pope St. Gregory the Great said that it was not enough to be orthodox in doctrine, one has to be “orthodox in conduct and life.” The whole Legionaries of Christ debacle is sufficient evidence of how true this is. The loudest spokesmen for the “conservative” clique in my seminary days, later left the priesthood for a married man. I know of another very traditional guy who exposed himself to a young (adult) man in his office. What’s the saying “Ya gotta walk the talk”?
The archbishop of Belgium has spoken quite strongly on the Church’s need to face up to the “abominable things” that have been done.
Orthodoxy doesn’t count for much without orthopraxis; a lesson I’m still learning.
I believe the pope is a decent man who has made some mistakes and is trying to correct them, but I don’t believe he has been nearly radical enough in those corrections.
As far as I can see, everything is window dressing. When I see bishops and cardinals laicized, seminaries closed down, and a statement from the Vatican that every victim who signed an agreement with his diocese to keep quiet about Fr. So-and-so is hereby released from that agreement … then I’ll believe he’s serious about reform.