Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger just after his election as Pope. He now must deal with problems created when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.It seems everyone from the national media to comedian Bill Maher is now focusing on the noisome, emerging facts that Pope Benedict XV – operating as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger- has helped to cover up the sexual abuse of thousands of children by local priests in areas as far flung as Australia to Germany and Brazil, to Wisconsin (where 200 deaf wards of a Catholic school were abused for years).
The expectations in the case range from the Vatican and Pope giving open disclosures along with a serious apology (one cannot be valid without the other) to the Pope being the first to resign in about 500 years. As the accusations have mounted, it is important to note, the usual Vatican allies and yes-men have rallied behind Ratzinger and mounted a vigorous defense- especially in admitting to any wrongdoing during the ten or so years he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and insisted on secrecy to protect the church’s image.
Will any of this matter, and what will be the outcome?
First, yes it matters, but (sadly) only to those families, innocents who were victimized by the priestly pedophiles. The long and short of it is that the Church views its survival and interests are primary to anything else. It views all the assorted human foibles and crimes that have occurred throughout history as simple temporal smudges that do not deter the ultimate mission: to “save souls”. Like the evangelicals, all that matters is one gets the supernatural “formula” right – all else is secondary.
We saw this back in 1978 after Pope John Paul I mysteriously died after barely a month as pope. It had been known in many quarters that Albino Luciani had intended to investigate goings on at the Vatican Bank under the notorious Paul Marcinkus and Roberto Calvi ("God's Banker"- later found hanging under Blackfriar’s Bridge in London in 1981) and that he planned to rescind the Church’s artificial birth control proscription. Neither of these, obviously took place in the wake of what many of us believe was the Pope’s murder.
See more at:
http://www.crc-internet.org/oct84.htm
Like the current child sex abuse crisis, the Church and Vatican denied any wrongdoing – but David Yallop’s superb book, In God’s Name shows that they haven’t made a very good counter case, especially in terms of refuting Yallop’s numerous specific facts.
But time moved on, a new pope (John Paul II) was elected, and the Church could breath easier again. There’d be no Vatican Bank shake ups, and several papal encyclicals (e.g. Veritatis Splendor) confirmed there’d be no repeal of the Magisterium’s ruling that artificial birth control is evil. (A ruling, btw, which drove many Catholics away from the church, permanently – including me. I had no intention of changing my behavior and believed endless confessions stupid and a waste of time, since I had no inclination to “repent”)
Now flash forward to the present, and the revival of child sex abuse cases - but more widespread than those of 7-8 years ago. Did anything major happen the first time –including after learning that a number of the hierarchy (Like Joseph Bernard Law) were protecting predators? Nope. Will anything happen now? Nope.
Like the slaying of Albino Luciani and the earlier sex abuse flare up, the Church views its historical mission as trumping the foibles and follies (or crimes) of its clergy. Human crimes and misdemeanors are incidental temporal flaws that have no bearing (or effect) on the Church’s sacred body, the entity described as “Holy Mother Church”. So, don’t look for anything remarkable – just more circling the wagons by the Vatican like it did earlier in the wake of John Paul I’s murder, and in the sex abuse flap of 7 years ago.
The Church will go on and the faithful will keep their faith, simply dismissing the outbreaks as “peculiar to a small group of miscreants” and “not affecting the Church’s eternal holiness and objectives”.
The problem is that I do believe this latest crisis will have corrosive effects, but not in terms of making the Vatican admit to wrongdoing, or the Pope resigning. What has transpired is that the evident denial by Benedict (aka Ratzinger) and the Vatican will terminate in their losing their moral credibility- certainly to many Catholics, but more importantly to the vast constellation of outside observers. Without that moral credibility - to pass judgments on moral issues ranging from artificial contraception, to abortion, to masturbation, to homosexuality - the Catholic church will emerge as an anachronism out of touch and out of its moral depth.
For if it can’t accept its own moral failings and mortal sins, how on Earth can it hope to insinuate or project them onto others, including members of its own flock? In truth, it can’t.
Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular (excepting the U.S. which is becoming more evangelical- fundamentalist) and the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to that of less than street noise in Berlin, or Paris, or Geneva.
The Roman Catholic Church will thereby become a literal shell and poor shadow of its former self (hearkening back to the 1950s-60s) still demanding secular politicians heed its calls to moral obligation (as in rejecting abortion) even as its Vatican bankers continue to count their loot and riches undeterred by any external threats of inspection or regulation.
They might have done better to learn their lessons after the killing of Alberto Luciani – who (if he’d lived long enough to utter a few words) might have told them not to try to thwart evil by burying it.
The expectations in the case range from the Vatican and Pope giving open disclosures along with a serious apology (one cannot be valid without the other) to the Pope being the first to resign in about 500 years. As the accusations have mounted, it is important to note, the usual Vatican allies and yes-men have rallied behind Ratzinger and mounted a vigorous defense- especially in admitting to any wrongdoing during the ten or so years he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and insisted on secrecy to protect the church’s image.
Will any of this matter, and what will be the outcome?
First, yes it matters, but (sadly) only to those families, innocents who were victimized by the priestly pedophiles. The long and short of it is that the Church views its survival and interests are primary to anything else. It views all the assorted human foibles and crimes that have occurred throughout history as simple temporal smudges that do not deter the ultimate mission: to “save souls”. Like the evangelicals, all that matters is one gets the supernatural “formula” right – all else is secondary.
We saw this back in 1978 after Pope John Paul I mysteriously died after barely a month as pope. It had been known in many quarters that Albino Luciani had intended to investigate goings on at the Vatican Bank under the notorious Paul Marcinkus and Roberto Calvi ("God's Banker"- later found hanging under Blackfriar’s Bridge in London in 1981) and that he planned to rescind the Church’s artificial birth control proscription. Neither of these, obviously took place in the wake of what many of us believe was the Pope’s murder.
See more at:
http://www.crc-internet.org/oct84.htm
Like the current child sex abuse crisis, the Church and Vatican denied any wrongdoing – but David Yallop’s superb book, In God’s Name shows that they haven’t made a very good counter case, especially in terms of refuting Yallop’s numerous specific facts.
But time moved on, a new pope (John Paul II) was elected, and the Church could breath easier again. There’d be no Vatican Bank shake ups, and several papal encyclicals (e.g. Veritatis Splendor) confirmed there’d be no repeal of the Magisterium’s ruling that artificial birth control is evil. (A ruling, btw, which drove many Catholics away from the church, permanently – including me. I had no intention of changing my behavior and believed endless confessions stupid and a waste of time, since I had no inclination to “repent”)
Now flash forward to the present, and the revival of child sex abuse cases - but more widespread than those of 7-8 years ago. Did anything major happen the first time –including after learning that a number of the hierarchy (Like Joseph Bernard Law) were protecting predators? Nope. Will anything happen now? Nope.
Like the slaying of Albino Luciani and the earlier sex abuse flare up, the Church views its historical mission as trumping the foibles and follies (or crimes) of its clergy. Human crimes and misdemeanors are incidental temporal flaws that have no bearing (or effect) on the Church’s sacred body, the entity described as “Holy Mother Church”. So, don’t look for anything remarkable – just more circling the wagons by the Vatican like it did earlier in the wake of John Paul I’s murder, and in the sex abuse flap of 7 years ago.
The Church will go on and the faithful will keep their faith, simply dismissing the outbreaks as “peculiar to a small group of miscreants” and “not affecting the Church’s eternal holiness and objectives”.
The problem is that I do believe this latest crisis will have corrosive effects, but not in terms of making the Vatican admit to wrongdoing, or the Pope resigning. What has transpired is that the evident denial by Benedict (aka Ratzinger) and the Vatican will terminate in their losing their moral credibility- certainly to many Catholics, but more importantly to the vast constellation of outside observers. Without that moral credibility - to pass judgments on moral issues ranging from artificial contraception, to abortion, to masturbation, to homosexuality - the Catholic church will emerge as an anachronism out of touch and out of its moral depth.
For if it can’t accept its own moral failings and mortal sins, how on Earth can it hope to insinuate or project them onto others, including members of its own flock? In truth, it can’t.
Will the Catholic Church go on? I have no doubt at all. Will it gain more converts? Sure, mainly of the poor, the ignorant and dispossessed in the more backward nations of the planet, as well as immigrants. However, its days as the moral arbiter and voice for the advanced nations in Europe, North America and Australia are forever gone. Those nations are becoming ever more secular (excepting the U.S. which is becoming more evangelical- fundamentalist) and the Vatican’s voice has been reduced to that of less than street noise in Berlin, or Paris, or Geneva.
The Roman Catholic Church will thereby become a literal shell and poor shadow of its former self (hearkening back to the 1950s-60s) still demanding secular politicians heed its calls to moral obligation (as in rejecting abortion) even as its Vatican bankers continue to count their loot and riches undeterred by any external threats of inspection or regulation.
They might have done better to learn their lessons after the killing of Alberto Luciani – who (if he’d lived long enough to utter a few words) might have told them not to try to thwart evil by burying it.
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