The Vatican is lashing out at mounting news reports suggesting that, before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger used his positions to cover up the the church’s sex abuse scandals, with little regard for the child victims of the abusers or the law. A Vatican spokesperson denounced the reporting as an “ignoble attempt” to smear the pope “at any cost.”
In fact, increased U.S. media interest in the pope’s role in church scandals should be a welcome development. Following Benedict’s 2008 visit to the U.S.—intended, among other things, to address the abuse scandals—Extra! (7–8/08) chided U.S. media for fawning coverage of the pope, and particularly for its failure to mention Ratzinger’s key role in the scandals.
Extra! cited one London Observer report (8/17/03) that revealed that in 2001, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican agency charged with addressing the church’s sexual abuse scandals, Ratzinger sent a secret directive to bishops worldwide, threatening automatic excommunication for any Catholic official who discussed pending abuse cases outside the church’s legal system.
Another Observer story (4/24/05) reported that, in 1994, Ratzinger personally dismissed charges of sex abuse against Father Marcial Maciel, the head of an influential conservative seminary in Mexico and a personal confidant to then–Pope John Paul II. Maciel was accused of abusing several children over decades. According to the Observer, Ratzinger told a reporter at the time, “One can’t put on trial such a close friend of the pope.” (Twelve years later, on the eve of his elevation to the papacy, Ratzinger reopened the investigation of Maciel, later asking the aging priest to resign.)
Recent Vatican attacks on the media echo earlier Vatican media assaults by Ratzinger himself. As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in 2001, Ratzinger dismissed coverage of scandals as anti-church bigotry (Zenit, 12/3/02), calling it a “a planned campaign” to smear the church. In that regard, little has changed. What has changed, thankfully, is that the U.S. media seem to be paying more attention now. Let’s hope media interest doesn’t flag in the face of church attacks.
If a large organization guilty of raping so many children was not religious, it’s crimes would be getting a lot more corporate media coverage than the Roman Catholic Church is getting.
Well, Steve, if form holds, it may not “flag”, but it will devolve into analyses of church “strategy” and will be handled pretty much as a legal and “political” matter, instead of the moral horror that it is, won’t it?
In the end, if forced to, the church will make some cosmetic changes, pay some sinfully inadequate compensation to the victims, and everyone aside from them will go on their merry way.
Until the next “scandal”.
Isn’t that the way it always goes?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially with false dieties who claim to have the ultimate “in” with God. Legal authorities around the world should crack down on any religion which is known to cover up any serious crime.
What hubris of the Catholic church to think it is above the law. To think that toadies slavishly licking the pope’s robes are arrogant enough to think they are more qualified than the elected officials who wrote the laws to decide whether or not a pedophile should have to answer to those laws.
This pope has some nerve playing the victim. Someone should ram a dildo up his butt and another one down his throat and then see how he feels about protecting these vermin.
Libhomo is confused: organizations don’t rape children; people do. The Boy Scouts have had an longstanding record of sexual abuse by its leaders, but the media has ignored it. Abuse is awful, and the nature of the acts ought to be spelled out; the fact that most of the clerical sex abuse consists of homosexual acts with early adolescent boys perhaps needs to be made more explicit. The Church needs to act just as the Pope has done in the case of Fr. Maciel when he forced him to resign, despite all his political connections.
Hypocrisy is really a hard sin to stomach. We have many organizations that are known to engage in heinous acts, but don’t put on the airs of moral righteousness (well, on second thought…)
How about reporting the sex abuses in Yeshivas? How about reporting the sex abuses in Koranic schools? How about reporting the sex abuses in boarding schools? How about reporting about abuses in American Schools? How about reporting the sex abuses and pedophilia in Buddhist countries? How about reporting – over and over and over – the traveling, pedophile, married Western men who travel to Buddhist countries? What a bunch of hypocrites you all are. The Church is pummeled over and over and yet, sexual abuse is rampant in every other denomination – religious or secular – and yet the very FAIR garbage crowd don’t give a damn shit about reporting them. When the Hasidic Jews were caught in their organ harvesting scheme, the press ran the story just a couple of days. Had it been the Catholic Church caught in the macabre trade, the press would have had a field day – for days, and days, and days on end…
At some point, nations of the world must realize that the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy, by aiding and abetting heinous felonies, is a criminal conspiracy, not a religious institution. The absurd recognition of the Vatican City as a sovereign state, engineered by Mussolini as he centralized control of Italy by his fascist regime, must be withdrawn by all states. Vatican City must be excluded from the United Nations. The Vatican’s envoys must be stripped of diplomatic immunity, its officers answerable to secular laws, its criminals prosecuted. Its regional and local branches, the dioceses and archdioceses, are controlled by the Vatican, and must be treated as units of the Vatican.
I don’t wish to single out the Roman Catholic Church. All religions must be treated as the organizations they are, and on par with all other organizations. If other structured groups in a country are registered and taxed, so must churches be, ALL churches. If a state choses not to regulate organizations within its jurisdiction, fine. But if formal clubs and political parties and charities and other NGOs are regulated in any way, all religious organizations should be subject to the same level of scrutiny.
People are social animals. We gather together in many ways, for many purposes. But no gathering deserves a GET OUT OF JAIL FREE card. We are all accountable.
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church like any institution with power and money, such as the U.S. government have been protected from prosecution no matter how horrible the crime. The Pope is no different than our own international criminals, Bush and Cheney. The rich and powerful allways act with impunity.
Give the Pope and the Catholic church a break for crying out loud. If you want to dig deep then lets do that Obama guy.
Louise Pandano: Of course Fair and others should be reporting the sex abuses in Yeshivas, in Koranic schools, in boarding schools, and so on. Or at least indicating that sex abuse is not confined to the Catholic Church. But as the Catholic Church is a Western institution where criticism and publicity can hopefully have some effect, that is where the main attack should be directed. If the attack is too dilute, it is less likely to produce results. Get one institution to clean up its act, then move to the next one. Would Ms Pandano prefer it if nothing was done?
According to a Vatican watcher I heard on the radio, before Cardinal Ratzinger became the Pope he did more to address the problem of sexual predation in the than any other member of the hierarchy. As Pope however, it seems he would like to solve problem by bringing us back to the 15th century. (good luck with that!)
This whole scandal shows once more that the most telling arguements against the truth of any organized religion are its adherents.
Deer Signs warn of past events Responsiblity is easily forgotten when you don’t have to account for killing any deer. We need to open reporting and accountability to learn how to prevent abuse in the future The Church holds itself to a higher authority and as such is a lighting rod to abuse reporting yes there are others but one needs to start with those who think they are above mans law.
It’s OK folks. No really. God told him to do it. Protecting the image of the Catholic Church trumps all.
For an institution that obviously can’t appreciate the power of natural human sexual urges, makes no attempt to control them, and then tries to forbid secular legal sanctions for such terrible illegal behavior, one wonders how we let them throw their weight around in matters of women’s reproductive rights.
Bill Stark says: “Give the Pope and the Catholic church a break for crying out loud. If you want to dig deep then lets do that Obama guy.” Why should we give any church that covers up horrific acts “a break?” This has been going on for many years.
The Catholic Church is an incredibly wealthy organization, and its refusal to come clean and pay the damages for what it has done is unforgivable. Those children have been abused and threatened with god-knows-what if they stand up and tell the truth. The molestation itself is bad enough, but its the guilt instilled in the survivors that destroys their lives.
That being said, Mr Stark, has Mr Obama been molesting you? How did his name get into this discussion? You, sir, are not thinking clearly, but this is not the place to unleash your anger at a man who (unless YOU know differently) has nothing whatever to do with this discussion. Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.
Get some help Bill. And stop molesting children. To ask us to silence our outrage is to allow the acts to continue. I’m sure there are plenty of Obama haters out there. Get yourself to the right forum.
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I have nothing against anyone who attends Catholic anything, however I must ask why they want to do it? Seems like the whole history of this organization is one big cheating arrogant lie. Does anyone actually choose to be a Catholic or is it something that you are born into and have no choice?
I would hope that the other churches, school districts, boys clubs, etc, also get appropriate scrutiny.
But there are a couple of distinct features of the Roman Catholic Church. One is the extent of its hierarchical organization, and the centuries that the hierarchy has had to become set in its ways, along with the theology that they are the sole legitimate representatives of God on earth – their interpretation of Jesus’ remarks to Peter on being the foundation to the church, and having the keys to the Kingdom.
The second is the degree to which the Church has become politicized along with it’s moves to the right as it enters battle in the culture wars.
And then there is celibacy, which reflects an underlying fear of sex. Most handle it well. However, it attracts some people with internal conflicts over sexuality. I intentionally place it third in the list, but it should not be simply dismissed. The Church itself gave a backhanded acknowledgement in its progrom against homosexuals in the seminaries.
After 10 years of unblemished service I left the priesthood and the Catholic
church because i was no longer a believer. 45 years later I feel it was the best decision I ever made in my life. I now see the incompetence of the leadership of the Church flows natureally from the lockstep thinking that the Church demands of its followers at all levels. Whistleblowers so vital to any organization are not tolerated. Can you imagine any US bishop defending any woman who has been raped and decides to have an abortion saying her decision shoud be respected and refusing to call her a babykiller. He could kiss goodby to any future promotion and look foward to a diocese in Alaska.
As Antryg Windrose says, “We are all accountable.” Cardinal “rottweiller”, as a friend dubbed him in his inquisitorial days as head policeman for the pope, has been responsible for many social infractions, some of which seem to be only now coming into view. An example of his actions was the forceful, and sometimes violent, repression of Liberation Theology in Latin America. The fragile budding of socialism in South America seems to show that repression does not necessarily mean death. One can only hope that the people who have suffered sexual trauma have similar results. A question to Norman Emmons; “When were Bush and Cheney ordained?”