While FAIR Blog complained earlier (3/30/10) that coverage of the Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal was overlooking Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s involvement in the story before he became Pope Benedict XVI, yesterday two prominent op-eds focused on this history. Unfortunately, both op-eds present a highly selective version of Ratzinger’s role.
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat (4/12/10) cites the reporting of Jason Berry (National Catholic Reporter, 4/6/10), who is critical of Benedict’s predecessor, Pope John Paul II, for his support of Marcial Maciel Degollado, a child molester who founded the influential Legion of Christ:
Only one churchman comes out of Berry’s story looking good: Joseph Ratzinger. Berry recounts how Ratzinger lectured to a group of Legionary priests, and was subsequently handed an envelope of money ‘for his charitable use.’ The cardinal ‘was tough as nails in a very cordial way,’ a witness said, and turned the money down…. It was Ratzinger who re-opened the long-dormant investigation into Macielâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s conduct in 2004, just days after John Paul II had honored the Legionaries in a Vatican ceremony. It was Ratzinger, as Pope Benedict, who banished Maciel to a monastery and ordered a comprehensive inquiry into his order.
The Maciel case was similarly cited in a USA Today op-ed (4/12/10) by Philip Lawler, editor of the Catholic World News (and former Senate candidate of the far-right Constitution Party), as evidence of Ratzinger’s integrity: “Soon after his election, he instigated action against another notorious abuser: the head of a wealthy and influential religious order.”
You wouldn’t think from reading these testimonials that Ratzinger was first informed about Maciel’s pattern of abuse in 1994, at which time the cardinal reportedly said that the Maciel case was a “touchy problem” due to the “benefits” the priest had brought to the Vatican. (The future pope was later quoted, “One can’t put on trial such a close friend of the pope as Marcial Maciel.”) Nor would you imagine that Ratzinger’s secretary had written in 1999 to the men who had brought detailed charges against Maciel to say that the case against the cleric was considered closed(London Observer, 4/24/05). These details put Benedict’s discipline of the then-86-year-old Maciel in 2006 in a less-heroic light.
Both writers also present Ratzinger’s centralization of sexual abuse investigations under his office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as evidence for his zeal to persecute child abusers in the church. “It was Ratzinger who persuaded John Paul, in 2001, to centralize the churchâ┚¬Ã¢”ž¢s haphazard system for handling sex abuse allegations in his office,” Douthat wrote, while Lawler noted, “In 2001, at Cardinal Ratzinger’s urging, all disciplinary cases involving sexual abuse by Catholic priests were assigned to the Vatican office he then headed.”
Unmentioned was the controversy over the letter Ratzinger wrote in 2001 threatening to excommunicate any bishop who discussed abuse cases outside of the church’s legal system (Extra!, 7-8/08; FAIR Media Advisory, 5/13/08). Ratzinger’s 2002 assertion that the scandal amounted to a persecution of the church–“I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign” (Zenit, 12/3/02)–was not quoted.
Both Douthat and Lawler are surprisingly critical of Pope John Paul II, long a hero to conservative Catholics, for protecting prominent pedophiles. This criticism would come across as more sincere if the record of the current head of the church were subjected to the same scrutiny.
It really all comes down to this, doesn’t it:
WWJD?
Okay, he’s a fictional character, at least as far as the whole deity thing goes, but he’s supposedly the role model for hundreds of millions, isn’t he?
And I’ve never seen a goddamn thing that would indicate that he’d be playing politics with the lives of children, have you?
To be clear, this isn’t a condemnation of just the Catholic Church “leadership”. Every Christian sect, and indeed nearly every other religion, has had and will continue to have similar sustained orgasms of utter hypocrisy and inhumanity, contrary to their stated principles, won’t they?
The guy doesn’t deserve to be associated with these bastards, does he?
“Both writers also present Ratzinger’s centralization of sexual abuse investigations under his office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as evidence for his zeal to persecute child abusers in the church.”
Oh, puleeze! The Vatican couldn’t have a found a better place to bury this than the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Of course I may be wrong, but the last time I checked, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has had a different name for the better part of the last 600 years: the Holy Inquisition.
‘Nuff said.
One really is not qualified to comment unless one has lived thru the papal “‘rules'” of JPII and Benedict – with a bit of serving a 15 minute ‘Latin’ Mass off the back of a jeep in Korea plus 18 or so years of Catholic schooling.
Those who have not been brainwashed are actually knowledgeable as to the history and actual formal teachings of the Church.
It also helps if one has read the National Catholic Reporter for the past 15 years.
Has the Catholic Church failed miserable in respecting and caring for those who were raped? Yes, and in many respects continue to do so.
Has the Cathlic Church in the US taken very radical steps to keep these rapes from again happening? Yes.
I could go on in detail but it would do no good.
Many people commenting are sort of the Catholic version of President Obama and Tea Party.
“They” know they are right so facts make no difference.
in the “Orwellian ,Kafkaesque world in which organized religion has played a MAJOR role, I am reminded of the prophetic words of MLK.JR .” we will either learn to live together as civilized human-beings, or we will surely die together as fools”.
Interesting analysis as always FAIR, I must wonder if the Church has some business interests that are linked to the NYT’s (and others) advertising income?
Of course people who have a grudge against the Catholic church are having a hey day with all this scandal abuse, but they deny and give a pass to the countless thousands of cases by people other than clergy, teachers, scout leaders, coaches etc. Since the Catholic church refuses to conform itself to the world, the world wants to kill it so that everyone can be like the “proverbial us,” whoever the “us” are. Make no mistake, the church has admitted its errors but society will continue to protect those who go along with it. The fact is statistically abuse cases in the church are virtually down to nothing and those reported are too old. How can anyone defned themselves against something that soeone says happened 40 years ago to them? I have read cases where people are dead and now 30 years later their living parents climed that their dead children had been abused by a priest or the like. Easy money and hungry and greedy lawyers. the Church has failed in many regards and has made certain that it will not happen again…what abut the rest of society, or shall we all remain hypocrites and give society’s values a pass?
Now there are these abuse cases or rather how poorly they were handled from above. Before there was more about the little Ratzi “manning” a cannon in WWII, and how he was a Nazi. Maybe it would be possible to develop a third line of interest and start on something about Ratzi and the Vatican bank. Come to think of it, right now that would be a real scoop: VATICAN BANK HEADED BY BENEDICT ? — and I put in that question mark while I run to Wikipedia to see what fun facts I can find for this topic.