The Pope's freedom
to take the high road
by Lucetta Scaraffia
Translated from
the 4/17/10 issue of
Unlike what one may read in the newspapers today which, on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Benedict XVI's Pontificate, portray him as weak and beset on all sides, or as an aged theologian who does not understand today's world; unlike those who demand in writing on city walls or in the newspapers for him to resign - which is an unthinkable action - I am convinced that for Papa Ratzinger, this anniversary marks a moment of strength.
The accusations and polemics prove him right about the severity that he has always shown with regard to sexual abuse of minors by priests, about his intransigence against the evil it represents, which he himself did not fail to denounce before he became Pope in clear and unprecedentedly forceful terms.
This critical time is a defeat for those who have always claimed that silence serves to protect the Church, who believe that accepting evil is inevitable with human beings, for those who continue to play blind.
The storm will bring about cleansing in the ranks of the Church, break up internal conniving
[I am not sure about that at all!] and help the Pope to build that community of 'angels' that he described a few days ago, knowing well he was expressing a hope that is humanly impossible but that the Church must set a high standard to aspire for in order for teh People of God to move forward as better Christians.
The storm will allow him, above all, to go forward free, without that heavy burden of sin and silence that had surrounded the issue of priestly offenses against the young. Free along the road of openness that he initiated in the Church - a difficult road and an uphill climb but for the continuing betterment of the clergy as well as the faithful.
In his apostolate, the Pope seems to be demanding a little more and raising the bar a little more each time - not content with the crowds who applaud him in St. Peter's Square nor that his words are picked up the various organs of information.
[Not always, and hardly in a satisfactory way, because they get to pick and choose only what is useful for their ends!]
In fact,
he really seems not to care what the media say about him - and perhaps, this is added aggravation for them - while it is clear that what is important to him is to lead the Church forward towards continuing spiritual purification.
It is exclusively for that reason that he says what he says, explaining the sacred texts to the faithful - and at this level, his gentle, profound and ever attentive voice attains eloquence.
In essence, Benedict XVI is interested only in doing his job as Pope well, which means being the spiritual guide of the world's Catholics.
This is what provokes the secular world and the powerful movers in politics and the mass media: the fact that he so evidently considers them irrelevant to his demanding duty to meditate and explain the Word of God.
"He is silent, he is not answering us" - they continue to protest, even as
they do not listen to what he says, or do not understand that there is always a response to events in everything in says, except that he elevates his response to a higher level.
In a society in which vulgarization always triumphs, the easiest explanation that the media resort to is also the most truly vulgar and coarse - that the Pope represents an anomaly that is insupportable for most people.
His strength is in being able to move along paths different from the
'world', off the beaten path. And to do this, he has to be genuinely strong, he must see clearly as he always does exactly what is happening, and above all, he must do this by himself.
Benedict XVI has the intellectual capacity and the spiritual and- psychological strength for all this. Only thus is he able to shed light, to blaze the trail for a free and continually purifying Church, as he has been doing and will continue to do.
One reads about Catholics who are leaving the Church because of the current 'revelations' on sex abuses by priests.
[Media soap opera plotting, as usual! Those who do leave have merely been looking for a pretext to finally do so - and from what I read, reports of such 'mass exodus' have only come from Germany, where those who disavow membership in any church do not have to pay a church tax. So who is media kidding here?]
On the contrary, this is the time to join the Church, to bet on the reality that Jesus never abandons his Church and that evil shall not prevail. For this, we have Pope Benedict to thank.
Scaraffia makes very good points, but one somehow expects a more powerful statement from the pages of the Pope's own newspaper, which has a very obvious lack of eloquent editorialists... And even Fr. Lombardi, whose last few editorials for Vatican Radio have been significant, falls very flat in his brief editorial this week 'summing up' the five years of Benedict XVI's Pontificate. I will post it as soon as it's translated.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/04/2010 18:37]