BENEDICT XVI: NEWS, PAPAL TEXTS, PHOTOS AND COMMENTARY

Speculation: Pope will make
historic apology for abuse
By John Phillips in Rome

Sunday, 25 April 2010


Pope Benedict XVI is planning to make the first general apology for the abuse of children and minors by Roman Catholic priests when he meets thousands of clergymen from around the world in June at the climax of the International Year for Priests, Vatican sources say.

In the past there have been papal or church apologies for individual cases of paedophilia or for abuse in specific countries, for example during the German Pontiff's recent visit to Malta.

What is being prepared now would be the first time a Pope seeks to atone publicly for the extent to which paedophilia has been a major stain on the modern history of the Church touching a constellation of countries, say the sources at the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy.

It could be considered comparable to the historic step that the previous Pope, John Paul II, took in apologising to the Jews for historic church anti-Semitism and for misdeeds during the Crusades, they say.

Vatican officials hope such an unprecedented act of penance by Benedict, together with thousands of clergymen in St Peter's Square, 9-11 June, will do much to lay to rest the scandal and defuse protests that might disrupt his trip to Britain in September. PUH-LEEZ! If the Pope says anything at all, it won't be for those reasons,, i.e., it won't be a PR move at all, but something that needs to be said and has the proper occasion and setting for being said in the concluding ceremonies of the Year for Priests - which he decreed precisely to purify and sanctify the priests of the world anew, in view of all the degradations the priesthood has undergone since Vatican II!]

The encounter will form the climax of the special year of events designed in part to encourage vocations to the cloth but which instead has been marred by the mushrooming paedophile scandal. [MSM always speak as if the fact of sex offenses by priests were something just revealed. It's a mock scandal that they have set up, almost 100% hypocrisy, reflecting the conventional reflexive hypocrisy of the bourgeois who profess to be 'horrified' by something they know has existed all along and that they themselves have perhaps been guilty of.]

The Pope has indicated repeatedly that he is considering ways to steer the Church toward turning the page and finding an exit strategy from the maelstrom. [MSM is always reading what the Pope says, as primary proclaimer and defender of Chrit's teachings, in terms of the secular society's image-conscious mentality, where every action or statement is considered as nothing more than a PR move.]

"The shipwrecks of life can form God's project for us, and can also be useful for new beginnings in our lives," he told journalists on his aeroplane as he flew to Malta last weekend.

He made the point while travelling to celebrate the 1,950th anniversary of St Paul's shipwreck on the small island while on his way to Rome as a prisoner to stand trial, in the year 60 AD.

One veteran Vatican watcher said that using the image of the shipwreck to allude to the abuse scandal "suggests it can be read as not only causing the shipwreck of the church in countries across the globe today, from Ireland to the United States and Australia, from Austria, the Netherlands and Italy to Germany, Malta and others too, but also part of God's plan to purify, reform and revitalise the Church".

In speeches during his Maltese sojourn, Benedict underlined how great good can arise from a shipwreck, as happened when St Paul's stay led to the Maltese becoming one of the first Christian peoples and retaining their faith intact for nearly 2,000 years.

Vatican sources said the Pope considers the jamboree with the priests in June an appropriate occasion for him to lead the whole Church in a "Day of Request for Pardon" of the victims and their families for the wrong done by a small percentage of priests [Well, I did not expect this bit of honesty, for a change!] in abusing children and minors in many countries, and the wrong done by bishops in covering up that abuse or protecting the predators.

The meeting would be appropriate for a day of fasting as well as penance, they say. On the papal flight last week-end Benedict made a second allusion to the abuse scandal, and its devastating effect on the moral authority of the Church and its pastors, describing the Church as the body of Jesus Christ "wounded by our sins".

['Devastating' it may seem to outsiders and bourgeois Catholics, but they said the same thing of Humanae vitae and of the same priest 'scandal' when it first erupted in the US a decade ago, just to limit ourselves to recent examples. Christ built his Church on a Rock that has prevailed for two millennia - there is no reason to think it has been shaken by this media-generated storm.except in superficial commonplace perception.

And when the Pope says the Church has been wounded by the sins of its priests, he is not expressing anything new. The Church as the People of God is composed of human beings who are all sinners - and it was precisely for their redemption and ongoing purification that God came to earth and became man. For every priest who has sinned against minors, there are a thousand who have lived their lives as faithfully as they can to their vows.]

The respected Vatican watcher added: "It is clear that Benedict has been reflecting and seeking to understand the abuse scandal with the eyes of faith. He seems to be developing a theological and spiritual frame for reading and dealing with this shameful and humbling reality in the life of the Church in the 21st century and discerning an exit strategy from it."

[How unfortunate that the 'respected Vatican watcher' has thoughtlessly fallen into the MSM trap himself. Does he really think that the Pope needs to develop de novo 'a theological and spiritual frame' for dealing with evil and sin??? What was the past 2000 years of basic Christian teaching if not that?]