Pope Benedict XVI is part of the solution not the problem
By Cristina Odone : March 26th, 2010
It’s a bad time to be a Catholic. Everywhere you look, Church-bashers are crowing about the left-footers caught kiddy-fiddling. Sensationalist stories of horriffic child abuse keep coming out like rats in a ramshackle house. Reports of cover-ups make you want to spit at anyone wearing a bishop’s mitre, or a cardinal’s red hat: if they weren’t at it, they were probably covering up for one of their own who was.
So when it comes to the Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict, the instinct is to spit all the more. But to do so would be wrong. This Pope has done more than any other churchman to address the issue of priestly child abuse. He has stopped the practice of turning over priests accused of abuse to therapists, as we now know that therapy seldom helps a paedophile. He has fast-tracked the defrocking of priests found guilty of abuse. He has promoted co-operation, at a diocesan level, between church authorities responsible for canon law and police.
He can point to some real success in the protection of children: in England and Wales, for instance, child protection officers monitor every encounter between children and clergy. The result, is that, ironically, there is no safer place for a child today to be than with a Catholic priest.
Yet in this crisis everyone wants a scapegoat. The victims of abuse and their family do, because turning the other cheek in the face of evil on this magnitude and scale is impossible. (I, for one, would be indefatigable in waging a truly Italian-style vendetta against anyone who harmed my child.) The media wants a scapegoat, because to claim a big scalp is a sign of successful reporting. And the Church does, because so many guilty men can hide behind a larger-than-life figurehead.
Step forward Benedict XVI, the perfect scapegoat. It doesn’t matter that the overwhelming number of abuse cases happened in John Paul II’s time; or that the policy of cover-up was allowed to take root well before Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Benedict XVI. Accusations fly, and allegations mount. In this feverish atmosphere, facts become, frankly, irrelevant. Who cares that when, as Cardinal, Benedict assigned a known paedophile to a course of therapy, this was the practice not only within the church, but the outside world too? Who cares that when Fr Lawrence Murphy was abusing 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin, the police were called in and did not believe the victims and absolved the priest of any wrong-doing? Who cares that when, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict allowed Fr Murphy to die a priest rather than be defrocked, he was fulfilling a dying man’s wish?
We must resist those baying for Benedict’s blood. By persecuting the Pope, we risk undoing his hard work in the area of clerical child abuse. His reforms makes life very uncomfortable for many churchmen. They will seize upon any opportunity to stop the cleaning of their Augean stables. Those who besmirch Pope Benedict XVI’s reputation risk giving these men the upper hand. We, lay Catholics, will suffer as a result, condemned to wade through the muck and filth for generations to come.
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