How to respond to 'scandal':
A lesson from Benedict XVI
by Bruno Mastroianni
Translated from
July 23, 2010
Not enough attention has been given to the Pope's decisions regarding the Legionaries of Christ.
Yet it was about a very thorny problem that festered for decades until Benedict XVI took it in hand.
It is also one of the most vivid realities in a Church which was confronted with the worst of situations - a founder who was widely haled as a living saint and who has been shown to be a grievous sinner.
And the Pope has been moving decisively, but also wisely.
It would have been easy - at a time when the controversy was peaking over pedophile priests - to yield to media pressure and do something flashy and immediate.
Benedict kept his own course and counsel, ordered an apostolic visitation in depth, waited for the results of the investigation, and has now named his delegate with full powers to heal the Legion.
[The papal delegate, Mons. Velasio Di Paolis, is both an expert in canon law and in financial affairs, a man of proven faith and a member of a congregation himself.]
Benedict never forgets about the victims - indeed, his primary concern is for them, in this as in the pedophile abuses. "A great part among the Legionaries were in the dark [
about their founder's double life]," the report on the LC said.
In short, the Holy Father showed courage in facing A terrible situation; farsightedness in not yielding to media pressure for a quick fix; the wisdom to heal a crisis in order to build again rather than to punish and destroy, keeping in mind what would be good for all concerned, rather than what it would look like to the media - and all the while giving time and the proper weight to everything.
At a time when the tendency is for patch-up jobs, external maneuvers and other visible operations meant to give the appearance of 'action' in response to crisis, we had almost forgotten those qualities that make for a true leader!
Mastroianni has not posted a new blog entry for the past week - the article above is from the Opinion pages of TEMPI - but checking out his blog today, I realized I had missed seeing the following from July 2:
New archeological discoveries
confirm Benedict XVI's line
Translated from
July 2, 2010
Faith, according to Benedict XVI, is not foolishness, but a recognition of the credible testimony of the Apostles - they were a handful of men, simple and poor, who appeared to have been broken because their Master had been crucified.
And yet, after the first Pentecost, many wise, noble and rich persons converted quickly upon hearing them preach. It is a phenomenon that the Pope, in a recent audience, called "historically miraculous, for which it is hard to give a reasonable explanation, other than the encounter of the Apostles with the Risen Christ".
And that is why despite the waves of scandal over pedophile priests and the more recent one about questionable business dealings at Propaganda Fide, the Pope has been his usual calm self.
Priests and sex, priests and money. Those are the classical arguments that for centuries have unleashed prurient attention towards the Church.
Today, this attention is documented daily in all the forms of modern media, but the substance has not changed - this drive to stir up the turbid waters of human weaknesses (true or presumed) among the ministers of the Church.
But the future of the Church does not depend on them.
Last week in Rome, valuable new archeological discoveries were presented - the oldest known artistic depictions of the faces of Peter, Andrew and, John brought to light in the Catacomb of St. Tecla. It required two years of painstaking work with lasers to divest them of the incrustations that had kept them hidden for centuries.
It is surprising how this archeological recovery coincides with the spiritual program that the Pope has been proposing to the members of the Church: to show themselves with the faces of true apostles of Christ.
And that is what will rid them of the patina of evil that the media have chosen to obscure them with.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 27/07/2010 12:18]