Word: benediction
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...instinct is typically to protect the man at the top, particularly when it comes to what is known in both secular and ecclesiastical terms as scandal. That is evident again with a pedophile-priest controversy from the 1980s in Germany that is threatening to draw in the German-born Benedict XVI, even as his countrymen demand that he respond directly. "The Pope was not part of what happened back then, and he shouldn't be part of it now," a Vatican insider tells TIME. "He should offer the greatest silence possible, not because he doesn't care about the abuse...
...Church in the country has faced a barrage of criticism from politicians and the media as well as from the faithful - and much of the ire is focused on the German who is now Supreme Pontiff in Rome. On Monday, the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung splashed the headline "Benedict XVI Remains Silent" on a front-page story describing how the Pope declined to comment on the growing priestly sexual-abuse scandal in his native Germany during public prayers in the Vatican on Sunday. "The abuse scandal has been a nightmare," Alois Glück, president of Germany...
...Bavaria, which the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger led for 30 years, has been drawn into the scandal, after former choirboys described a "system of sadistic punishments and sexual lust." (The retired Georg Ratzinger says he didn't know about the alleged sexual-abuse incidents.) (See pictures of Pope Benedict...
...Benedict himself has been linked to the latest controversies. In the early 1980s, a priest suspected of abuse was transferred to the Pope's former archdiocese in Munich - and that case has raised further awkward questions about the church's handling of abuse allegations. Last Friday, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising confirmed in a statement that "serious mistakes were made in the 1980s" after the priest, known as "Father H," was moved from the western city of Essen to Munich and was allowed to continue with his pastoral work. According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Father...
...because he had violated the conditions under which he was allowed to work, which prohibited contact with young people. Church officials in Munich said there were no new reports of sexual abuse linked to the priest. His superior, Prelate Josef Obermaier, resigned on Monday. (See Pope Benedict's sex-abuse challenge...