Word: benedicts
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...Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, felt an unalloyed loathing for the abusers, his view on how they should be treated was more complicated. Some years before, as head of the Vatican body investigating abuse by priests, he argued that accused clergymen should not be handed over to secular authorities. Rather, he wrote confidentially to bishops around the world in 2001, they should first be investigated under utmost secrecy within the church - thereby avoiding public hysteria and second-guessing by the media. (See pictures of President Obama meeting Pope Benedict...
Secrecy is a luxury no longer available to Benedict. The recent revelations of sex-abuse scandals in Europe have smashed the perception that predatory priests are an American anomaly. Hundreds of accusations, from Ireland and now mainland Europe, have thrust the Vatican into the grip of its greatest crisis since the 2002 revelations of abuse in the U.S. The church's standing is falling to new lows among believers in its European heartland. Sensing the growing public alarm, some within the clergy are pushing for profound institutional and ecclesiastical changes, including an end to the priesthood's fundamental tenet...
...Rembert Weakland, who resigned in 2002 after revelations of an earlier relationship with another man, told the Times he brought the Murphy case to Rome in 1996 to try to bring healing to the victims. But Ratzinger's then deputy in the doctrinal office, Tarcisio Bertone, who is now Benedict's No. 2 man in the Vatican, agreed with a letter the ailing Murphy wrote asking to be allowed to live out his life "in the dignity of my priesthood," noting his ill health and the years that had passed since the accusations. After about two years of back...
Officials in the church staunchly continue to defend the Pope. They say Benedict has pushed for far greater transparency and penitence than his predecessor, and certainly more than many of the local bishops who should have been the ones managing the individual cases. And so far, each new revelation from Ratzinger's past seems to show more administrative detachment than bad judgment from the future Pope - though that is still a surprising hands-off management style for the man who would earn a reputation as a micromanager as he rose to become the éminence grise in John Paul...
Still, the Pope is the Pope, a global leader with very few equals in terms of pomp, history and circumstance. His links, however indirect, to specific cases of sexual abuse will necessarily catch the attention of both Catholics and non-Catholics. Another priest acknowledged that Benedict being specifically named in the Milwaukee and German cases just makes the news all the more troubling. "It's so volatile right now," he says. "Many of the faithful who were losing confidence in their bishops, now, it's in the Church Universal. What you read in paper: it's a real crucifixion...