Word: morale
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Like most Catholics, I appreciate Benedict's efforts to confront the abuse scourge. But Rome's moral fallibility (reminder: it didn't definitively disavow slavery until 1888) is particularly apparent when it tries to downplay the scandal by insisting that clergy in the 1960s and 70s were susceptible to the era's liberal mores, or that the rate of pedophilia among its ranks is no larger than that of society in general. Those arguments - We're no worse than the rest of you! - effectively surrender claims to moral superiority, let alone divine direction. As a Catholic, I believe...
...Catholic Church is capable of tremendous good, as I was reminded recently while watching Catholic Relief Services work in Haiti. But a lot of Catholics feel like the Whos right now: the main symbol of our religion - the Church - has been stolen from us through its forfeiture of moral authority. The silver lining is that we're left to ponder our religion sans church, to define our faith not via hoary doctrine but via our own reason, which is how Catholicism is supposed to be practiced anyway. (Yes, despite the Vatican's warnings, it's safe to try theology...
...issue. In fact, the Vatican singled out the New York Times for such coverage. But most journalists and non-Catholics derive no satisfaction at all from seeing these events unfold. The horror at the victims' suffering drives the narrative. But this is also a tale of human failings - both moral and administrative - by some who may otherwise be decent people, causing grave damage to a worldwide church that does good and offers comfort to millions. (See the Vatican's struggle for damage control...
...International Crisis Group. Stephan Keukeleire, a professor of foreign policy at Leuven University in Belgium, points out that any E.U. claims of ethical foreign policy were already undermined by the fact that its members are among the biggest arms exporters in the world. "We too often talk about the moral side of our actions, and we too often say we have a superior Western foreign policy, when obviously commercial considerations come into play. Remember, most of Saddam Hussein's weapons technology came from the West," he says...
...Vaticanspeak, adopted a somewhat more engaged and cooperative stance with the media. On March 27, on Vatican Radio, he said, "The nature of the question is such as to attract the attention of the media, and the way in which the church deals with it is crucial for her moral credibility...