Word: pope
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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Benedict's defenders are mostly right that as a senior Vatican Cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger was ahead of his colleagues in Rome in responding to the crisis, and that as Pope, he has said and done the right things, including his unprecedented meeting with sex-abuse victims on that U.S. trip. But Benedict's leadership on the sex-abuse crisis - and beyond - now hinges on an earlier chapter in his career. In 1980, an admitted child-molester priest was transferred to the Munich archdiocese, which was then headed by Ratzinger. Though Church officials say the future Pope personally approved...
...entirely convincing, papal "plausible deniability" - as communicated by aides - is not the kind of leadership this crisis requires. What happened in Munich, with or without Ratzinger's direct knowledge, is exactly the sort of inbred administrative failing that propelled a similar scandal in Boston nine years ago, which the Pope himself referred to in his recent letter to the Irish faithful...
...seems clear to me, from what I know about both the media and Catholicism, that Benedict's experience in Munich actually affords the Pope a singular opportunity to truly begin the healing and renewal on this epochal crisis. But it requires that the Pope himself turn to that gesture that stands at the heart of Catholicism: penance...
...does he go about this? A Jesuit source of mine suggested that the Pope could have washed the feet of sex-abuse victims - instead of priests - at the traditional Holy Thursday rite at St. Peter's. Others have mentioned an encyclical on the crisis. But either would miss the point. Rather than state another mea culpa for the sins of the abusers, the Pope must simply and publicly seek forgiveness for himself - and other bishops - for what we might call the sins of ignorance and denial and administrative malfeasance that some critics say border on the criminal...
...shortcomings could undermine papal infallibility. But that doctrine refers only to the dogma of divine revelation. Others wonder if Church officials are worried about the effect of such a statement in opening up the Vatican to potential lawsuits. Well, if the lawyers are calling the shots on this, the Pope is in even worse shape than we thought...