Word: romes
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...Good Friday 2005, as a dying Pope John Paul II watched via video hookup, worshippers outside the candlelit Way of the Cross ceremony in Rome's Colosseum recited meditations written by the man who would be his successor. Breaking with tradition, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's musings veered away from Christ's Passion and into the Catholic Church's current problems. "How much filth there is in the Church," he wrote, clearly referring to the charges of sex abuse by priests that had rocked the church in the U.S. "And even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely...
...Pope himself being brought down - the last time a Pontiff bowed out in disgrace was in 1046 (Gregory VI, for financial impropriety) - it is entirely possible the scandals will permanently sully his papacy. "This is going to be a major part of his legacy," says an American priest in Rome who asked not to be named. (See pictures of Pope Benedict XVI visiting America...
...uncommon for pedophiles to be prescribed therapy. But the priest was quickly allowed to return to pastoral duties, allowing him to continue abusing minors for several more years. He was convicted of sexual abuse in 1986 - yet still he continued to work as a priest. (Ratzinger moved to Rome in 1982, long before the conviction.) The priest was finally exposed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper last week. On March 12, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising admitted in a statement that "serious mistakes were made in the 1980s." Three days later, the priest was suspended for breaching...
...Benedict know about the priest's swift return to pastoral work after his therapy? The archdiocese says the decision was made by Benedict's then deputy, who has taken full responsibility. But the American priest in Rome says Ratzinger, famously a micromanager, must have known of the decision. "It's probably just a matter of time," the American says, "before it comes out that he did know more than they are saying...
...With reporting by Jeff Israely / Rome and Tristana Moore / Berlin...