Sandro Magister, that great Vaticanista, writes this about Pope Emeritus Benedict which is an excerpt from a longer article which you can read in full HERE:
What the current leaders of the Church have not been capable of saying - before, during, and after the February 21-24 Vatican summit on sexual abuse committed by consecrated ministers - has been said and written by “pope emeritus” Benedict XVI in the “notes” that he made public on April 11, after having informed cardinal secretary of state Pietro Parolin and Pope Francis.
Joseph Ratzinger has gone to the the root of the scandal: the sexual revolution of ’68, the “collapse” of Catholic doctrine and morality between the 1960’s and 1980’s, the downfall of the distinction between good and evil and between truth and lies, the proliferation of “homosexual clubs” in the seminaries, the imposition of a “so-called due process” that rendered untouchable those who justified these novelties, including pedophilia itself, in the final analysis a departure from that God who is the Church’s raison d'être and the sense of direction of every man.
As a result, in Ratzinger’s judgment, the Church’s task today is to rediscover the courage to “speak of God” and to “prioritize” God over all, to return to believing that he is really present in the Eucharist instead of “downgrading it to a ceremonial gesture,” to look at the Church as full of weeds but also of good wheat, of saints, of martyrs, to be defended from the discredit of the Evil One, without deluding ourselves that we can make a better one one our own, entirely political, which “cannot represent any sort of hope.”
It is an analysis that will certainly lead to discussion, this of Ratzinger, seeing how distant it is from what is being said and done today at the top levels of the Church regarding the scandal of sexual abuse, from a perspective that is essentially judicial and that wobbles between the two poles of “zero tolerance” and due process.
A due process that is entirely different from the one - “so-called” - evoked by Ratzinger, because it instead concerns the defendant’s rights of defense, the presumption of innocence until the definitive verdict and the proportionality of the punishment, and which it is helpful to gauge for how it is being employed today in regard to cardinals and archbishops implicated in abuse.
My comments: Pope Emeritus Benedict is in angst over what is happening in Germany which is a reflection of what is happening in this papacy and the processes that synodality has brought about which will make the "spirit" of Vatican II of the 1960's & 70's look like child's play.
Benedict has positioned himself to influence the younger generation of bishops who are going to coming from the John Paul II and Benedict years of priestly formation to do what they have to do in the future.
It is no accident that Pope Francis is naming bishops who are of his generation although young than he. I, at 65, would be of that generation too. We are passing away but not without a resurgence of what we thought we had accomplished only to have JPII and Benedict reverse.
But we are going to be gone with the wind very soon. And Pope Benedict Emeritus has the agenda for moving forward.
8 comments:
Germany has actively evil bishops, like Bishop Gann of Munster who refuses to ordain traditionalists as priests but has not problem ordaining sodomites. Count Bishop Galen, the Lion of Munster, would be appalled. Germany is lost to the faith. But for government funding through taxes, they would be out of business, except for a mere faithful remnant.
Most of the complaints and hand wringing about the state of the Church omit historical reference to similar or worse situations. What does seem to be rate, if not unique, is that so many bishops and priests are convinced they are correct and Church teaching is wrong yet they stay. This certainly undermines the Church but it doesn’t advance their position. Why not start a new denomination or church or join an existing one? They seem intent on neutering the one true Church yet what do they think they will have when it is gone?
"Joseph Ratzinger has gone to the the root of the scandal: the sexual revolution of ’68, the “collapse” of Catholic doctrine and morality between the 1960’s and 1980’s,..."
I have read several overall positive responses by theologians to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's essay in question.
One thing that the responses have in common is that they've insisted that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's commentary about the link between the 1960s and clergy sexual abuse is, at best, weak.
I agree with that.
Clergy sex abuse, as well as homosexuality within the priesthood, go back centuries.
In regard to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI's argument in question, I just read the following:
The Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, has released a list of 33 priests accused credibly of sexual abuse.
-- 3 priests in question served during Pope Pius XI's Pontificate.
-- 11 priests in question served during Pope Venerable Pius XII's Pontificate.
-- 42 percent of the accused priests served the Church prior to Vatican II.
As I've studied one diocesan list of accused priests after another, I have noted time and again that about 40 percent of accused priests served the Church prior to Vatican II.
Once again, this time in the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, a list of priests accused of sexual assaults has shattered the claim that the problem in question is the result of the 1960's sexual revolution...
...and/or, as claimed by certain folks, that the problem is linked to Vatican II.
Although few priests, speaking relatively, have been accused of sexual assaults, the fact is that a high percentage of said priests served during the reigns of Popes Pius XI and Venerable Pius XII.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
MT.
You overlook the numbers accelerated big time AFTER Vatican II and the sexual revolution. The very point Pope Benedict is making.
MT
Since the figures would indicate that abuse peaked in the 1970s, most priests at that time would have been formed prior to Vatican II. It was also the decade where the 'spirit of Vatican II' and the destructive fallout from the Council reached its zenith. Priests leaving in droves to contract invalid marriages, the collapse of the religious Orders (in the case of the Jesuits it amounted to a meltdown), Mass attendance plummeting, not helped by the fact that it was no longer the Mass with which all Catholics over the age of 25 had been brought up with ...
Your logic is, as usual, flawed. Nothing you say lets Vatican II, and how it was interpreted, off the hook. I was around in the 1970s, as was Ratzinger. Were you? If you were, then it must have been in a parallel universe.
John Nolan,
The John Jay Report establishes that the number of abuse incidents took a decided upswing in the 1960s when the sexual revolution was occurring. I believe the general breakdown in discipline contributed a lot to the heightened number of incidents. Remember this was the era of "if it feels good, do it!" I guess they decided to do it. It is heartening that the numbers have plummeted in recent times. When I see how disciplined and orthodox most of the younger priests I come into contact are, it is not surprising.
"Mass attendance plummeting......." but, but,... Africa.... Asia....
Figured that was coming next. Just trying to help.
Dan
LOL!
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