Let's try to get our focus right in the many accusations against the Church

It's been ages, I must admit and I've been looking for something to write about in the last month or two. So, here goes.

Let's tackle the attack on the Catholic Church, with regards the accusations of child molestations and so on. First of all, let's get this clear: I do not condone the attack on the weak and vulnerable. Further, I condemn whoever uses a position of authority to take advantage of the weak and vulnerable.

And, if that someone is a man of the cloth, someone who has taken up the mantle of priest or religious, I have nothing to say in his defence.

Now, permit me to set out a a few things:

First of all, the accusations we hear about are not recent. A lot of them go back decades. Now, let's get this clear, even if these were centuries past, they are not condoned. No, they are condemned. Time does not loosen the gravity of the crime (better yet, the sin) involved.

Secondly, let's look at the current situation. Do you note that the spotlight is firmly focused on the Catholic Church and its heirarchy? I wonder why.

Maybe, I feel paranoid for the church or am a skeptic by nature, but it seems to me the anti-catholic forces are out in force. And, who but the Pope as target. Why not? The most obvious, most visible and the top-of-the-heap, the head honcho. Peter's representative, the Vicar of Christ himself.

Now, first an aside which does not, in any way, diminish the gravity of the wrong doings, the hurt, the sin of paedophilia, the taking advantage of the vurnerable, the abuse of the power and influence of the Roman collar and so on.

Recently, our parish priest talked about this. He made no excuses for the wrong doing but tried to put it into context. He mentioned that paedophilia happened at home. Perpetrators were members of the family. And, I believe that he posited the position that most of these crimes (sins) were committed by family members.

And, since many of these abhorrent crimes (sins) were not reported, we will never know how widespread these are.

Have you ever wondered why the spotlight is on the Catholic Church. What about other religions and denominations? Are we to assume that they are squeaky clean?

Now, I don't mention this to get the Church off the hook. On, the contrary, I want to clear the air, though I doubt that I can, considering the limitations of this forum.

And, thirdly, the attack on the Pope himself. Now to try to set out the facts on every accusation that involves the Holy Father will take a lot of time and bandwidth. And, I feel that it is beyond the scope of what I wanted to put forward.

Suffice it to say, let's look at a couple of things about what Benedict XVI has done before and during his papacy.

Allow me to quote from Damian Thompson's blog. Thompson is editor of Telegraph Blogs, a journalist specialising in religion. In his blog on 5 April, 2010, in response to the Daily Telegraphs' editorial, he put forward, inter alia:

1. The betrayal of the innocent by a small minority of Catholic priests and a much larger proportion of Catholic bishops and bureaucrats was truly monstrous. Pope Benedict XVI was right to acknowledge the Church’s deep shame. His predecessor should have done so.

2. Although the Pope may not have been vigilant enough when he was Archbishop of Munich, once he was in the Vatican he was disgusted to discover the scale of the crimes of predator priests – and fought a sometime lonely battle against complacent colleagues, from whom he eventually had to wrest authority to deal with canonical aspects of these cases in 2001. After that, their prosecution was speeded up. No wonder, since the Italian monsignori who previously dealt with them had spent most of the day plotting and stuffing their faces in their favourite trattorie.

3. Benedict XVI is still not well served by the people around him.

Now, this post is not a position in support of the Pope, as such. It is, I hope, a sincere effort to put a just light to expose the truth.

As an example of what the Pope has done in the past in his efforts to set the records straight and to do justice to his priestly calling, let's look at what he has done with regards to Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of Legions of Christ.

Again, I quote from Thompson's blog:

The NCR [National Catholic Reporter] can’t stand Pope Benedict, but it does reveal that Cardinal Ratzinger refused the 'donations' (charitable bribes) that the Legion sucessfully pressed on other senior Vatican clergy, sometimes to gain access to John Paul II:

In 1997 [Ratzinger] gave a lecture on theology to Legionaries. When a Legionary handed him an envelope, saying it was for his charitable use, Ratzinger refused. “He was tough as nails in a very cordial way,” a witness said.

A few years later, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who ignored John Paul’s wishes and moved against against Maciel, to the fury of the latter’s allies, who included Cardinal Angelo Sodano and John Paul’s secretary, Msgr (now Cardinal) Stanislaw Dziwisz.

In 2004, John Paul – ignoring the canon law charges against Maciel – honored him in a Vatican ceremony in which he entrusted the Legion with the administration of Jerusalem’s Notre Dame Center, an education and conference facility. The following week, Ratzinger took it on himself to authorize an investigation of Maciel."

And, while I have gone off what I was originally trying to tackle, I wanted to put forward that the Pope has done something which the many Legionnaires believe is just not on. Attacking someone that many of them consider a saint, is just something too terrible to contemplate. And, he did this I presume in search of the truth and justice. I note that it was also against the wishes of his own superior, the then Pope.

And, just for the record, Maciel died in disgrace aged 87 in 2008. He was pushed aside and taken from the helm of the Legion.

This was done by the Pope against a strong phalanx of defenders.

I wonder, is this something someone who wants to sweep things under the carpet would do? I don't think so.

More in my next post.