Today, April 19, 2010, is the 5 year anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI becoming pope. With all of the scandal that is surrounding the Vatican, and the direct attacks on the Pope himself, I wanted to give everyone a perspective that you won’t find in the mainstream news. I am in no way an expert, so if I say something that you disagree with please let me know.
For those of you unaware about the particulars of the scandal, there has been another uncovering of a number of priests who sexually abused young children starting in the 1980s. Their cases were brought to the Vatican, to Pope Benedict XVI when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The protocol in the 1980s was that a priest accused of pedophilia would be sent to a rehab facility and then reintroduced into a parish, for back then pedophilia still hadn’t been defined as a disease of the mind. It was thought that it was a behavior that you could be re-trained to abstain from. He was just doing his job. We can’t look at this situation through the eyes of 2010, because that’s taking it out of context and evaluating it unfairly. Not as much was known about pedophilia as it is now.
If you look at the documents, Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI has actually done MORE to develop the Vatican’s protocol in dealing with pedophilia than anyone else in recent Church history. Many of the quotes attributed to the Pope have either been taken out of context or misinterpreted. The Pope does NOT support pedophilia. He is NOT a sex abuser himself.
What happened to these poor children is horrible and should not be tolerated. They need to be loved and prayed for and healed. But please don’t associate the whole Church with a minority of priests throughout the world with this problem. You hear only about them in the media, but in fact there is a much greater number of faithful priests throughout the world who would never do anything to harm their parishioners. They are in your towns and cities, humbly carrying out their mission to bring Christ to people every day. They are silent warriors.
Another idea one can be easily tempted to believe is that since some priests are guilty of this crime, then the entire Church itself is hypocritical and should not be believed or trusted. That it is a man-made institution separate from the faith itself. This is the farthest thing from the truth, and we need to realize that. Priests are called to a higher standard of holiness than the general population, this is true, but they are still men who can fall into sin. They are not infallible. This is why we need to pray for them all the more. Only the Pope is infallible, and even so it is only in matters of faith and morals. Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, was not under this cloak of infallibility and therefore, if he did have any underlying intentions of reducing the media impact as much as possible, it does not mean that he erred as pope. He wasn’t pope then. No matter his past, we should have confidence that he has repented for any of his sins and that it has no impact on his current ability to rule over the Church as Pope.
The Catholic Church was instituted by Jesus Christ and given to the Apostles at the Last Supper. The apostle Peter was the first Pope, and every pope since then follows in his succession. The Holy Spirit was sent to the earth to guide the Church and its members and to keep it from falling into error. We, the people of the world, are the Body of Christ and make up the Church. WE are the Church..it is a living and breathing entity. It is not some remote institution in Rome made up of buildings. It is made up of human souls in the image and likeness of God! Therefore, it is impossible to separate the Catholic faith and the Church as two separate things. The priests are our brothers and sister in the Body of Christ, and we need to pray for them, but just because they have failed doesn’t mean the entire Church needs to fail. It has survived for over 2,000 years, and Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail over it. It has been tested severely over the course of history, as we are witnessing now, but it has always pulled through and won out in the end. We are on the winning team, no matter how grim our chances look.
Catholics (and anyone else who wants to!), we need to pray for our Pope and priests. We need to be a support system for each other. I do not think it’s a coincidence that priests, and especially the Pope, are being sharply criticized during the Year of the Priests. This is a direct spiritual attack from the Evil One. Satan always chooses the most pure and beautiful things to defile and corrupt: this is why womanhood, motherhood, family life, chastity, prayer, religious life, and the priesthood have become so disfigured and misunderstood in our world. Do not let him win. Defend the Pope and our priests, and pray and fast for them constantly. Ask for Mary our loving Mother’s intercession. Say the rosary, it is the most powerful weapon against Satan. It is up to us to stand up to our culture of skepticism and disbelief and reintroduce the pure love of God once again into our lives.
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