I don't know if this is being covered in the MSM, but Pope Benedict, who was tasked by JP2 to clear up the log jam that protected pedophiles back in the early 1990s, and who many think resigned under pressure, has written an essay about abuse and problems in the church. Essay here.
GetReligion blog, which discusses press coverage of religion, discusses the document and notes that the way it was released and publicized was via alternative media and ignored by the MSM...
and it links to an article about Benedict and African Cardinal Sarah's open opposition to the trends of the present day papal "reforms".
“A paramount task, which must result from the moral upheavals of our time, is that we ourselves once again begin to live by God and unto Him. Above all, we ourselves must learn again to recognize God as the foundation of our life instead of leaving Him aside,” Benedict wrote.
What else did the 91-year-old former pontiff say in his bombshell essay (almost an encyclical if you will) that has excited many Catholics?
For starters, he wasn’t afraid, like Sarah, to exert church teachings in the face of a politically correct world...Sarah and Benedict, however, aren’t being political. Rather, they are fulfilling what they consider their mortal obligation.
In a single essay, Benedict did more to properly address the crisis (and its roots) if compared to Francis’ largely ceremonial summit...
“The extent and gravity of the reported incidents has deeply distressed priests as well as laity, and has caused more than a few to call into question the very faith of the church,” Benedict said. “It was necessary to send out a strong message, and seek out a new beginning, so to make the church again truly credible as a light among peoples and as a force in service against the powers of destruction.”and how did the Vatican react? Anyone? Anyone?
Bishop Gracida at Abbysum.org has Phillip Lawler's article from Catholic.org about how the essay was released by alternative channels.
Benedict’s essay has not found a warm welcome at (the Pope's) St. Martha residence. Even more revealing is the frantic reaction of the Pope’s most ardent supporters, who have flooded the internet with their embarrassed protests, their complaints that Benedict is sadly mistaken when he suggests that the social and ecclesiastical uproar of the 1960s gave rise to the epidemic of abuse.
Those protests against Benedict—the mock-sorrowful sighs that we all know sexual abuse is not a function of rampant sexual immorality—should be seen as signals to the secular media. And secular outlets, sympathetic to the causes of the sexual revolution, will duly carry the message that Benedict is out of touch, that his thesis has already been disproven.
But facts, as John Adams observed, are stubborn things. And the facts testify unambiguously in Benedict’s favor. Something happened in the 1960s and thereafter to precipitate a rash of clerical abuse. Yes, the problem had arisen in the past. But every responsible survey has shown a stunning spike in clerical abuse, occurring just after the tumult that Benedict describes in his essay.the entire text is also found HERE, and it's ending is significant: Because JP2 frequently bypassed the obstructive Vatican bureaucracy/curia to get out his message to the laypeople, telling them "be not afraid".
And Benedict notes it is often the lay people and minor clergy or bishops of unimportant diocese, not the big shots, who are at the forefront of true church reform
It is very important to oppose the lies and half-truths of the devil with the whole truth: Yes, there is sin in the Church and evil. But even today there is the Holy Church, which is indestructible.
Today there are many people who humbly believe, suffer and love, in whom the real God, the loving God, shows Himself to us. Today God also has His witnesses (martyres) in the world. We just have to be vigilant in order to see and hear them. ...If we look around and listen with an attentive heart, we can find witnesses everywhere today, especially among ordinary people, but also in the high ranks of the Church, who stand up for God with their life and suffering...
one is reminded of a similar observation by that good atheist, Camus:
Perhaps then, if we listen attentively, we can hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say this hope lies in a nation; others, in a person. I believe, rather, that it is awakened and nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history.
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UPDATE: ewtn and the papal posse discusses
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update number two: Professor Leon Podles, who wrote a book about the abuse crisis, analyzes Benedict's letter. He goes into the history of pederasty in past and present day cultures, and notes that social taboos and swift condemnation of such actions are the only way to eliminate the problem.
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