Who knew the latest revelations about a horrendouscase of sexual abuse by a Wisconsin priest would throw the worldwide church andthe current pope into their most tumultuous credibility crisis yet?
In politics, there is an axiom that misdeeds can getyou into a lot of trouble, but it's the cover-up that can be fatal.
An unbelievable Holy Week of dodging and ducking andlashing out by Pope Benedict XVI's rapidly diminishing circle of defenderswould make defrocked President Richard Nixon and his White House burglary ringproud.
It hasn't been news for decades that the leadershipof the Catholic Church, from the top down, was more concerned about protectingthe church from embarrassing publicity and expensive lawsuits than it was withprotecting children from sexually predatory priests.
What's new are internal Vatican documents the churchfought to keep secret in a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Archdiocese suggestingthat Pope Benedict himselfas Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the previous pope'senforcer for handling sexual abuse casesintervened to shut down a church trialto defrock a priest who had sexually abused more than 200 boys at St. John'sSchool for the Deaf in St. Francis.
In 1995, Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weaklandsought direction from Ratzinger in conducting a church trial against FatherLawrence Murphy, who headed the school. Not until two years later didRatzinger's deputy advise Weakland to use a procedure established in 1962 tohandle priests who used the confessional to solicit sex.
In 1998, Murphy wrote directly to Ratzinger to askhim to dismiss the charges, citing ill health. Several months later,Ratzinger's deputy advised Weakland and the bishop of the Superior Diocesewhere Murphy had been reassigned to end the trial.
Denying Responsibility
It says a lot about how early the church knew aboutsexual abuse by priests that there had been a formal procedure in place since1962 to deal with priests who trolled for sex in the confession booth.
That was decades before details of widespread sexualabuse of children by priests began emerging in the '90s.
Now facts from Milwaukee and other abuse casesaround the world suggest direct involvement by the pope himself in his previousrolenot only in failing to protect children, but also in overt acts thatshielded sexual abusers.
As abhorrent as those charges are, the Vatican hascompounded the damage by denying any personal responsibility and attacking thenews media and even victims for making the facts public and raising legitimatemoral questions.
On Good Friday, of all days, in a homily attended byPope Benedict at St. Peter's Basilica, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, thepope's personal preacher, compared criticism of the pope to the “collectiveviolence” and “more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism” committed against theJews.
Really. Criticizing the pope for failing to live upto his responsibility to protect children from predatory priests is similar toNazis murdering 6 million Jews during the Holocaust?
The statement was so outrageous it overshadowedother equally absurd remarks made by Cantalamessa in the sermon. Cantalamessaclaimed he had a Jewish “friend” who was indignant over “the violent and concentricattacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful of the whole world.”
Criticizing the personal actions of a human beingwho holds a position of authority in the church is not an attack on “all thefaithful of the whole world.”
A whole lot of the faithful around the world havebeen victimized. They expect the current leaders of the church to come cleanand take personal responsibility for their failedand many would say,immoralattempts to cover up sexual abuse in the church.
Instead, the Vatican circles the wagons and theirdenials become more and more preposterous.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, recentlypromoted from Milwaukee where he was Weakland's successor, on Palm Sundayactually compared the criticism of Pope Benedict to the crucifixion of JesusChrist.
The pope, Dolan said, was “now suffering some of thesame unjust accusations, shouts of the mob and scourging at the pillar” and“being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.”
Pope Benedict is not Jesus Christ. And concernedCatholics and others raising moral questions about personal actions andinactions that protected priests who raped children bear no resemblance to ahowling mob shouting, “Crucify him!”
Until the pope and other church bureaucratsrecognize how their own human failings contributed to the church's crisis, theycannot really begin cleaning up their house.
More virulent homophobia won't be the answer either.
Ultimately, the Catholic Church will have to becomemore open to real change, including married priests, male and female.
When the priesthood is closed to anyone with adesire for a healthy sex life, it is going to attract some people withunhealthy ones.
