Pope Benedict XVI: The apologist

[IndianaGreen]

Pope Benedict XVI: The apologist

He was supposed to be a safe pair of hands. But five years into the job, Joseph Ratzinger is caught in an unprecedented papal storm

By Peter Stanford

Saturday, 3 April 2010

When his fellow cardinals elected Joseph Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI five years ago this month, they were deliberately opting for continuity in the face of demands from liberal Catholics around the world for a radical change of direction at the top.

Ratzinger, then just a few days short of his 78th birthday, was the long-time right-hand man to the headline-grabbing John Paul II, and so, his colleagues believed, would maintain the discipline, stability and clear sense of purpose that the Polish pontiff had brought to Catholicism in his 27 years at the Vatican.

What almost certainly didn't cross the minds of this most exclusive of electoral colleges, however, was that Ratzinger might turn out to be the very opposite of a safe pair of hands. But that is the prospect facing Catholicism this Easter. For Benedict XVI has been accused in recent weeks of tainting the very office of Pope, bequeathed by Jesus to Peter, with the long-running and horrific scandal of paedophile priests.

While no one is accusing Benedict XVI of himself being an abuser, damaging questions are being asked in Germany and America about the extent of his personal involvement in the decades of cover-up of the activities of perverted clerics that has taken such a toll on Catholicism's good name and moral authority. It has been alleged in particular that as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1981 he was complicit in allowing Father Peter Hullermann, a known child abuser, to return to parish duties where he again preyed on children.

The Pope's involvement in this case was at the very most indirect, his supporters protest. Potentially more damaging, though, is the charge that as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II from 1981 onwards, he allowed Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused some 200 deaf boys in America, to avoid justice. As Cardinal Ratzinger, he was sent two letters in 1996 from the local archbishop in Milwaukee asking for permission to defrock Murphy, but they went unanswered.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/pope-benedict-xvi-the-apologist-1934748.html

[LakeSamish706]

1. Don't ya just love Religion? Sorry, but I really think that Agnostic is the way to go for me.

What I want to know is how can reasonable people with the same brain process that I have, believe in something that just does not make any sense! I do believe that there is some sort of creator, but I will be damned if I can believe in a book called the Bible. There has to be more to this life than "God Created Heaven And Earth in 6 days" and then rested on the seventh".