What Pope Benedict XVI did or didn't do when he was Archbishop of Munich and Freising and the powerful head of a Vatican department has been the subject of numerous news stories this past week. However, let's not forget the last words from the pope himself regarding the sex abuse scandal - the letter he addressed to the Catholics of Ireland dated March 20, 2010
Benedict wrote that rapid changes in, and the secularization of, Irish society - which included priests, brothers and nuns - "adversely affected" traditional Catholic values. "It is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse." The pope then told Irish Catholics that, "Through intense prayer, you can make reparation for the sins of abuse that have done so much harm."
Got that? Child sexual abuse has to be understood in the context of the secularization of Irish society whose members can now make "reparations for the sins of abuse."
You may have missed the part (because it wasn't there) where Benedict apologized for his three-plus decades of leadership in an organization comprised of thousands of bishops (appointed with his blessing) who not only could have prevented children from being raped and sodomized and didn't, but also advanced the careers of the pedophiles and persecuted the victims. Nor will you find where Benedict thinks he and his prelates have any need to make their own reparations.
(You can read the letter in full at http://ncronline.org/...
That said, let's address for just a moment the controversy over whether Cardinal Ratzinger, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, knew in 1980 about the transfer of a known pedophile priest to a position working with more children after which the cleric sexually assaulted additional children. The Vatican has insisted that Ratzinger knew nothing about it, meaning we can only surmise that child-abusing priests must have been so commonplace that his employees already understood not to bother their boss with the details. After all, what would YOU have done if your employees failed to inform you of children being raped under your watch?