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Fuller account what the Pope said on the airplane
As a followup to what I posted here, we should strive to see the larger picture, the fuller account of the Holy Father’s remarks on the airplane about priests who abused minors. The New York Times has something:
Pope Expresses Deep Shame Over Priests’ Sexual Abuse
By JOHN HOLUSHA
Pope Benedict XVI said on Tuesday that he was “deeply ashamed” by the Roman Catholic Church’s child sexual-abuse scandals in the United States, and said it is causing “great suffering” for the church and “me personally.”
Speaking to reporters on an airplane taking him for his first visit to the United States as pope, he addressed the scandal in the U.S. that has produced more than 5,000 sexual abuse victims since it erupted in 2002 and cost the church more than $2 billion.
In his most extensive remarks so far on the issue, the Pope expressed his personal remorse about the abuse scandal and said the church is increasing its efforts to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.
“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”
Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the Pontiff said: “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.”
“Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest,” he added.
The Pope said church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.”
“We hope that we can do, and we have done and will do in the future, all that is possible to heal this wound.”
The Pope is not new to issues involving abusive priests. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was responsible for deciding whether to discipline priests accused of sexual abuse.
He read dossiers on the cases forwarded to him from bishops around the world. Aides said he was deeply distressed reading the accounts of victims whose trust in the church was betrayed by the priests who violated them.
In a homily he gave just before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger decried the “filth” in the priesthood, which many interpreted as a reference to the abusers. As Pope, he ordered the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaires of Christ, to be removed from his ministry and to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penitence. Rev. Maciel died in February.
The Pope answered four questions from reporters that were submitted in advance and selected by the Vatican. He spoke for about 15 minutes.
The Pope also spoke about immigration and said he would discuss the issue with President Bush, who is scheduled to meet the Papal airplane when it lands this afternoon at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. He also discussed the role of religion in America.
One of the repercussions of the child abuse scandals in the United States is that lay Catholics across the country are demanding more financial accountability from their bishops and more control over decisions, particularly when it comes to parishes.
The Pope plans to spend several days in the Washington area before traveling to New York to hold services, address the United Nations and visit a synagogue.
So, that is a somewhat fuller account that what La Reppubblica issued, isn’t it!
First of all, I love and respect the Holy Father and emphatically do not want to see his visit hijacked by the pedophilia/ sex abuse theme.
That said, my entire family was profoundly affected by the sexual crisis, two brothers in particular, but all of us as a result, including a sister who left the faith.
The Holy Father promises no more pedophiliac priests, but it was not a pedophilia crisis by and large, though the two most prominent perpetrators, Frs Shanley and Geoghan were pedophiliacs. Pedophiles do not prey on post-pubescent males, but that is overwhelmingly the demographic of the victims.
This was a crisis of a homosexual culture overwhelming our seminaries. Until that diagnosis is made and the appropriate steps taken, promises that no more pedophiliacs will be ordained leaves me flat, frankly. I don’t know to what extent that miserable culture has been eradicated from the seminaries and priesthood, but I sincerely hope that that papal and episcopal concern is not limited to merely keeping pedophilacs from our seminaries and altars. No more “gay” priests, bishops, seminary professors and rectors, Holy Father! Per favore! Please, never again!
May the Lord bless you and keep you on this trip, and help us to absorb and implement the message you have for the church in the United States!
Please remember my family in your prayers. We are still lost, stunned, broken.
Comment by Lee — 15 April 2008 @ 11:08 amBe sure to post comments on the NYTimes blog on the Holy Father’s visit. Help to tip the balance in favor of orthodox Catholicism in the Times blogosphere. Don’t miss Colleen Carroll Campbell’s piece: http://thepope.blogs.nytimes.com/author/cccampbell/
Comment by Ioannes — 15 April 2008 @ 11:27 amI, too, am sad that La Reppubblica is already making this trip into a discussion of the clergy abuse crisis. The teaser at the end of the NYT article isn’t much more revealing than the original La Reppubblica. I really do want to know what B-XVI said about immigration and about religion in America! And I think most readers would be interested in that, too. After all, paedophile priests has been batted around ad nauseum for quite some time, whereas the Papal Thoughts on these other topics have not.
Still, I was just over looking at how the gay press is covering this one. And they have jumped on the same conclusion as you, Lee. It gives many celibate gay priests hope that Benedict is doing some good to erase the prior bad rap. It was harmful when some folks tried to load the sheep and the goats together on the train to Hell. I think Benedict did well by making the distinction.
But still, lets hear more of the Holy Father’s more inspirational, less political, words!
Comment by Virgil — 15 April 2008 @ 11:58 amVirgil, this is the first I’ve heard of what I had hoped the Pope actually said, i.e. differentiating between the child abuse and homosexual adolescent abuse. Unfortunately, the first thing I heard on the radio this morning was the media quoting “there is no place in the preisthood for pedophiles” – and that was it! I would have hoped that advisors to the Pope, with him on the plane, would have warned him (maybe they did, and it just doesn’t make any difference!) that the Amercian secular media would take any simple sentence, and put into whatever context they desired.
Comment by Stephen M. Collins — 15 April 2008 @ 12:27 pmThe crisis in the Church was NOT about pedophilia. It was about homosexual priests praying on pubescent and post-pubescent young men. The elephant in the room is homosexuality. You’ll never hear it from the mainline press.
I remember the former Vatican press agent quoting then Cardinal Ratzinger, CDF head, something to the effect that the priestly ordinations of intentionally homosexual men (unrepentant) were invalid.
Then, quickly a correction was ordered by someone (Cardinal Sodano) from on high.
I wonder why… Notice how the media emphasizes the Pope making the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia. I’ll bet these were VERY selected quotes to set this path for the trip by the NY Times—a juggernaut of journalistic integrity… {dripping with sarcasm}
Comment by Brian Mershon — 15 April 2008 @ 12:41 pm“preying” not “praying”. Sorry about the slip-up.
Comment by Brian Mershon — 15 April 2008 @ 12:45 pmSo, thus far, we’ve got The New York Times, and only The New York Times, claiming the Holy Father made the very distinction between homosexuality and clerical sex abuse that it has been topmost on the liberal agenda (so far as this issue is concerned) to make. Hmmm.
Not that the distinction is necessarily meaningless. There are (aren’t there?) gay priests who struggle successfully against their temptations. The question is whether the Church should knowingly admit more, trusting that, with appropriate theological and ascetic formation, the outcome will always be positive, or in enough cases to make the risk worthwhile. I humbly suggest it will not be, and I think the same is implied in the words everyone agrees the Pope said on the plane: “It is more important to have good priests than many priests.”
Of course if the Pope did make the distinction in question, I suppose that will mean a few more discriminating pope-consumers will be ready to excommunicate him and start attending the chapel of their choice….
Comment by Cacciaguida — 15 April 2008 @ 12:51 pmBrian, your statement is debatable and somewhat unfair. Just a bec