Well Pangurban it was very difficult for me to get past Section 4. I only managed it this morning.
It came as no surprise to me that this letter falls far short of any significant acceptance of responsibility for the crime or admission of a cover-up. Pope Benedict seeks to place almost all responsibility on the priests involved in child abuse and he tries to divert blame for the role of the bishops, archbishops, and popes who kept the deviants in positions where their immoral and criminal activity was likely to be repeated.
Section 7 is the only place where he talks about "responsibility" for the crime. As such he points a finger
of blame at those who have already been convicted, thereby telling us nothing.
Section 11,
In this wordy section of the letter, Pope Benedict falls far short of accepting administrative responsibility for the child sex -abuse crimes
committed or any subsequent cover-up. He talks about "serious mistakes" and "failures of leadership", but he offsets that with "long
established norms of canon law", "how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem", "continuing to cooperate with
civil authorities", and so on. He calls for "decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency", but that is just bull.
The pope's letter itself does not reflect any kind of decisive action (other than writing a letter), and the words of the letter certainly
do not display either "complete honesty" or "transparency".
This letter is will not be well received throughout the world and I doubt that it will be well received by those Irish Catholics who are proactive on this whole sex abuse saga..
It came as no surprise to me that this letter falls far short of any significant acceptance of responsibility for the crime or admission of a cover-up. Pope Benedict seeks to place almost all responsibility on the priests involved in child abuse and he tries to divert blame for the role of the bishops, archbishops, and popes who kept the deviants in positions where their immoral and criminal activity was likely to be repeated.
Section 7 is the only place where he talks about "responsibility" for the crime. As such he points a finger
of blame at those who have already been convicted, thereby telling us nothing.
Section 11,
In this wordy section of the letter, Pope Benedict falls far short of accepting administrative responsibility for the child sex -abuse crimes
committed or any subsequent cover-up. He talks about "serious mistakes" and "failures of leadership", but he offsets that with "long
established norms of canon law", "how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem", "continuing to cooperate with
civil authorities", and so on. He calls for "decisive action carried out with complete honesty and transparency", but that is just bull.
The pope's letter itself does not reflect any kind of decisive action (other than writing a letter), and the words of the letter certainly
do not display either "complete honesty" or "transparency".
This letter is will not be well received throughout the world and I doubt that it will be well received by those Irish Catholics who are proactive on this whole sex abuse saga..