"It Isn't Prudent" to Stop a Sexual Predator

The New York Times and Andrew Sullivan have new coverage on the ongoing Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal that continue to confirm the moral bankruptcy - and less than saintly qualities - of former Pope John Paul II and the current occupant of the Throne of St. Peter, Pope Benedict XVI. I continue to focus on the Catholic Church's dirty laundry for several reasons. The first is that the Catholic Church hierarchy remains one of the leading supporters of the denigration and legal inequality of LGBT individuals. Second, the Church hierarchy and the gay-hating propaganda that it disseminates continues to ruin countless gay lives every single day. Lastly, the Church hierarchy comprises one of the most self-centered bunch of hypocrites on the planet. Only full exposure of all of the evils perpetrated will end this malevolent force in society and force desperately needed changes within the Church if it is to survive. Here are some highlights from the New York Times:
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The two former Mexican seminarians had gone to the Vatican in 1998 to personally deliver a case recounting decades of sexual abuse by one of the most powerful priests in the Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado.
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As they left, they ran into the man who would hold Father Maciel’s fate in his hands, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and kissed his ring. The encounter was no accident. Cardinal Ratzinger wanted to meet them, witnesses later said, and their case was soon accepted. But in little more than a year, word emerged that Cardinal Ratzinger — the future Pope Benedict XVI — halted the inquiry. “It isn’t prudent,” he had told a Mexican bishop, according to two people who later talked to the bishop.
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[I]t took Cardinal Ratzinger — by then Pope Benedict — until 2006, eight years after the case went before him, to address Father Maciel’s abuses by removing him from priestly duties and banishing him to a life of prayer and penitence, though without publicly acknowledging his wrongs or the suffering of his victims.
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A close look at the record shows that the case was marked by the same delays and bureaucratic caution that have emerged in the handling of other sexual abuse matters crossing Benedict’s desk, whether as an archbishop in Munich or a cardinal in Rome. Benedict’s supporters believe he was trying to take action on the Maciel case but was thwarted by other powerful church officials. But advocates for Father Maciel’s victims say that the Vatican’s eventual investigation and reckoning in the case were too little, too late.
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Former Legion seminarians have said that Father Maciel abused them from the early 1940s to the early ’60s, when they were 10 to 16 years old. For years, Father Maciel had cultivated powerful allies among the cardinals, through gifts and cash donations, according to reporting by Jason Berry in the National Catholic Reporter. Mr. Berry is co-author of a book about the order and helped break the story of the priest’s abuses. Chief among these allies was the former Vatican secretary of state and, by office, the most powerful man next to Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Angelo Sodano
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In an interview, Father Athié said Bishop Talavera — who has since died — told him that the cardinal had read the letter and decided not to proceed with the case. “Ratzinger said it could not be opened because he was a person very beloved by the pope,” referring to Father Maciel, “and had done a lot of good for the church. He said as well, ‘I am very sorry, but it isn’t prudent,’ ” Father Athié said. Saúl Barrales, a schoolteacher who once worked as Father Maciel’s secretary and is a cousin of Bishop Talavera, said he had heard the same account of the conversation from the bishop.
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The rest of the Times article bears reading. Nothing can excuse Benedict XVI for his moral failures in not pursuing Maciel. If John Paul II insisted on a cover up, Benedict should have resigned and gone public. Unfortunately, Benedict apparently put power and money ahead of morality. As I have asked before, when is Benedict going to resign? Andrew Sullivan sums it up this way:
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[T]he Pope decided not to act against a morphine-addicted, polygamous rapist of minors and his own children because the rapist was close to John Paul II. And instead of closing down a cult penetrated by this corruption to its core, he has just decided merely to give it a new head and leave much of its pre-existing leadership in place.
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Why? Because the cult still manages to bring in new priests and is worth some $35 billion. When measured against rape and incest, the money and vocations are more important to Pope Benedict XVI. So too is the fact that the Legion backs the theology and orthodoxy of the Franco-Pinochet Catholic far right.