The Trial of Pope Benedict XVI

As a former Catholic who left the Church because of the leadership's homophobia and hypocrisy and - worse yet - utter indifference to the sexual molestation of children and youths, I am glad that Time Magazine has run a cover story on Benedict XVI that looks at the Church's unlimited amounts of dirty laundry, cover ups and lies. There are some gays like Andrew Sullivan - who I respect immensely - who refuse to leave the Catholic Church because they do not want be "driven from their faith." I chose to leave instead and found a denomination much like the Roman Catholic Church which while not perfect allowed me to feel I was not remaining a part of something that was vile and, in fact, a force for evil under the present (and past) Pope and hierarchy. Anyone who gives funds to their local parish ultimately provides funding to the diocese and then the Vatican. Other than by ceasing to contribute entirely can one say they are not financially underwriting what I view as criminal and certainly non-Christian conduct. The entire world needs to know of the Church's sins and demand change. The Church must be recognized as the victimizer rather than the victim which its supporters would have people believe. Otherwise the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy will continue. Here are highlight's from Time:
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[A] well-placed Cardinal has publicly speculated that Benedict will deliver a mea culpa in early June [about the sex abuse scandal] . . . It is unlikely to satisfy the many members of Benedict's flock who want a very modern kind of accountability, not just mealymouthed declarations buttressed by arcane religious philosophy. "Someone once told me that if the church survived the Inquisition, it can survive this," says Olan Horne, 50, an American victim of priestly abuse. "But these are different times. And right now, the modern world is wrapping its head around the Catholic Church in a major way."
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The crisis facing the church is deeply complicated by the fact that in 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, the future Benedict XVI appears to have mismanaged the assignment of an accused pedophile priest under his charge. That revelation — and questions about Ratzinger's subsequent oversight of cases as a top Vatican official — has been the trigger in turning a rolling series of national scandals into an epic and existential test . . .
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Benedict now seems to understand the stakes. But Alberto Melloni, a church historian at the University of Modena, says other power brokers in the Vatican think the church can just ride out the storm. "They don't realize the deep bitterness among the faithful, the isolation of the clergy. We can't predict where this is going to wind up." Speaking to TIME, a senior Vatican official foresees immense consequences for the entire church. "History comes down to certain key episodes," he says. "We're facing one of those moments now."
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The Gospel of St. Mark prescribes a fate for those who harm children: "And whoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." But the outrage embodied in those words has been absent in much of the church's response to crimes committed by its priests.
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A truly successful mea culpa and penance for the abuse scandal must preserve the magisterium while dealing with these facts: Ratzinger, both in his role as the local bishop in Munich from 1977 to 1981 and as the overseer of universal doctrine in Rome, was very much part of a system that had badly underestimated and in some cases enabled the rot of clergy abuse that spread through the church in the past half-century.
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[N]owhere was there a more systemic tendency to cover up the shame and scandal than in Catholic parishes and orphanages entrusted with the care of the young — which showed no compunction about avoiding the civil authorities altogether.
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In 1995 he [Ratzinger] managed to force the removal of Cardinal Hans Hermann Groër as the Archbishop of Vienna, but, according to the New York Times, he did not fight to set up a fact-finding commission to investigate Groër's alleged molestation of young boys after it was blocked by John Paul II's personal secretary, Stanislaw Dziwisz (now Archbishop of Krakow) and the powerful Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano (now dean of the College of Cardinals).
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But in March 2010, German journalists revealed a record that complicates the Pope's reputation. In Munich in 1980, then Archbishop Ratzinger had personally authorized the transfer of an abusive priest, Peter Hullermann, from another part of Germany to his own archdiocese, ostensibly for therapy. But just days after his arrival, the priest was allowed to serve among the flock. Hullermann would be convicted of subsequent sexual assaults in 1986. . . . But defending the Pope by pointing out that he was following the standard operating procedures of the day or that he was not focused on his oversight duties no longer cuts it for most Catholics. "The impression it leaves is that these things simply weren't very important to the bishops and Cardinals," says Melloni. "To say he didn't know is not a defense; it's the problem."
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Even if Benedict forces the Curia to be more forthcoming, he will not have caught up with many believers. Though their church is still run top-down, Catholics now carry the expectations of a kind of faithful citizenry rather than an obedient flock. Plans are afoot for thousands of abuse victims and their loved ones to travel to Rome in October for a "Reformation Day" to pressure the Vatican to act.
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Father Thomas Whelan, a professor of theology at Dublin's Milltown Institute, points out that . . . If the church doesn't clean house, the consequences will be dire. The scandals in deeply Catholic Ireland have led to a massive emptying of churches. Controversies in Germany, Austria and other parts of Europe have had a similar effect. "This memory [of sexual abuse] will now be forever encased in history," says Whelan. "In Ireland, at least, theology can't ever be the same without mentioning it — not just the abuse but how it was handled by the church."