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	Jack Spillane: the Pope and the World We Live in Standard-Times April 17, 2008 http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080417/OPINION/804170340/-1/NEWS01 They say that Pope Benedict XVI is a nice man who likes America. At least that's the P.R. the Vatican press office has been pushing this week, and that the increasingly unskeptical American press corps has been dutifully promulgating. Much of the media coverage about the pope's American visit has been about how the former Panzer Cardinal has turned into the gentle pope. That's because Pope Benedict doesn't excommunicate you if you're a divorced Catholic, non-celibate homosexual, or supporter of abortion rights or the right to die on your own terms. He just tells you you're morally insufficient. This "low-key" approach, we're informed, is an indication of the gentle style of this most conservative pope in a half-century. Pope Benedict (the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger), of course, did not win the most powerful religious office in the world without being a shrewd politician. So just prior to his arrival in America he said he's more than sorry — in fact, "deeply ashamed" — for the priest sex abuse scandal. That's the scandal that, despite the attempts of many to make Cardinal Bernard Law and other bishops the sole scapegoats, in all probability went all the way to the Vatican itself. None other than the truly saintly common man's pope — John XXIII — approved a 1962 instruction to bishops to maintain, on pains of excommunication, the secrecy of the confessional for priests who had admitted to child abuse. And, according to The New York Times, Cardinal Ratzinger himself was in charge of disciplining priests accused of child abuse for some 25 years during John Paul's papacy and Cardinal Law's tenure in Boston. The Vatican's historic view seems to have been to preserve the reputation of the church from scandal or the people would lose faith. That was the policy no matter who was pope until 2001 — Pius XII, Paul VI or John Paul II — and to pretend otherwise is to fail to come to terms with the scandal itself. It is unreasonable, however, to be harshly judgmental of the Catholic Church about the sexual abuse scandal. The church, at the time, reflected the practices and beliefs of society as a whole. The sexual abuse of children and adolescents, until very recent decades, was something that polite society simply didn't talk about. Whether it was a coach, Scout leader, politician or beloved dad, the subject of child abuse was swept under the rug. The feeling was that it was best not to ruin the reputations of all concerned. We know better now about how devastating the traumatic effects of childhood sexual abuse can be. But whatever one thinks of the church, it is far beyond unfair to judge its past actions on the most emotional of issues by contemporary standards. Besides his child abuse mea culpas, the Holy Father this week also plans to meet with American Catholic bishops, academics and ecumenical leaders. To the Catholics, he'll lay down Ratzinger's Laws about what's appropriate and what's not appropriate, not only for their teachings, but for their very opinions. The Catholic Church hierarchy is nothing if not aggressive about reserving to itself the authority to determine right and wrong, right down to thought control. That's an approach to life that is fundamentally incompatible with the American emphasis on individual freedom, never mind modern understandings of human psychology. Only time will tell if the church changes its ways, or whether it actually succeeds in changing America and thus the world itself, which — make no doubt about it — is Benedict's ultimate goal. So for his meeting with ecumenical leaders, it will be interesting to see the pope's approach. Remember this is the cardinal who was not afraid to criticize the hugely popular John Paul II for praying with other ecumenical leaders at Assisi without first making it clear the Catholic Church was the premier among equals. It's difficult to imagine that while visiting the United States, Benedict will take the Ratzinger approach with American Protestants, Jews, Muslims or Buddhists. But we shall see. This is not a man who is ultimately fearful of being politically incorrect. Remember the furor that erupted when he quite justifiably, and purposely, quoted a Byzantine emperor asking exactly what benefits Islam had brought to the world. Since that time, Benedict has moderated his rhetoric on Islam, you can only assume because of the awareness of church fathers of the real threat of violence to the pope by some Muslims. The most disappointing part of Pope Benedict's visit could be his failure to meet with non-believers of good will, or to deal in any realistic way with the undeniable links between overpopulation and the environmental threats to the planet. Benedict's second encyclical, "Saved by Hope," argues that there is a link between atheism and the great human atrocities of the 20th century, were they engendered by Nazism, Stalinism or communism. The weakness of his argument, of course, is that some of the greatest of human atrocities have historically been committed in the name of God, not to mention the Catholic Church itself. To wit, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of witches at the stake. And, of course, the unspeakable tragedy of 9/11 was also committed in the name of religion. Benedict's anti-atheist argument has the effect of lumping in all atheists, including ones who have done great good for humanity — everyone from Noam Chomsky to Bob Geldof to Portuguese playwright Jose Saramago — with the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. If you add in well-respected agnostics to the list of non-believers — like Albert Einstein, Clarence Darrow, Stephen Jay Gould — it's difficult to comprehend the value of Benedict's tarring all non-religionists this way. It's also hard to understand the pope's evolving environmental position. The church has recently added environmental degradation to its list of serious sins in the modern world. Yet the church has not moved an inch from its position that all man-made forms of contraception are immoral. We're not talking about abortion here, but common forms of birth control medications and devices, inventions that have made the quality of life for millions of working people incalculably better. So it's hard to square the church's admirable concern for global warming with its insistence that the same warming is not acutely connected to the energy needs of an out-of-control world population. Benedict XVI is a brilliant man capable of making elegant arguments on behalf of his belief system and the importance of living by a moral code. But his is an inflexible system, one that, by its own admission, does not understand the important role relativism sometimes plays in a complex world. It lacks common sense, if you will. It is a belief system increasingly out of touch with reality. You can only be sad that a well-intentioned person such as this pope, with so much power to move the world in a beneficial direction, has placed such impossible constrictions on the ways it is legitimate to do so. Contact Jack Spillane at jspillane@s-t.com
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