BishopAccountability.org
	Cardinal OMalley to the Rescue By Michael Sean Winters America Magazine April 18, 2008 http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=61C010B0-5056-8960-32023287C629474B The Pope's itinerary did not include Boston, the center of the clerical sex abuse crisis, so Boston came to the Pope. In a private meeting at the nunciature, Pope Benedict XVI met with half a dozen victims of clerical sex abuse, prayed with them, and Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, OFM Cap, gave the pontiff a book containing the names of some 1,000 victims. In addition, the Pope addressed the issue during his press conference on the plane from Rome, in his meeting with the American bishops, and during his homily at yesterday's Mass here in Washington. But, it was the face-to-face meeting that stands out. According to an official who was involved in arranging the meeting, strenuous objections were raised to such a meeting. Curial opposition was fierce. Only a direct appeal from Cardinal O'Malley made the meeting happen. What the Pope understood, perhaps better than his aides, was that while there is no way for one meeting to off-set all the pain and suffering the sex abuse victims have endured, the physicality of the evil had to be matched by the physicality of forgiveness. Abstract theories about pedophilia, about the demands of justice, about Episcopal responsibility needed to be set aside. Years ago, these victims had met their clergy and been violated. Here they met with their Pope and they were embraced in holiness, prayer, and love. When we see the Pope, what do we see? We see the physical presence of Peter, Jesus' best friend when he walked upon the earth. Indeed, when we look to history and consider different popes, when we say that this pope was a good one, or that pope was a bad one, the criterion we employ is this simple: did a given pope show himself to be a friend of Jesus? Yesterday, Pope Benedict showed himself to be a friend of Jesus. We Catholics live a fleshly faith. We like the smell of incense. Our sacraments consist in the admixture of God's grace and nature's most basic elements: bread, wine, water, oil. The Pope is the human face of Peter in our midst. This is why the violation of the flesh was even more revolting than other instances of sexual abuse. When priests abused a minor, the victim was violated but so was the Church. The Church in America is not yet ready to say with the dying cleric in George Bernanos' Diary of a Country Priest: "What does it matter. Grace is everywhere." The abuse scandal still matters. But, yesterday, in the most vital, literal and physical instance of his Petrine ministry, Benedict ensured that grace was abundant at the nunciature in Washington.
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