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	Pope Benedict Turns His Back on a Church in Crisis By Philip Stephens Financial Times April 15, 2010 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/d346b090-48ee-11df-8af4-00144feab49a,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fd346b090-48ee-11df-8af4-00144feab49a.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bishop-accountability.org%2FAbuseTracker%2F For a time I was puzzled by Pope Benedict's response to the crisis in the Catholic church. We might disagree about the course of Catholicism. In uncharitable moments, I might mutter that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was politician as much as priest; his piety merged with ambition some time ago. Yet the Pope indisputably was highly intelligent. Surely he could see what was happening. Now, I think I understand. The pontiff is a globaliser. He can feel the world's geopolitical plates shifting. He grasps as well as any politician or business leader that the west has had its day. The opportunities to spread the gospel lie elsewhere - in societies more respectful of authority and less questioning of past crimes. Pope Benedict, after all, cannot be blind to the crisis of faith among his flock in Europe and North America. He must have known as well as anyone else how many tens of millions had walked away even before the revelations of clerical child abuse and episcopal cover-ups.
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