UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Louis A. Ruprecht
The unexpected announcement by Pope Benedict XVI that he will step down from his pontifical duties on Feb. 28 came as a stunning surprise to media observers and Catholic faithful alike. Predictably, theories about what lay behind the move abound, most of them conspiratorial.
My first inclination in responding to this news was not conspiratorial. I am inclined to take the Pontiff at his word, and to assume that this decision is based on his declining physical abilitiess, or declining health, and that these are severe enough to warrant this highly unusual decision. I have seen nothing to support the most conspiratorial interpretation of his announcement, suggesting that his departure confirms that the pope is “giving up” in the wake of all the scandals that have beleaguered his papacy for so many years.
First among these is the sexual abuse scandal that spread like wildfire and refused to abate, suggesting at times the existence of a systemic failure on the part of ecclesiastical officials to take the matter up with sufficient seriousness. Since then-Cardinal Raitzinger was responsible for reviewing all such accusations of priestly impropriety, the pope is intimately, perhaps too intimately, involved in this scandal.
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