UNITED STATES
Mediaite
by Tommy Christopher | 11:14 am, February 11th, 2013
The news of Pope Benedict XVI‘s resignation from the papacy, the first such resignation since the year 1415, has led to, and will surely lead to more, whitewashing of the former Joseph Ratzinger‘s role in enabling priests to molest children. On Monday morning’s Morning Joe, however, host Joe Scarborough added insult as he sat mute while Father Edward Beck credited the retiring pontiff, “despite some media reports,” with “aggressive” handling of what he called the “sex abuse scandal,” while ignoring the fact that Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy includes being the first pope to be personally implicated in enabling a priest to continue molesting children.
The Pope’s resignation comes as a surprise, and has been greeted, by the media, with credulous repetition of Benedict’s “advanced age” as the reason for his sudden, once-in-600-years resignation, and tentative mentions of “questions” regarding his role in the Catholic Church’s child sexual assault scandals. As Pope, Benedict has made a show of reforming the Church’s handling of such crimes, and even apologized to U.S. survivors of these crimes. It is for this that Father Beck thinks this pope will be remembered.
“I think his legacy would be, for many, moving to a more traditional Catholicism,” Father Beck told the Morning Joe crew, then added that. “Despite some media reports, many see his dealing with the sex abuse scandal, even when he was cardinal, before becoming pope, as more aggressive than those previous to him. So to kind of get that ship in order again, in the wake of the sex abuse scandal, could be part of his legacy.”
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