What a week it's been! Among the various stories buzzing around my head are: the unthinkable downfall of athlete-on-blades, Oscar Pistorius; another cruise ship adrift for days at sea with the stench of filth surrounding it; a famous actor (who plays garage owner Kevin Webster) in the iconic UK soap opera, Coronation Street, up on child abuse charges; and last, but by no means least, the almost equivalently unthinkable resignation of a sitting Pope.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but God himself (if he actually does exist) is the one who appoints a Cardinal to the top job in the Vatican, and I don't think a mere mortal is considered omnipotent enough to be able to unilaterally decide to resign as the de facto CEO of the secretive (and historically sleazy) Catholic church. No, it's supposed to be "till death do us part", right? Then again, when I think of the millions of people who have falsely spoken that oath in front of "God" and the world, then essentially it can be seen as simply a meaningless and outdated vow.
Ah, but wait, as the CEO of the entire church, one does have access to the special red phone and unique access to God's word, so I guess Benedict is saying that God himself asked him to step down, a move that is a first in basically 600 years?! Why would God decide that for this particular Pope? Hmm, that might be getting at the very crux of the matter. So, either his eminence decided unilaterally to step down (for reasons which we will get into) and/or God concurred and in his wisdom told the guy that he was going to be replaced as CEO - so leave or be squeezed out.
Why?! First off, I think I can safely say that this is the Pope I like the least from my own lifetime, and I wouldn't trust him to do the right thing for anybody except himself, and then only out of some ancient, distorted, perverted and occasionally pseudo-criminal "what is right for the church" type of thinking. When I saw him slap the hand of ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross in 2002, over a question about not pursuing sex abuse charges against a Catholic church leader, I felt nauseous.
Cardinal Ratzinger, as he was then known, slapped Ross's hand like that of a naughty schoolboy, not a grown man. Acting God-like on a public street, and he wasn't even God's CEO at that point? It sort of says it all. What he should have done is shown some real sympathy for what had been transpiring for decades, under his watch, and at least offered a trite statement about some kind of real intent to sort it out. But the church always did have a thing for naughty schoolboys, or more specifically, being naughty with schoolboys, didn't it? It is sickening.
Ratzinger (he deserves no special holy title on this blog) was responsible for looking into sex abuse cases at the Vatican, and we all know what a magnificent job he did at that. Status quo. Business as usual. Cover it up. Smooth over the cracks (no pun intended!). Move the priests around but for "God's sake" don't create a fuss or get anyone charged. That's not good for our business's reputation, nor God's himself. And you know, one day I wanna be CEO, and I am sure I can rely on y'all to return the favor and vote for me in the big conclave board meeting when the time comes, right?! What?! The children? What about them? Leave them be, they will grow up and forget about it, like we also will. Praise be to He on holy high!
I concurred totally with film maker Alex Gibney's comments that he was glad Ratzinger was stepping down.
"I can't help but think that the sex abuse crisis must have been on his mind. There was no going forward on that issue while he was in office. I give him credit for resigning. That brought a bit of modernity to the Papacy.", said Gibney.
Gibney is of course the man who made the 2012 film "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God", a groundbreaking documentary on a sex abuse case involving four deaf men, which represented the first public howl of outcry against clerical sex abuse in the United States. The abuse dates back to the 1960's and it became more famous ultimately as the "Lawrence Murphy case". This "priest" who would more accurately be referred to as a "criminal" or "pervert" or in fact both terms, is estimated to have abused as many as 200 deaf boys up until the 1970's. Yet the Vatican (under Ratzinger's watch) did not move to defrock the priest, and even though the authorities knew of the abuse claims, they also did nothing. It is both bone-chillingly shocking and an absolute unholy disgrace.
But of course, that particular story is but the tip of the iceberg as we all know today. As a Cardinal and leader of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles such cases, various stories have emerged of Ratzinger's unwillingness to rock any boats while continuing the cover-ups. One story involves a priest convicted of child abuse in 1985, but Ratzinger signed a letter refusing to defrock the criminal because of his relative youth (he has his whole career ahead of him!) and for the sake of the church. I saw another piece on the news this week of another priest, someone very high up in the organization who was close to Ratzinger, who apparently was a pedophile, abused his own children, and had two wives on the side. Are you kidding me? It's the Vatican City soap opera or reality TV show!
The stench of filth during this guy's reign makes what people endured on that Carnival cruise ship (Triumph) this week seem almost tolerable by comparison. I can just about support some holier-than-thou proselytizing from the truly devout, but when it comes to these bible thumping evangelists (usually in the USA) who are exposed as all sorts of sleazy perverts or actual criminals, well, it sickens me. How twisted must you be to be laying down the law and speaking of "God's word", when you then go offstage to indulge in the very sins you spout fire and brimstone over? It is both pathetic and despicable. The Catholic church's historically clear and definitive unwillingness to address clerical sex abuse negates the church's entire credibility and even existence in my opinion.
I went to Catholic church as a schoolboy in Ireland, and being young and naive, I could never have imagined what was going on in the ante-chamber. Thank God that I retained that naivete and it was not yanked mercilessly out of me by some criminal pervert and pedophile. But I am one of the lucky ones, for so many more this was not the case. By all their actions, and decades of inaction, the Catholic church under Ratzinger was exposed as hypocritical, unethical and about as far away from "God's word" as it is possible to be. Aren't children supposed to be the most sacred of all creatures under God's watch? Uh-huh.
So, to summarize all of that, it is no shock to me (like Gibney) that the Pope now wants to step down, in principle to allow another to take over (and thus take the heat), nor that he will now retreat totally from public life, and become embroiled in prayer in the newly renovated four story quarters that he nicely arranged for himself pre-retirement. That he wants to go away and not be anywhere near the conclave is also nothing to boast of or claim some credit for - given his own record and association with sleazy cover-ups of repeated criminal child abuse, if he didn't suggest it, I think someone should have told him that they don't want him or his stamp anywhere near the decision over who will replace him. We sure as holy hell don't want a Ratzinger buddy!
But you know? If he was to come out and state that it was actually God's words that told him to step down because God's church could no longer exist in the state that it is in, and God wanted to cleanse it of all the shame it has been drenched in, well, you never know, you might just be able to almost convince me that a God might in fact exist after all! - Kevin Mc
NB - The choice of a photo of the Vatican rather than a photo of the main subject of this story was entirely intentional. One represents what must be left behind in the past and distanced from the institution, while the other might just represent what comes next, and maybe a brighter future.
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