The Pope is obnoxious
Following the apparition of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, there has been an article in the New York Times just about every morning. For example, this morning.
During a conclave with reporters, the NYT reports, the Pope gave a “direct condemnation” of “the sexual abuse crisis.” Playing its own Devil’s Advocate, the article immediately refutes itself, showing how the Pope issued nothing but non-sequitur. Raising the Christian persecution complex to new institutional levels, Ratzinger portrayed “the church” as a victim. Indeed, the Church is attacked “not only from outside,” but also from inside. That is to say, the anti-Catholic media and the clergy who molest children share a common victim: “the church.” Ratzinger thinks the church must “relearn” “conversion, prayer, penance.”
What is so obnoxious about these statements is that they amount to changing the subject. The object of public outrage is divided into a couple of areas: (1) the disturbingly frequent occurrence of child molestation and rape even at very high levels and (2) the cover-ups, transfers, and delays issued in response to the crimes when they were first brought to supposed spiritual authorities, including Ratzinger, now the “Vicar of Christ on Earth.” Will he ever address those topics with anything other than obscurantist generality? Notice that everything he says about this scandal would be true without it. When does the Church not need to relearn “conversion, prayer, penance”? Such fluffy theological language always applies. When is there not sin in the Church? Etc.
There are of course extra theological embarrassments, e.g. that Ratzinger is Pope partly due to getting some of the child rapist vote. In general, claims that the Catholic Church makes for itself and its Pope are so inflated that perhaps this scandal is what will put wavering Catholics over the edge. But lucky for Catholicism, much of its inflated membership is constituted by cultural Catholics, Catholics who show up once or twice a year, and so on.
I will end by stating the morally obvious: There are indeed identifiable victims; they are children who have been molested, raped, and psychologically damaged for the rest of their lives by Catholic clergy, including at the highest levels. Victim status actually can be shared by some outside parties – namely, the parents of the children. The Catholic institutions of authority and humans who populate them are the opposite of victims. Some of them are direct molesters and rapists, others are culpable for protecting and advocating for molesters and rapists (for the good of the “church”), others are culpable for looking the other way, others were ignorant of the whole affair, and the last group includes those who tried and failed to do something about the issue. Ratzinger, an accomplishment of whose is forgiving child rape (on behalf of …? did someone molest the church?), now says that “justice” is important. Therefore, he should take everyone in the first three groups above, including himself, and submit to civil authorities in the relevant domains. This ultimate fate, common for poor offenders, for cults, etc., will not befall Catholic officials.
The issue here is not some general spiritual combat involving the church. The problem is very particular, involving identifiable individuals and events. The only broad or general implication is that these individuals and events were supported and protected within the Catholic institutional structure. But unless you think that the church and its authorities are magical, it doesn’t strictly matter that it is the church. The same issues and objections would arise for any other institution founded and sustained by humans (say, the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts of America, or the United Nations). But the Catholic Church and its leadership, who are now making morally grotesque public statements with regularity, are so colossally arrogant that they can’t think of themselves in this lowly way.