NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL – EDITORIAL: Now that it has been revealed that the pope failed to act against the sexual abuse by clerics when he could have, he has become part of the problem.
The Dutch archbishop, Johannes Simonis, appeared on national television this week to argue that the Dutch Catholic Church had been ignorant of the massive sexual abuse that had taken place within its ranks over the last few decades. If there is one single Roman Catholic prelate who could not argue the same, it is pope Benedict XVI. Archbishop Simonis demonstrated a shocking naiveté by his choice of words. “Wir haben es nicht gewusst,” he said, German for “we didn’t know”. This phrase recalls the excuse German citizens used after the war to explain their failure to prevent atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.
Whether Simonis was telling the truth or not, the pope cannot possibly say he was unaware. In July of 1996, then cardinal Ratzinger, chief ideologist for the Vatican in his capacity as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, received a letter from the archbishop of Milwaukee in the United States. The archbishop asked Ratzinger for advice regarding two priests in his diocese who had sexually abused children in their care. One of them had done so at a school for the deaf. And ecclesiastical authorities knew of the abuse but failed to act.
Ratzinger never even bothered answering the letter. The New York Times revealed this striking example of the Vatican’s callousness and arrogance on Thursday.
The Church is hoping the matter will blow over. Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi called the case “tragic”, but said the Vatican did not learn about the case until the late 1990s. Lombardi made a splash before by going on the offence and saying sexual abuse is not exclusively committed within the Church. But the New York Times’ article goes a long way towards debunking this ‘pot calling the kettle black’ argument.
The net is closing around pope Benedict XVI. His letter to the Irish faithful last weekend was full of consoling words, but little promise of action. It was mostly political in nature and an attempt at damage control. >>> Editorial | Friday, March 26, 2010
