In Defense Of The Pope

A bit of late blogging on this one. From the most unlikely of source - the pages of the NYT - we see a substantive defense of Pope Benedict XVI as to his own role in the Church's sex abuse scandals. Op-ed columnist Ross Douthat takes note of the efforts then Cardinal Ratzinger made to address sex scandals in the Church, fighting the Vatican bureauacracy and the disorganization of Pope John Paul II. As Mr. Douthat concludes:

So the high-flying John Paul let scandals spread beneath his feet, and the uncharismatic Ratzinger was left to clean them up. This pattern extends to other fraught issues that the last pope tended to avoid — the debasement of the Catholic liturgy, or the rise of Islam in once-Christian Europe. And it extends to the caliber of the church’s bishops, where Benedict’s appointments are widely viewed as an improvement over the choices John Paul made. It isn’t a coincidence that some of the most forthright ecclesiastical responses to the abuse scandal have come from friends and protégés of the current pope.

Has Benedict done enough to clean house and show contrition? Alas, no. Has his Vatican responded to the latest swirl of scandal with retrenchment, resentment, and an un-Christian dose of self-pity? Absolutely. Can this pontiff regain the kind of trust and admiration, for himself and for his office, that John Paul II enjoyed? Not a chance.

But as unlikely as it seems today, Benedict may yet deserve to be remembered as the better pope.

Do read the entire article.

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The Pope Goes Marxist - Let's Hope He Is Not Speaking Ex-Cathedra

It turns out Pope Benedict XVI has a bit of Karl Marx in him. The Pope has issued a 144 page encyclical letter (not ex cathedra), Caritas In Veritate (Charity in Truth), arguing for what amounts to a new socialist world order with business centrally controlled and run for the social good rather than profit.

It is more than a bit ironic, since the father of socialism, Karl Marx, provided the historical framework for the war on Christianity that the left is carrying on so successfully today. But in a way, it is not surprising that both should advocate socialism, as socialism is ultimately a Utopian ideal, As Churchill sagely noted some years ago, there are only two places where socialism would work - "in heaven, where it is not needed, and in hell, where it is already in practice."

"Ex Cathedra," by the way, refers to the relatively recent doctrine of papal infallibility. The doctrine holds that the Pope speaks with divine inspiration - and thus his pronouncements are infallible - when he speaks on moral issues and invokes the doctrine of infallibility by explicitly stating that his teaching is a core belief to be adopted by the entire Church.

This from the Washington Post on the Pope's encyclical letter:

Pope Benedict XVI criticized the international economic system yesterday and called for a new global structure based on social responsibility, concern for the dignity of the worker and a respect for ethics.

"Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding human enterprise," Benedict wrote in his latest encyclical, which is the most authoritative document a pope can issue. "Without doubt, one of the greatest risks for business is that they are almost exclusively answerable to their investors, thereby limited in their social value."

In the sweeping 144-page document, Benedict sketches a radically different world economy, in which access to food and water is a universal right, wealthy nations share with poorer ones and profit is not the ultimate goal of commerce. He advocates the creation of a "world political authority" to manage the economy.

He blames "badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing" for causing the economic meltdown. The primary capital to be safeguarded is people, he says, adding that economic systems need to be guided by charity and truth. . . .

Unfortunately, the Pope has things backwards. He apparently skipped Econ 101 to concentrate on religious training. Capitalism has been the greatest engine of human advancement and the war on poverty that the world has ever known. The breakdown in the markets that we are experiencing can be traced in a direct line to government intervention for the purpose of social engineering - precisely what the Pope is advocating. If the Pope wants to ensure social progress, he is going about it in completely the wrong way. As Anatole Kaletsky wrote in the Times in 2003:

Even if there were room for argument about the benefits of free trade and free markets to workers in advanced industrial countries — and there really cannot be, if we compare what has happened to ordinary people’s lives in Western and Eastern Europe, not to mention in North and South Korea, during the 50 years since the Second World War — the principle that global capitalism is the most benign and successful of all human creations would be firmly established by the social progress in China since its integration into the global economy.

A few days ago, Charles Krauthammer noted that when our President finds himself on the side of Castro and Chavez, its time for him to reevaluate his position. A similar thing can be said of our Pope. When he finds himself advocating the policies of Marx and Lenin, that ought to be a clue that it is time to reevaluate his position. Business are and always will be soulless institutions. It is the individuals who profit from and are employed by the business - those with souls - upon whom the Pope should be concentrating. And history tells us that, as a general rule, their condition will be better and their charitable giving will grow the more the business profits.

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And You Think They Went Nuts Over Some Cartoons

Pope Benedict XVI is sounding at lot more like Urban II. After baptizing a famous Italian Muslim into the Catholic faith on Easter, Pope now plans to call for Islamic terrorists to convert to Christianity. And he will do it at ground zero.


Say what you will about my favorite former Hitler youth, he is no shrinking violet. He may well be buyoed by recent trends that show significant numbers of Muslims in the West converting to Christianity. Whatever may be the case, this today from the Telegraph:

The Pope will pray for the redemption of Islamic terrorists when he visits the site of the September 11 attacks in New York next week.

The pontiff will call for terrorists to convert to Christianity, saying: "Turn to Your way of love those whose hearts and minds are consumed with hatred.

"God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance".

The prayer is likely to further incense the Muslim world, which has already attacked the Pope for publicly converting Magdi Allam, a journalist and one of Italy's most high-profile Muslims, at Easter.

Osama bin Laden accused the Pope of trying to provoke "a new crusade" against Islam.

Aref Ali Nayed, a leading scholar and proponent of peaceful relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Islam, said that there were "genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the Pope's advisers on Islam".

He said that religious conversion should not be "made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points".

The Pope's first visit to the United States begins on Tuesday. He will visit Ground Zero on April 20 and the prayer is expected to be the emotional high-point of his tour.

The Pope will also ask for "eternal light and peace to all who died" in the tragedy. His prayer will remember "the heroic first-responders: our firefighters, police officers, emergency service workers… along with all the innocent men and women who were victims of this tragedy".

Around 3,000 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre, including the 19 hijackers. The prayer will also mention the victims "on the same day at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania".

The Pope will conclude: "Bring Your peace to our violent world: peace in the hearts of all men and women and peace among the nations of the earth." He will then sprinkle the crater with holy water and bless the site.

. . . The Pope's itinerary includes a Mass at the baseball stadium, and he will also address the United Nations.

He will visit the White House on the first leg of his trip in Washington DC, although his spokesman said yesterday that he would not attend a state dinner given in his honour.

The Vatican did not offer a reason for his absence.

The Pope will hold talks with President George W Bush, but Cardinal Raffaele Martino, one of the Vatican's most senior prelates, said the Holy See "cannot renounce its own beliefs on this visit, which are a rejection of the [Iraq] war and the constant encouragement of dialogue to resolve differences".

. . . The Vatican has also announced that the Pope will confront the issue of paedophile priests while he is in the United States. Several Catholic organisations have protested that he will not visit Boston, the epicentre of the sex abuse scandal.

One group took out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times.

However, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of state, said that the Pope would address the issue in a speech and that the Church needed "constant purification" over the issue.

Read the entire article. My hat is off to the Pope. He is doing precisely what he should be doing. The West has been subject to a truiumphalist Islam for decades. For the Muslims who are offended by this, I would ask, why must Muslims who convert be considered apostates and sentenced to death? If Islam is the only true religion, why cannot it compete in the world of ideas without using the sword to enforce adherence?

As to the issue of paedophile priests, it was the Pope prior to his acessionion who did much to throw gas on the fire of this nightmare for the American Catholic Church by dismissing the scandal when it first broke. I am glad to hear that he will be addressing it while here.

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