"Benedict XVI is laying down markers for the Catholic Church throughout the world..."

George Weigel on Benedict XVI's letter to the Catholics of Ireland:

It is also worth noting that, while the Vatican has accepted the Irish government’s Murphy Report on abuse, the Church, by the Pope’s explicit command, intends to go even farther in investigating these patterns of gross misbehavior, in order to identify their causes and root them out. This is appropriate in itself; it may create some barriers against the likelihood that aggressive secularists will seize on this scandal to try to bring the Catholic Church in Ireland under the virtual control of the state — by, for example, having its seminaries supervised by the government (as was proposed in Massachusetts in 2002 by politicians playing to the mob).

While the Irish crisis is unprecedented in its scope and in the depth of corruption it revealed, it is clear from his letter that Benedict XVI is laying down markers for the Catholic Church throughout the world — further confirmation that this pope takes the moral crimes of sexual and physical abuse, and the failures in governance of the Church’s bishops in dealing with those moral crimes, with utter seriousness. The Pope is quite aware of two facts of the global crisis: that it is far worse in other parts of society than it is in the Catholic Church today, and that the Catholic Church must nonetheless hold itself to a higher standard than others. Indeed, as one of the bright spots in this dark picture, Benedict’s letter notes that the Church’s efforts to come to grips with these problems within the household of faith — which have been more far-reaching than in any other institution or sector of society — have led others to look to the Catholic Church for guidance on how to address what is, in fact, a global plague.

Read the entire piece.

Comments

[LJ]

As was true during the Long Lent of 2002, a crisis of fidelity can be met only by an intensification of fidelity to the truth of Catholic faith; it cannot be met by Catholicism Lite.

Amen.

[Michael Moore]

At last, a good overview of the current 'crisis'. Thank you.

[Telemachus]

"...that the Catholic Church must nonetheless hold itself to a higher standard than others."

Which is really the key for me. There's just no point in arguing with people about this stuff, no matter how right we are about the actual facts and how one should properly be thinking about this mess. We screwed up, and now we'll fix it and help lead others on the path away from this sickness. Let the haters hate us. In the meantime we should just turn our cheek and take it, focusing not on our attackers but on those who have been hurt.

[Telemachus]

Oh, and one more thing: if there was a proper time for inquisitions, this would be it.