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ROME, MARCH 22, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The attempt of the press to implicate Benedict XVI in the question of pedophilia is only the most recent sign of the aversion that many have for the Pope. It is necessary to ask oneself how this Pontiff, despite his evangelical meekness and honesty, the clarity of his words joined to the depth of his thought and of his teachings, arouses in some places sentiments of disgust and forms of anti-clericalism that it was believed had been surmounted. And this, it must be said, causes even greater astonishment and also distress when those who do...

A malicious storm is being stirred up over the Pope's alleged failure to deal with abusive priests, says Damian Thompson.After a week of disastrous publicity for the Roman Catholic Church, it's a fair bet that if you conducted a word-association test in the average British high street, the results would be as follows: Catholic priest? "Paedophile." Pope? "Nazi." The reputation of the Church internationally has never been lower. On Wednesday, St Patrick's Day, Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All Ireland, apologised for helping to persuade two boys – aged 10 and 14 – to sign letters agreeing not to tell...

Under an all-but-full moon on the opening evening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, tens of thousands of Romans poured into St Peter's Square in a torchlight procession. Called to the window of his study by the multitude, John XXIII, the man Italians called "the good pope" (a term that speaks volumes about their view of the previous 260), delivered one of the great speeches of an eloquent decade. Its emotional high point came when he told the crowd: "Returning home, you'll find the children. Give your children a caress and say: 'This is the caress of the pope.'"Forty-three...

MARCH 22, 2010 The End of Euphemism Benedict XVI and The Corruptions of Catholic Ireland. GEORGE WEIGEL In a March 20 pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI vigorously condemned the physical and sexual abuse of “children and vulnerable young people” in which Irish priests and religious women had engaged for decades, and mandated an Apostolic Visitation of various segments of the Irish Church. The visitation seems likely to result in major changes in the Church’s leadership in what was once one of the world’s most intensely Catholic countries, and is now one of the centers of...

Currently there’s a great hue and cry emanating from the world press in relation to Pope Benedict xvi’s reaction—or rather perceived lack of reaction—to the publicity being given to pedophilia charges brought against certain priests in Europe. The loudest clamor surrounds cases in Germany, particularly in Benedict’s old diocese of Freiburg, Bavaria. Nothing justifies anything but absolute condemnation of the abuse of priestly office. But what is really behind this latest outcry against the Catholic Church and its spiritual leader? Dig behind the headlines and you see an agenda. It’s an agenda driven by fear of the rising power of...

It has become fashionable to claim that the sex abuse scandal currently afflicting the Catholic Church is “its biggest crisis since the Reformation”. Oh, really? Tell me about it. The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation. Abolish clerical celibacy? The last thing a priest abusing altar boys needs or wants is a wife. There is no compulsory celibacy in the Church of England, but that has not prevented vicars and boy scouts furnishing gratifying amounts of...

NOT long after a portly, jovial priest in the German industrial city of Essen was accused of sexually abusing three boys in 1979, he was offered a new home in Munich by Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI. Ratzinger, who was Archbishop of Munich and Freising at the time, wanted Father Peter Hullermann — known to friends in the church as “Hulli” — to undergo psychotherapy. A psychiatrist quickly concluded that Hullermann was untreatable, however. “I told the church officials that Hullermann must never be allowed to work with children again,” said Werner Huth, the psychiatrist, in an interview...

Here below in full, the text of Pope Benedict's Pastoral Letter to the Catholics of Ireland. * * * 1. Dear Brothers and Sisters of the Church in Ireland, it is with great concern that I write to you as Pastor of the universal Church. Like yourselves, I have been deeply disturbed by the information which has come to light regarding the abuse of children and vulnerable young people by members of the Church in Ireland, particularly by priests and religious. I can only share in the dismay and the sense of betrayal that so many of you have...

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI is urging Catholics to be intransigent toward sin but not to judge the sinner. The pontiff addressed pilgrims in St. Peter's Square on Sunday but didn't mention his rebuke to Irish bishops a day earlier for their handling of decades of clergy sexual abuse of minors. He told English-speaking pilgrims they should humbly beg forgiveness for their own failings. Benedict read the Gospel passage about Jesus' inviting those without sin to cast the first stone toward an adulterer. In his letter made public Saturday by the Vatican, Benedict said Irish bishops made grave errors...

Irish victims of clerical child sexual abuse are deeply disappointed by Pope Benedict's letter of apology as it fails to address the role of senior church leaders, a group representing victims said. "My first response was deep disappointment in the letter," said Maeve Lewis, executive director of victims group One in Four. "We feel the letter falls far short of addressing the concerns of the victims." She said the Pope's letter focused too narrowly on lower-rank Irish priests without recognising the responsibility of the Vatican and senior Irish clerics for protecting offenders and dealing with victims. "There is nothing in...

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest attack on the pope by the New York Times: Once upon a time there was a homosexual priest who was accused of molesting boys in Germany. That was 30 years ago. At the approval of Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger (now the pope), he was sent away for therapy and was later reinstated; years later, under a new archbishop, there was another incident and more therapy. We know this because the New York Times (which does not like to report on molesting rabbis in 2010), told us about this on Saturday in a...

Hitler Rails Against Pope Benedict

Pope Benedict XVI confirmed plans for his visit to Great Britain in September-- and offered some unusually blunt reflections on the situation facing the Church there-- in a February 1 address to a group of visiting British bishops. The Pope told the bishops, who were in Rome for their ad limina visit, that he looked forward to his trip to their country. Although he did not mention specific dates, informed Catholic sources in London have confirmed that the trip will take place in September. The Pontiff went on to say that the Church leadership in England and Wales "needs to...

ROME (CNS) -- Dissident theologian Father Hans Kung criticized Pope Benedict XVI for his recent opening to discontented Anglicans, charging the pope was "fishing" for the most conservative Christians to the detriment of the larger church. Father Kung said the invitation to traditionalist Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic Church went against years of ecumenical work on the part of both churches, calling it instead "a nonecumenical piracy of priests." The pope's basic message is: "Traditionalists of all churches, unite under the dome of St. Peter's!" Father Kung wrote in an editorial Oct. 28 in the Rome daily La Repubblica....

A note from a reader in the Czech Republic: I come from the Czech republic and I am quite frustrated that the pope`s visit gets such a negative response in the English blogs – or no response at all… In reality, it was fantastic! There was a lot of symbolism which foreigners do not understand. For example: The first place he went (at his own request), the church of Our Lady of Victory, it is THE church – the symbol of recatholisation of the country. In the year 1620 catholics defeated protestants and this particular church in Praha got...

As observers continue to decipher the meaning of Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, all appear to agree that the passage of note, the passage that may prove historic in its implications, is the one that is already becoming known as the “world political authority” paragraph: In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth....

Does Pope Benedict view the alleged Marian apparitions of Medjugorje differently than Pope John Paul II did? Yes, according to a recent interview featuring E. Michael Jones, a well-known American critic of the alleged apparitions. The interview has appeared in several Serbian journals. In the interview, Jones asserts that when he met with Bishop Pavao Zanic, then-ordinary of the Diocese of Mostar (in which Medjugorje is situated) in 1988, the bishop said Cardinal Ratzinger agreed with him and did not believe the alleged apparitions were authentic. But Pope John Paul II did not respond to Bishop Zanic in the...

"Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and of the Blood of the Lord... For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Body of the Lord" - 1 Corinthians 11:27,28 Pope Benedict to Catholics: Kneel and Receive on the Tongue Only Pope Benedict XVI does not want the faithful receiving Communion in their hand nor does he want them standing to receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. According to Vatican liturgist, Monsignor Guido Marini, the pope is trying to set...

ROME, JULY 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- I first walked through Bernini's colonnade in May 1984. I was going to the Vatican Library to do research for a dissertation in medieval history. By chance, my topic was very similar to the topic Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, chose for his post-doctoral dissertation, "The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure," and this gave me material for conversation when I met with Ratzinger on several occasions in the 1980s and 1990s. On my very first visit to the Vatican library, I met a young scholar named Paolo Vian, son of the renowned Italian Catholic...

Turin, Italy, Jul 19, 2009 / 10:08 am (CNA).- In the first public outing of his current vacation in Les Combes, Pope Benedict XVI told 9,000 faithful gathered in Italy’s Romano Canavese village, the birthplace of Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, not to be discouraged by the current economic crisis or to forget those people who are worse off. Before the recitation of the Angelus prayer, his first public appearance since a minor accident broke his wrist on Thursday night, the Pope thanked the doctors of Aosta. “I have been treated with skill and courtesy,” he said. “Dear...