So, you think that "it's time for the Church to quit pussyfooting around the elephant in the living room?" I wonder if B16 has been following the longest-running grand jury probe in Philadelphia, the "city of brotherly love?"
Following the nation's longest-running grand jury probe into the Newchurch Sex & Embezzlement Scandal, the Philadelphia Grand Jury on September 22 issued a scathing report, charging that Newchurch cardinals/archbishops Anthony Bevilacqua and John Krol covered up hundreds of sex crimes perpetrated by at least 63 of their presbyters. "To protect themselves from negative publicity or expensive lawsuits -- while keeping abusive priests [meaning Newchurch presbyters] active -- the cardinals and their aides hid the priests' crimes from parishioners, police, and the general public," the report stated. The grand jury found that Newchurch leaders had engaged in a "deliberate and all-encompassing strategy to avoid revealing their knowledge of crimes."
Does the Vatican now have to retreat and regroup in its plans to issue a "revised" document on homosexuality in the seminaries this October?
This comes in the wake of comments upon the report by the grand jury of Philadelphia that it found evidence of rampant crimes against children by Newchurch presbyters and a systematic cover-up by Cardinals Krol and Bevilacqua and that Newchurch archdiocese officials howled that they were BEING PERSECUTED [!] just as in the days of rampant Know-Nothingism in the 1840s, a time of strong anti-Catholic sentiment.
There is nothing new under the sun. We have seen all this before. Nnow-Nothings are a fact of national history, but curiously, their significance in terms of how their activities affected the faith of Catholics is not a subject of much concern in history classes in our enlightened, modern Newchurch schools, nor even in the secular, atheistic public schools.
If you really really, truly truly hope that B16 is going to put it all straight, I am so very sorry for your imminent disappointment. Don't get me wrong: I wish it were true, but I have to observe the fact of history, the fact of who the erstwhile Ratzinger mentored with, and what he has been saying and doing for the past 50 years -- and it is not what you would hope it could have been.
What has he done in regards to this pederasty scandal? He, just as his predecessor JPII, had personal involvement in shielding his bishops from the criminal law and bears a moral responsibility for allowing these crimes to be committed by his bishops and presbyters without a word of strong, public censure and punishment.
B16 has been personally charged in a case now being heard in a U.S. Federal District Court in Houston court as a named accomplice concerning sex crimes by a Newchurch cleric against three boys. The pope has not claimed innocence, but has instead tried to squirm out of his responsibility by claiming "immunity," just as his subordinate, William Levada, tried to do -- Levada whom he appointed to head the Sex Crimes Congregation of Newvatican, in spite of the fact that Levada himself has been implicated in sex-crime cover-ups. In fact, the court has more of the "goods" on B16 than it did on JPII. A cover-up document signed by Ratzinger himself in 2001 has been introduced as evidence in court.
I hope you don't get too personally invested in expectations outside the realm of reasonable expectations. Of course, miracles can happen, but if B16 does pull of any reconstruction of the seminaries at this point, it has to be admitted that this is not what his history and track record would support. To think it is is like living in a fantasy dreamland. Such a surprising (and welcome!) result would rather be miraculous, not consistent with the past.
And if you think that being indicted in Texas is proof of guilt, I wonder what you think of Ronnie Earle's indictment of Delay (or if you've even read it.)
If that's indicative of your general level of competence, I don't think I'll judge BXVI on your say-so, either.