Papa Ratzi has been keeping a pretty low profile for a while, but he’s back in dutch once again over a couple of problems: first, one of his personal attendants was discovered to be buying services from a gay prostitution ring inside the Vatican being run by a Vatican choir singer. The attendant, who is also a prominent construction contractor in Rome, was being investigated for corrupt business practices, when investigators discovered him “ordering for delivery”.
And while that’s embarrassing, it’s the second item that puts those red-soled feet on the fire: the Pope’s own brother admits beating young boys in his church in Germany over a period of 30 years, and it appears that the Pope himself (during his tenure as Archbishop) played an important role in covering up the abuse along with a number of incidents of sexual assaults on boys by German priests.
You know things have gotten pretty bad, because the Vatican’s “Chief Exorcist” has publicly stated that “the Devil lives in the Vatican”. Of course, he also says that Harry Potter is the work of the devil, so he *might* be given to hyperbole, you never know.
Christopher Hitchens, always on the lookout for new ways to badmouth the Catholics, weighed in today with this fine screed at Slate. Money quote follows:
Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church’s own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated “in the most secretive way … restrained by a perpetual silence … and everyone … is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication.” (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism!
ADDENDUM: Here is a less charged, more thoughtful, yet nevertheless very critical piece about this Pope from the British newspaper The Independent which I came across after writing this post. I think it puts Ratzinger into the broader context of the struggle with modernity that the RCC has faced since the mid-20th century, and even in the big picture finds him wanting.
ADDENDUM TO THE ADDENDUM: Here’s Jon Stewart’s version on “The Daily Show”
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It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
