I have often written, here and in other publications, and told anyone who will listen, that the decline of the Roman Catholic Church and Christian (Western) society in general started in the hippy-dippy sixties. Our religion and our culture was killed by secularism and the counter-culture. So I enjoyed something of a "told ya so" moment yesterday when "Pope Emeritus" Benedict XVI released an essay on sexual abuse in the Church, which he blames on the "absence of God".In the introduction to his "notes", the ex-Holy Father [Can there be such a thing? Ed.] writes: In the first part, I aim to present briefly the wider social context of the question, without which the problem cannot be understood. I try to show that in the 1960s an egregious event occurred, on a scale unprecedented in history.... In the second part, I aim to point out the effects of this situation on the formation of priests and on the lives of priests. Finally, in the third part, I would like to develop some perspectives for a proper response on the part of the Church."
In the 6000-world essay, which originally appeared in Klerusblatt, a German-language magazine for the clergy, Pope Ratzinger blames the Church's sexual abuse scandal on the 1960s sexual revolution, growing secularization and weak church laws that made prosecution of guilty priests difficult. "Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom.... Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of `68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate." What an amazing admission! How dismaying for faithful Catholics, to hear this from no less a personage than the former Vicar of Christ. But there's more...
"Why did pedophilia reach such proportions?", Pope Ratzinger asks. "Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God," he answers, noting failed attempts to include a reference to God in European Union treaties as a negative example of Western secularization. He also cited the appearance of sex in films in the 60s in his native Bavaria and the formation in seminaries of "homosexual cliques" in seminaries "which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate." He also attributes the moral corruption of the Catholic clergy and the Church as a whole to "failures in moral theology".
Benedict also faulted Church laws that protected accused priests. He wrote that during the 80s and 90s "the right to a defence (for priests) was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible." In 1981 Pope John Paul II named Cardinal Ratzinger (as he then was) Cardinal-Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the Holy Office and, especially around the 16th century, as the Roman Inquisition.
But did he do anything to excise the rotten and diseased members of Christ's Church? He tried in 2001 to reforms of those laws to make it easier to remove priests who abused children, and later, as Pope, defrocked 100s of priests accused of raping and molesting children. But he was opposed by powerful forces -- "the lavender Mafia" -- within the Vatican itself. Some say his unprecedented "resignation" was engineered by those same evil men, who succeeded in replacing him with the more tolerant and merciful Jorge Bergoglio.
Compared with Pope Francis, Benedict XVI emerges in this essay as a voice calling Catholics to turn away from the excesses of Vatican II, and back to the values of traditional Catholicism. Of course he does not suggest that Vatican II was in error or anything like the "anti-council" which many traditionalists now claim it was.
He writes: "The Second Vatican Council was rightly focused on returning this sacrament of the Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ...to the centre of Christian life and the very existence of the Church. In part, this really has come about, and we should be most grateful to the Lord for it. [But] what predominates [now] is not a new reverence for the presence of Christ's death and resurrection, but a way of dealing with Him that destroys the greatness of the Mystery." The reference is to declining participation in Sunday Mass and treatment of the Eucharist as "a mere ceremonial gesture."
"We do not need another Church of our own design," Benedict concludes. "Rather, what is required first and foremost is the renewal of the Faith in the Reality of Jesus Christ given to us in the Blessed Sacrament." A pity he didn't tell us sooner, but let us hope and pray for a Catholic Counter-Revolution, before Christ's Church disintegrates completely. Amen.
Further reading: "Benedict XVI addresses sex abuse scandal", Catholic Herald, 11/4/19.
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