The Audacity of Pope
The Vatican may have chosen the wrong week to protest President Obama's reversal of the Mexico City policy banning federal funds from international family planning groups. Even as a Vatican spokesman blasted Obama's decision as "the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death," Pope Benedict XVI restored a Holocaust-denying Bishop to his station within the church. Meanwhile in California, federal authorities revealed an investigation into allegations the Diocese of Los Angeles covered up the sexual abuse of minors by priests.
None of which prevented Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, from demonizing President Obama for his move to end the ban on providing U.S. taxpayer dollars for international groups that perform abortions or provide information about the procedure. Just days after the Pope sent a congratulatory telegram to the new president letting him know that "I pray that you will be confirmed in your resolve to promote understanding, cooperation and peace among the nations," Archbishop Fisichella slammed Obama for "the arrogance of someone who believes they are right." Apparently failing to appreciate America's pro-choice majority (and its impact on the 2008 vote), Fisichella continued:
Mr. Obama had signed a decree which would "open the door to abortion and thus to the destruction of human life".
He added: "What is important is to know how to listen, without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death. If this is one of the first acts of President Obama, then with all due respect it seems to me that we are heading toward disappointment even more quickly than we thought."
Archbishop Fisichella said he did not believe that those who voted for Mr. Obama "took into consideration ethical themes, which were astutely left aside during the election debate. The majority of the American population does not take the same position as the President and his team."
Archbishop Fischella's predecessor, Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, labeled Obama's executive order, the latest reversal of the perpetually ping-ponging Mexico City policy, as a serious blow to all those across the world fighting against "the slaughter of the innocents."
Sadly, the term "slaughter of the innocents" also tends to conjure up for many imagery of the Holocaust that consumed six million European Jews. And on that point this week, the Vatican's outrage was oddly missing.
Or so it would appear with Pope Benedict's decision to reverse the 1980's excommunications of four bishops, including the British-born Bishop Richard Williamson. Just days after Williamson told Swedish TV that historical evidence "is hugely against 6 million Jews having been deliberately gassed," the conservative Pope rehabilitated him and three others the AP reported were consecrated twenty years ago "by the late ultraconservative Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent - a move the Vatican said at the time was an act of schism."
In Israel, the Pope's move triggered shock and awe. The Chief Rabbinate indefinitely postponed a planned March meeting with Pope Benedict. The uproar led the Pope to walk back Williamson's past assertions that reports about the Holocaust were exaggerated and that no Jews died in Nazi gas chambers. Proclaiming the Nazis' victims "innocent victims of a blind racist and religious hatred," Benedict on Wednesday reaffirmed his "full and unquestionable solidarity" with the world's Jews.
As it turns out, mea culpas and other healing words from the Vatican may also be needed in Los Angeles. In July 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles announced a $660 million settlement in its clergy sex abuse scandal. The agreement, which offered 508 victims almost $1.3 million a piece, prompted the much-criticized Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to proclaim, "Once again I apologize to anyone who has been offended and to anyone who has been abused in the Catholic Church," adding, "It should not have happened, and it should not ever happen again."
But as the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, that is not the end of the matter. Officials for the archdiocese confirmed "federal authorities are investigating the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to see whether top church officials tried to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by priests." Its lawyer J. Michael Hennigan said in an email:
"The Archdiocese has received requests from the U.S. Attorney's office for information about a number of individual priests, two of whom are deceased; none of whom remain in ministry. We have been and will continue to be fully cooperative with the investigation."
None of this discussion is to suggest that the Catholic Church should not promote its teachings to its faithful worldwide. (Imposing selective litmus tests on American politicians, of course, is another matter.) But when it comes to giving vent to its moral outrage, the Vatican might have been better served this week by following the old adage, "charity begins at home."
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They don’t call it ‘pontificating’ for nothing.
Posted by Barry Schwartz on January 31, 2009 1:35 PMWhen Mother Church takes as strong a stand against preemptive war, bombing restaurant in attempts top assassinate heads of state, land mines, bishops hiding crimes of priests, or cluster bombs, inter alia, she might have a modicum of respect--but as long as the Church remains an instrument of division, war-mongering, or hate-mongering she can sell off all her property and make some financial recompense to those she has allowed to be harmed. I left the church long ago because of its hypocrisy!
Posted by Doc Rock on February 1, 2009 12:40 PMUgh. Ratzo strikes again.
Posted by Kim on March 1, 2009 5:00 PM