Responsible Journalism

The state-owned media in Australia offers a sober assessment of the Church and a clear-headed and calm way forward in dealing with Benedict XVI:

Why then do we not bomb the Vatican and obliterate Italy for harbouring this criminal mastermind, this known protector of evil predators? Why do we not pursue him through the sewers of Europe and riddle his corpse with bullets?

Turns out the answer is not, “Because that is the demented spewing of a mind warped by insane hatred of the Catholic faith” but rather “Because Benedict is white.”

This, among many other reasons, is why I find it so hard to credit the constant recommendation of MSM journalists that I get down on my knees in gratitude to them for their sterling and knightly high purpose of Reforming the Church. To quote Robert Bolt’s St. Thomas More, “This is not Reformation. This is war on the Church.” And it is using abused children as human shields. These people have not the slightest interest in knowing or caring what they are talking about. Point out that a slanderous misrepresentation of Pope Benedict has not a dram of truth to it, and the reply is: “So, once again, you fail to see the real issue here, and are more concerned about the problems of the Church and its survival, than of ridding the organization of pederasts and their enablers.” Because, of course, the only way to Save The Children is to lie about the Pope. Conversely, any attempt to say, “But the Pope is not the Bad Guy here” is to ignore the victims. It’s classic mob mentality.

None of this is to say, “We must believe and profess Benedict/Ratzinger was unerring in his response to the problem.” As I have already said, I think Ratzinger (and Pope John Paul) blew it in, for instance, the case of the laicization of Fr. Kiesle. They were so focused on not giving out laicizations like Pez dispensers that they were not thinking, “Y’know, there are some priests who need to be shown the door PDQ.” Likewise, though I think it’s highly unlikely that he knew anything about Fr. Peter Hullerman’s crimes, still the guy was a priest in his diocese, so the buck stopped with him. That’s part of the job description for “archbishop”.

But that doesn’t mean–doesn’t come anywhere close to meaning, “Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry” as the Euro press lyingly stated when it kicked off the pogrom against Benedict. It means, at most, that Benedict screwed up by not paying as close attention as he should have to what was happening with a priest in his diocese during a time of big transition from Munich to Rome. As to the rest of the hysteria, we now know that there is basically nothing to the frenzy over Kiesle, the frenzy over Murphy, the frenzy over laicizing priests, the frenzy over whatever the press is next going to demand we be in a frenzy over. What we are witnessing is classic scapegoating mentality, by which a groups focuses all its righteous wrath on a designated victim and imagines that it has, thereby, purged the evil from its midst. Meanwhile, defenders of Benedict’s (largely good) record have to shout into the gale force wind of hatred even as others circle the wagon and embrace the imaginary dogma of papal impeccability. So if you suggest, as Mark Stricherz does, that Benedict should say something like, “I could have overseen Fr. Hullernan better than I did” you are reviled as a Pope basher when, in fact, you are basically making a common sense remark. Psychologically such defensiveness is understandable in the middle of a pogrom. To allow the smallest chink in the armor when a band of thugs with knives seeks to stick a hundred shivs in your ribs is generally seen as bad policy. But so is pretending utter flawlessness.

And, of course, in addition to the fumble with Fr. Hullerman, there remains the festering problem of “Why are so many of the bishops who handled pervert priests so stupidly still bishops?” I’ve given some of the reasoning that I suspect Benedict is using on that front. But, of course, for the 99.9% of the human race that doesn’t give a rip about Ut Unum Sint and complex theories of ecclesiology, that doesn’t much matter. And that, as John Allen points out, is the big problem that still stalks Benedict in the realm of “non-bomb-the-Vatican-and-machine-gun-the-Pope” critics who, at the end of the day, think some head need to roll for the debacle of letting predators rape kids and skate. That’s not too hard to understand. The psychologically simple thing to do is focus all the rage on one guy, even if the guy isn’t really guilty of much. He’s not photogenic. He’s German. A bunch of headlines had the words “Pope” and “pedophile” in close proximity for a month or so. That’s all we need to know. Let’s lay our hands on him and place all the sins of our depraved culture on his head. Then, let’s slit his throat and we can all feel good about how we courageously atoned for the sins of Those People Over There Who are Certainly Not Decent Folk Like Me.

Me: I don’t buy any of this media BS. Once the frenzy is over, we will be pretty much where we were before the frenzy. There is simply no evidence at all that Benedict transferred pedophiles, covered up acts of perversion, endangered children, or did any of the other hideous things that our lying journalist class has now convicted him of in the court of public opinion. The day, I pray, will come when the public will wake up with a hangover and realize they have participated in the maligning of a very good man. Similarly, the day will, I pray, come when Catholics stop stupidly believing that the key to reformation of the Church is “listen to those who wish to destroy the Church and sow salt on Her ashes.” This, like those stupid revisionist accounts of the gospel were Jesus says to Judas, “You’re the only one who really understands me” is, what’s the word?, oh yeah, “idiotic”. Reformation will come by living out the teaching of the gospel.

In all this, I find especially inspiring the words of the guy whom the media, using abused children as human shields, has focused its hatred on. Referring to a ”subtle or not so subtle aggression against the church” as a form of modern conformism ”under which it becomes obligatory to think as everyone thinks, to act as everyone acts.” Benedict said that such conformism can become a dictatorship.

Then he said the “attacks” against the church present an opportunity for purification and transformation through penance.

I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word ‘penance,’ which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of Divine Mercy.

Note that: “the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins”. Unlike his sometimes over-eager defenders, Pope Benedict is not afraid to say that the attacks of the world “speak to us of our sins”. He knows perfectly well that the Devil, the Accuser of the Brethren, often has something to bring to the bar of Divine Justice. We *have* sinned. Benedict included. There’s nothing for it but to acknowledge it where we have done so. But the thing is, the Accuser is not our judge, any more the editorial board of the New York Times. Our judge is God, who judges us with mercy.

Of course, the Accuser, being the Accuser, will always turn such things into grist for more accusation. Benedict’s hope for mercy will be described as narcissism or self-pity. It will be described as “ignoring the victims and painting himself as the real victim”, etc. In fact, however, it is simply the sane and sensible approach to the media attack machine as it utterly ignores the human shields it cynically uses in its war on Benedict and all the blandishments of common sense.

Every one of us has things we can look back on in our lives and regret. Benedict is no exception. He gives every indication of regretting his failure to appreciate the magnitude of the filth that has infected the Church and his sin of omission (a rather small one, in my judgement) when that filth occurred in his archdiocese. I, for one, am willing to forgive it, since I’ve had my own dealings with the Accuser when it has come to my own failings. But the Bomb the Vatican and Machine Gun the Pope crowd have no moral failings. They are fully of steely righteousness–like the authors of the French Revolution. They will, if they get their way, kill a lot of people to usher in the Perfect World. And they will assure us, every step of the way, that they did it For The Children.