The significance of Benedict’s Letter for the Irish Church and for the Church worldwide – George Weigel’s analysis

‘The End of Euphemism: Benedict XVI and the corruptions of Ireland’, George Weigel's Analysis of the Pope's Letter

Pope Benedict XVI’s criticism of the Church in Ireland is unpalatable medicine. It’s tough to take and leaves a bad taste. Are we really that sick?

I wondered what an outsider would make of his Letter, one, moreover, whose Catholic-ness and loyalty to the Church are beyond question. George Weigel, author of the 900-page biography of Pope John Paul II, is a well-informed Vatican-watcher.

I would say his article on the Letter, ‘The End of Euphemism: Benedict XVI and the corruptions of Ireland’, is required reading. You can see it at
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MzY2MjI2ZDMwNjNkM2RkMmRiZDdiMmFmNjI3Mzg5NTg=

He notes that ‘its language is both unprecedented and unsparing’ and again, ‘sharp and almost startlingly blunt’ and he sees in its content a significant shift in Rome’s approach to abuse and its mismanagement worldwide.

The points the Pope makes, Weigel says, ‘indicate that the corporate mind of the Vatican is, at long last, beginning to come to grips with the full implications of the patters of clerical sexual predation and episcopal malfeasance’.

Pope Benedict acknowledges that two of the factors in the cover-up of sexual and physical abuse in Ireland were, in Weigel’s words, ‘an excessive deference to ecclesiastical authority and a misplaced concern for the Church’s public reputation; the safe care of Christ’s little ones, the Pope insists, must have absolute priority over worries about how revelations of the sinfulness of Church professionals will “look”, and must have absolute priority over the career prospects of men in ecclesiastical office.’

In other words, Weigel is finding in the Pope’s Letter to us important breakthroughs in its response to the issues which will have repercussions throughout the whole Church. This, he says, ‘The letter breaks ground for the Vatican by acknowledging, with admirable candour, that parents and entire families have “suffered grievously” because of the “abuse of their loved ones”, and that these families’ “trust has been betrayed” and their “dignity has been violated.” In the name of the Church, the Pope openly confesses to families “the shame and remorse we all feel”.’

‘It is also worth noting,’ Weigel continues, ‘that while the Vatican has accepted the Irish government’s Murphy Report on abuse, the Church, by the Pope’s explicit command, intends to go even farther in investigating these patters of gross misbehavior, in order to identify their causes and root them out.’

Weigel pulls no punches, describing Ireland as he sees it, stained and shamed ‘by terrible sins and crimes, but also by the distorted patters of clericalism and clerical ambition that facilitated these derelictions of duty.’

Weigel’s analysis of the Pope’s Letter confirms Benedict’s drastic diagnosis of the condition of the Church here, while at the same time, finding in it significant developments in the Vatican’s own understanding of all that is involved.

‘While the Irish crisis is unprecedented in its scope and in the depth of corruption it revealed, it is clear from his Letter that Benedict XVI is laying down markers for the Catholic Church throughout the world – further confirmation that this pope takes the moral crimes of sexual and physical abuse, and the failures in governance of the Church’s bishops in dealing with those moral crimes, with utter seriousness.’

Since I finished Weigel’s article, that phrase keeps replaying in my mind – 'the Irish crisis is unprecedented in its scope and in the depth of corruption it revealed'.

A bitter judgement.

Hard to take.

Bitter, but true.