The clerical abuse scandal represents the greatest threat to the Roman Catholic Church and the crisis was “born from sins within the church” not outside, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday on a trip to Portugal.
He called for profound purification and penance within the church as well as pardon and justice.
In some of his strongest comments to date, Benedict said the Catholic church had always suffered from internal problems but that “today we see it in a truly terrifying way.”
“The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sin within the church,” the pontiff said. “The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice.”
I have been quite critical for the RCC response from Rome in the past few months. This approach resonates better then the previous approaches that blamed others. This is a laudable statement.
Yes, Jackson (#1), I agree that it’s laudable and forthright. The pope appears to get it, at last. The massive loss of trust and the widespread crisis in the credibility of Catholic leaders caused by the sexual abuse scandals and even more importantly by the coverup of the perpetrator’s crimes is indeed “the greatest threat” to the Church today. Such frank acknowledgment is encouraging.
I especially liked the pope’s line: “[i]The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness, but also justice.[/i]” I don’t know what the original wording was or how accurate the translation given is, but the statement would be even better if it called not just for a profound relearning of “penitence,” but of repentance, i.e., not just sorrow and contrition but the reversal of wrong behavior. But putting the stress as he did on that last word, [b]justice[/b], is especially welcome and vital.
I’ll add that the reporting here was also laudably objective, which hasn’t always been the case with the “mainstream media.”
David Handy+
Handy,
Since penitence is prerequisite to repentence and absolution the pope’s words seem to me even more profound than the suggested options.
Maybe the Pope should a hard look at Luther and the Lutheran Reformation to correct things in the Roman Catholic Church.