New York Times: John Allen on the 'Papal Conversion'

Maureen Dowd makes for much better reading!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28dowd.html?src=me&ref=general

Dear Mr. Allen,

In all due respect, your defense of the Pope is based on what you wish would be not the reality that is.

The reality is that the Pope is involved up to his ears and is in serious denial. You cite his letter to the Irish Bishops as evidence of his "conversion." That letter condemns behavior he himself practiced when he was a Bishop and yet there is no admission, no repentance, no acceptance of responsibilty, and no pledge to cleanse the Church, including the Vatican, of the criminals hiding behind the frock. The poster boy for this being Bernard Law, responsible for protecting untold numbers of priests who molested thousands of victims and now being protected by the Pope.

Please rethink your position and do the right thing by "speaking truth to power."

Kind regards,

Carl Hughes

John Allen, you are right. Ratzinger's record on this issue is better than most bishops, but what does that say? Bernard Law set the bar so low, any sane human being should look good in comparison.

The faithful's patience has run out on this issue. Not only are we sick of predator priests, we are also sick of the bishops who covered-up their crimes. The Vatican seems to understand the first half of the scandal, but they are still clueless on the second. Papa Ratzinger's letter to the Irish is a perfect example. It is clear that he genuinely wants to remove the abusers, but he seems to have no stomach for holding the bishops who enabled them accountable. Sadly, we are going to have to wait until the current generation of bishops is gone before before anyone believes them again.

Steve

The last paragraph of John Allen's NY Times article bothers me! As usual, he is making himself the "Apologist" for Benedict's (Joe Ratzinger's) behavior. I believe this is totally unacceptable and it again goes back to the problem with much of John Allen's reporting over the last several years. He is much too enamored by the drama, glory and "majesty" of the imperial Roman system of the Latin Rite Church. This is not the Church that Jesus wanted. A pope should never be a king. He should be a simple shepherd, a unifying symbol but not above the other bishops of the college of worldwide bishops. The cult worship that developed when we made the Bishop of Rome an imperial figure and "infallible" when it comes to doctrinal teaching was a very big mistake and we are paying a high price for it. John Allen is just too impressed by the pomp and circumstance of Vatican lifestyles and rituals and it damages his objectivity. You can always count on him to DEFEND the current imperial system because it is his ticket backstage at the Vatican. John Allen use to be more objective but that all changed when he moved from the United States to Rome. John, in a sense, has become an elitist or one of "Them."

I read your column in the Times today and nowhere in it do you say if the Pope ever removed any priests from the priesthood. You said it was concluded that the trials would be slow. So Cardinal Ratzinger "approved direct administrative action in roughly 60% of the cases". What was that action? Was any priest defrocked? Were civil cases reccommended or referred? Your defense is weak because in the case of Father Murphy the Wisconsin priest nothing was ever done.

I heard a local, Catholic talk show host today announce that we are not to worry as all of this points to great changes coming to the church. Specifically, Pope Benedict XVI is old and will likely die soon, so we should be experiencing great changes in the future.

Not sure if want those who seemingly are gleeful of other's failings and looking forward towards other's death be leading us as a Church in the future.
Quite disturbing.

John Allen uses some very strong words in his NYT op-ed such as "the Pope being a symbol of the failure of the Church" and that events "strengthens the indictment of the Pope". This is "trial" by media at its worst. As a lawyer I see no evidence that "indicts" Joseph Ratzinger. I think it behoves Mr. Allen to avoid such inflammatory language when his being sought out by media like the NYT or CNN is due to his reputation as a Catholic journalist. Frankly I am also surprised that no-one at NYT nor CNN nor Allen has mentioned JPII in all of this; while Ratzinger is demonized, no one has deemed it worthy to mention that after all, the late Pope was his boss. I wonder if this is because none of these reporters or newspapers dare to risk alienating the masses who revere JPII and may question this whole media campaign once JPII's name is brought in? If so, Ratzinger is doubly wronged.
I have been a lawyer and lapsed Catholic for many years; I think this media feeding frenzy against the former Joseph Ratzinger is incredibly cruel, hate-filled and undeserved. It has to stop and Mr. Allen should refrain from participating in it.

This article says more about Mr. Allen's own 2010 CONVERSION since his weak defenses of the current pontificate up to this point will no longer find acceptance among his shrinking readership - Catholic and non.

Thank you, thank you, thank you !

Admittedly I haven't read everything, but this is the most reasoned and serious article I have read so far on Ratzinger and the sex scandals. I had just about given up on the ability of my fellow humans to be what they are supposed to be, viz., reasonable and fair.

Thanks for reviving my faith in humanity, at least for now.

Pope Benedict is just about the only high churchman of whom I am aware with the knowledge, integrity and guts to get the cleaning-up done. And we all know you can't wade into this filth coming out necessarily smelling like a rose.

Integrity: yes. Someone who has, and has had the courage to recognize past errors (his own and those of his Church) and to act on his convictions is, to my mind, a person of integrity. the Pope has few allies on this subject: the liberals think they can use these scandals to shake his resolve on the general course the Church should be taking (which is seriously misconstruing the man's steely resolve), while the conservatives decry a conspiracy against the Church and complain about the Pope's surrendering too much to public opinion. We need to support him in this dirty work because nobody else will do it.

As a practicing Catholic, I feel strongly about these issues and it hurts to see the Church gratuitously vilified by the mob. Keep up your good work of responsilble journalism. We need it and, above all, the Church and the Pope need it.

To state that Benedict XVI has done more than any other pope to repair the sexual abuses in the Church is not necessarily saying much. The other popes
apparently did nothing.