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PDF versionVatican strategy in Malta: 'Let Benedict be Benedict'
by John L Allen Jr on Apr. 18, 2010
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Valletta, Malta
To the extent that the Vatican has a discernible public relations strategy for Pope Benedict XVI's weekend visit to the island nation of Malta, it might be expressed in a simple formula: "Let Benedict be Benedict."
Rather than allowing the global media to set the agenda, which in practice would have meant a near-exclusive focus on the sexual abuse crisis, the pontiff has instead concentrated on his core themes: Europe’s Christian roots, the struggle to defend human life and the family, a welcoming stance towards immigrants, and the important of not succumbing to secular values and relativism.
At least on the ground in this nation of 400,000, where 94 percent of the population is Catholic, the strategy appears to be working. Crowds for the pope have been large and lively, and the Times of Malta led its day one wrap-up coverage by referring to the “enthusiastic welcome” the pope received.
The Vatican spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, told reporters yesterday evening that the popular response to the pope has exceeded expectations. To date, there’s been no hint of the protests over the pope's handling of the sexual abuse crisis that some media coverage had predicted.
Despite the strong popular response, it’s not clear that Benedict’s “be himself” strategy will succeed entirely in changing the subject.
Aboard the papal plane en route to Malta, Benedict offered what his spokesperson, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, described as a “discrete reference” to the sexual abuse crisis, referring to how the body of the church is “wounded because of our sins.”
Beyond that, Benedict so far has not mentioned the crisis in any of his public remarks, and spokespersons have yet to confirm whether he will or won’t meet victims before he leaves for Rome later today. (That’s if the pope is able to leave; the clouds of volcanic ash currently disrupting air traffic across Europe have left this evening’s return flight a bit uncertain.)
Malta has recently been rocked by its own local version of the broader crisis, with ten men coming forward to claim that they were abused by four priests during the 1980s and 1990s at St. Joseph orphanage in Santa Venera. One of the alleged victims is a convicted murder who killed a man with a hammer in 1991 and then cut his body to pieces with a broken bottle, and who has linked that horrific crime to abuse he suffered at the orphanage.
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Some of those ten men have requested a meeting with Pope Benedict to close what they called a “hurtful chapter.” Though that meeting remains uncertain, the victims have announced that Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has agreed to receive them in Rome in June.
Interestingly, the most explicit commentary on the crisis during the pope’s trip so far has come not from the pontiff but from Malta’s president, George Abela, who welcomed Benedict yesterday at Luqa airport.
Abela, a Catholic attorney with a background in canon law, said it’s wrong to use the actions of a few to condemn the church as a whole, but he also called for church and state to work together towards more “transparent” and “effective” procedures to end abuse, “so that just will not only be done but seen to be done.”
Perhaps it says something that a politician, always more sensitive to public opinion, felt obliged to tackle the sex abuse issue head on, while the pope appeared more willing to follow his own lead.
Most of Benedict’s public commentary so far has begun and ended with the memory of St. Paul, whose famous shipwreck on Malta, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, this year marks its 1,950th anniversary. Benedict has repeatedly invoked the memory of that shipwreck as an example of how apparent misfortune can be used for God’s purposes.
This morning, the pope will celebrate an open-air Mass and then hold a large meeting with Maltese youth this afternoon before returning to Rome – assuming, of course, that the papal plane is allowed to take off.
If Benedict has refused to allow the sexual abuse crisis to cloud his trip to Malta, however, perhaps he’ll also be able to skirt the physical clouds of ash that threaten to scuttle his return.
[John Allen is NCR senior correspondent. His e-mail address is jallen@ncronline.org.]
Sexual abuse by the clergy
Sexual abuse by the clergy has been occurring for centuries as any Church Historian can tell you. The reported cases and subsequent media coverage is something all together new. In the past, the abusers confessed and received penance while both abuser and confessor hoped that “a firm purpose of amendment” would eventually resolve the issue. The practice of the Church for centuries has always been to remove the offending priest to another locality. A priest was “a priest forever” and never to be ousted because of this “sin” or any sin whatsoever. Both society and the Church were ignorant of so called deviant sexuality. Moreover, both Church authorities and society in general underestimated the profound psycho-sexual harm sexual abuse had on young victims. Victims rarely spoke publicly not only because of both the shame and the fear involved but also because of ignorance on this issue in both Society and the Church.
Only with the advance of the social sciences did we begin to understand the problem a “little” better. (We still have a long way to go). Even up to 1950, rarely did you see the subject of “pedophilia” treated in psychology textbooks. As the second half of the 20th century advanced, the sexual revolution kicked in and created a dominant zeitgeist of the age. Though dreadful in many of its consequences, it had a silver lining: it encouraged open and free discourse on sexuality in general as well as a more honest and forthright approach to one’s own sexual history. Myriads of books, articles and research papers, television and radio shows, (and now the internet) appeared in the literature as in no other epoch before. Married people began talking about their intimate sexual lives while others talked about their own adultery, homosexuality, masturbation, promiscuity, transexualism, gender identity disorders, etc. People began to reveal sexual wounds including being abused as minors by adults. (After Ophrah Winfrey publicly revealed her own painful experience of sexual abuse on TV, more and more people felt the courage to admit a similar event in their own lives).
The Church at first seemed to be leery of the development of social sciences but little by little, very slowly, took advantage of their results. Both society and the Church were on a learning excursion with the Church a bit behind and cautious. The social sciences themselves were still developing with new and greater findings. Yet the practice of reappointing sexually abusive priests to other parishes after repentance or psychological rehabilitation continued. But the same practice continued in other institutions regarding rabbis, pastors, teachers, hospital workers, daycare center employees, etc. Ignorance of this phenomenon was not a special mark of the Church only! And here, the present day press is being hypocritical in stigmatizing the Church as criminal, negligent and nefarious. The Media is showing itself to be most ignorant of all, an ignoramus noise maker without historical perspective.
The Church would do well to make a vast, professional study on sexual abuse in its 2000 year existence, drawing on her own excellent Scholars of History, Monasticism, Cultural Anthropology, Canon Law, the Sacrament of Penance, etc. but also her own present day professionals in Psychology and Sociology. This will be a valuable tool in overcoming the present, unjust hysteria as well as a mammoth contribution to society in general.
If the Universal Church had done this eight years ago when the problem irrupted in the American Church, we would not be in this mess right now.
What has certainly not been addressed is the honest admission of transferring abusive priests from one place to another over the centuries in every culture. What is not being admitted is our historical ignorance of the problem. This is not an accusation but a sheer fact. It is only being addressed now because of all the publicity and public denunciations by the victims and because of a better knowledge of the issue. If the Church has been finally acting on this issue over the past 10 to 15 years, she has not yet honestly assessed what has been happening for the past 2000 years. That would open up a vast, pedagogical perspective for the good of all!
can you provide a single
can you provide a single shred of evidence for any of the assertions that you just made? Especially the first one, that abuse has always occurred.
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