The Ratzinger Zinger (updated)
Watch Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, Alex Gibney’s (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; Taxi to the Dark Side) deeply disturbing documentary about how the church deals with sex abuse cases. Gibney points out that from 2001, every case of clerical sex abuse around the world was reported to the Grand Inquisitor (which had previously supervised the Inquisition). The Grand Inquisitor was Cardinal Ratzinger. The documentary premiered on television days before the papal abdication.
It sounds like a novel by Robert Ludlum or Dan Brown, and it’s supposed to. Any time something unexpected occurs in an institution as averse to change as the Roman Catholic Church, we bring out the conspiracy theories. Surely this cannot be as simple as the Vatican announcement that Benedict XVI was stepping down due to his age and declining strength. The fact that popes have resigned in the past—most recently 600 years ago—does not make it any less shocking. Nobody remembers what happened in 1415, but everyone knows that popes die in office.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
February 20th, 2013 at 10:23
Panonoorin ko iyan.
Dalawang papa pa lamang ang naaabutan ko at tama ka, malakas ang hatak sa tao ni Juan Paulo II, dahil siguro sa maamo niyang mukha. Naalala ko noong bagong halal na papa si Benedicto XVI. Sabi ng nanay ko na isang saradong Katoliko, “Ayaw ko ng papa na iyan. Iba ang aura. Parang si Hannibal Lecter.”
Maaari rin namang tunay mas malinaw ang pananaw at mas maliwanag ang pagkatao ni Juan Paulo II kaysa kay Benedicto XVI, kung ang pagbabasehan ay ang kanilang mga lagda na nakalathala sa Wikipedia. Mala-kalahig ng manok na lagda, madilim at mabalasik na mukha, Grand Inquisitor–dapat nga sigurong siya’y magpahinga na.
February 20th, 2013 at 15:00
I watched Mea Maxima Culpa a week ago. Several groups have come to the defense of the Catholic church, saying that the film was put together by a bunch of anti-Catholic malcontents. But seeing that clip of Ratzinger losing his temper when a journalist tried to interview him regarding a particular child molestation case, for me it was very telling of how much pressure he was already in during that time, even though he wasn’t Pope yet. It’s undeniable that the Catholic church was trying its best to cover it all up, otherwise there wouldn’t have been any pressure on anybody.
February 21st, 2013 at 06:21
pope benedict already had plans of retiring even before he was elected as a pope, siguro meron ng dinadamdam na mga sakit noon pa but when he was elected, tried his very best to be the next successor of pope john paul the II, his aura when i first saw him looked more of a “fighter” (his eyes) compared to pope john paul II’s charisma.
and c’mon the guy is old. need rest and maybe return to teaching.
February 21st, 2013 at 12:05
Credulity! The quality of the perfect believer.
February 23rd, 2013 at 14:10
Finally saw it and I have to say that even if I didn’t know how many children were abused before I saw it, I’ve always agreed with the documentary’s insistence on arresting these men and administering justice to them instead of their brothers hiding them in monasteries and “rehabilitating” them.
The victims who spoke really got into me – I wasn’t abused, but when they described Catholic school they were so right: when I was a kid the convents and seminaries around my school looked like palaces.
I almost felt sorry for Ratzinger in this documentary, but those abused kids… how about “NO.”