My extended take on the current conflicts within conservatism can be read here.
THE MACIEL TIME BOMB: Now, this is interesting. Why on earth would then-Cardinal Ratzinger re-open an investigation of Father Marcial Maciel’s alleged child-sex racket last December, having suppressed any kind of inquiry for many years? A critical piece of television footage – which I was surprised wasn’t aired over the last week – shows then-Cardinal Ratzinger prissily slapping the wrists of an ABC News reporter who dared to confront him over the issue in public. Maciel founded a crucial ultra-conservative order, the Legion of Christ, which was given special recognition by John Paul II. Maciel was also a very close friend of John Paul II. The evidence for a pattern of wide-scale sex abuse under Maciel is voluminous. The Vatican was sent a frank and angry dossier of accusations in 1997. John Paul II and then-Cardinal Ratzinger did nothing. There are a few possible explanations for last December’s volte-face: that it took seven years for Ratzinger to appreciate the scale of the scandal and that he gets it now (the new Vatican spin); that Ratzinger knew all along that Maciel was guilty but also knew that John Paul II would never allow his friend to be brought to justice; or that, last December, Ratzinger knew that the Maciel case could explode on the Vatican, and that if he didn’t initiate the investigation, he would be implicated in the cover-up as well. But, of course, Benedict XVI had already been deeply involved in the cover-up; and even re-opening the investigation cannot expunge that record. London’s Independent newspaper reports that Ratzinger once said that “one can’t put on trial such a close friend of the Pope’s as Marcial Maciel.” I’ve never read that before and don’t know the source. But if true, it’s a pretty damning statement.
BENEDICT = LAW? The critical queston, then, is: what is the difference between Cardinal Law and Pope Benedict XVI? Benedict never had the kind of administrative authority over parish priests that Law had. But he did have authority over the Maciel matter; it was reported to him; he ignored it and suppressed investigations. The personal connection to Maciel is crucial – and Maciel is also integral to the new ultra-conservative establishment. His running a gay teen sex abuse ring was not encouraged by liberal theological deviation (as it might have been elsewhere). It was old-style Catholic sex abuse: highly conservative closeted gay priests, psychologically crippled by decades of self-loathing and struggle against their homosexual orientation, acting out their stunted sexual development by abusing their clerical power over younger men and boys. And this pattern has long been known – and accepted – by much of the Church hierarchy. While they excoriated openly gay lay couples struggling honestly and openly with how to live moral lives as Catholics, they protected closeted, psychologically damaged gay priests who engaged in sex abuse. Benedict is therefore caught between two very difficult places – blaming John Paul II for protecting Maciel for too long; or admitting that he too turned a blind eye to investigating credible claims of sexual abuse. Last December’s decision suggests to me that Benedict knows what’s coming. And he’s doing what he can simply to control and stay ahead of the damage.
BENEDICT AND THE SEX ABUSE CRISIS: More damaging revelations. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger asserted in a 2001 letter that the Church had the right to investigate all sex abuse cases in complete secrecy and that its jurisidiction “begins to run from the day when the minor has completed the 18th year of age” and lasts for a decade. Those who believe and hope that Benedict will be the man to cope with the problem of the Church’s cover-up of sex abuse will soon have to concede that Benedict himself has been a central part of the problem. Will Church conservatives give Benedict a pass?
The Dish 