Month: March 2010

Today on the Dish, Ezra Klein assessed the CBO report, Chait prognosticated, and Obama rallied support from the left and center. Catholic groups here and here endorsed the HCR bill.

The Catholic rape scandal flared up in Ireland, Andrew clarified the situation involving Benedict here and here, Hans Kung spoke out, and the pope's defenders fought back. A reader wrote.

Goldblog tried to make sense of Israel's situation, Fred Kaplan did as well, and Bibi's brother-in-law spouted some troubling rhetoric. We saw some promising signs from young Arabs and Dan Choi made a statement. Shafer and Ezra tore into WaPo op-eds, Chait thwacked Thiessen, and Dan Zak shrugged at the census. The No Child Left Behind thread continued here and here.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

You wrote:

These people should not be demonized. Many of them are humane in private and not bigots in any personal way.

That second sentence is exactly why they should be demonized.  In many ways this is no different than the attempted rehabilitation of George Wallace.  The idea that they just said what was popular so that they could win office is no justification.  The ends do not justify the means.  And when you are a public figure, how you act in private does not justify advocating (and enacting) law and policy to the contrary.

Later in life, Wallace said, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."  That doesn't make what he said or did right.  Nor does the idea that he really wasn't a bigot, because even if he didn't believe in segregation, he took action to uphold it.

Really, this is the problem with the GOP, when people talk about good roads and good schools, the base doesn't listen.  But when they talk about faggots, the base stomps the floor.  The role, and obligation, of leaders is to say what is right and do what is right.  It is not to pander to build the slimmest of majorities to win elections.  As a side note, that really was the great political sin of Rove, he could not see beyond 51%, or 270 electoral votes, he could not see that winning elections is not enough, that you also have to actually govern at some point… Rove's political sin is becoming the original sin of contemporary Republicans.

Hans Kung, the greatest Catholic theologian of our time:

Is it not time for Pope Benedict XVI himself to acknowledge his share of responsibility, instead of whining about a campaign against his person? No other person in the Church has had to deal with so many cases of abuse crossing his desk. Here are some reminders:

In his eight years as a professor of theology in Regensburg, in close contact with his brother Georg, the capellmeister of the Regensburger Domspatzen, Ratzinger can hardly have been ignorant about what went on in the choir and its boarding–school. This was much more than an occasional slap in the face, there are charges of serious physical violence and even sexual abuse.

In his five years as Archbishop of Munich, repeated cases of sexual abuse at least by one priest transferred to his Archdiocese have come to light. His loyal Vicar General, my classmate Gerhard Gruber, has taken full responsibility for the handling of this case, but that is hardly an excuse for the Archbishop, who is ultimately responsible for the administration of his diocese.

In his 24 years as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, from around the world, all cases of grave sexual offences by clerics had to be reported, under strictest secrecy ("secretum pontificum"), to his curial office, which was exclusively responsible for dealing with them. Ratzinger himself, in a letter on "grave sexual crimes" addressed to all the bishops under the date of 18 May, 2001, warned the bishops, under threat of ecclesiastical punishment, to observe "papal secrecy" in such cases.

In his five years as Pope, Benedict XVI has done nothing to change this practice with all its fateful consequences.

Honesty demands that Joseph Ratzinger himself, the man who for decades has been principally responsible for the worldwide cover-up, at last pronounce his own "mea culpa".

As Bishop Tebartz van Elst of Limburg, in a radio address on March 14, put it: "Scandalous wrongs cannot be glossed over or tolerated, we need a change of attitude that makes room for the truth. Conversion and repentance begin when guilt is openly admitted, when contrition1 is expressed in deeds and manifested as such, when responsibility is taken, and the chance for a new beginning is seized upon."

(Photo: Andreas Solari/AFP/Getty.)

"Because for most of the time they have been, and you know, I don’t mean any disrespect, but they’ve been treason media," – Michele Bachman, on the coverage of parliamentary procedures.

The psychiatrist who warned Ratzinger's archdiocese about pedophlle priest Peter Hullerman goes public:

“I said, ‘For God’s sake, he desperately has to be kept away from working with children,’” the psychiatrist Werner Huth said in an interview Thursday. “I was very unhappy about the entire story.” Dr. Huth said he was concerned enough that he set three conditions for treating the priest, Peter Hullermann: that he stay away from young people and alcohol and be supervised by another priest at all times. Dr. Huth said he issued the warnings — explicit, both written and oral — before the future pope, then Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, left Germany for the Vatican in 1982. In 1980, following abuse complaints from parents in Essen that the priest did not deny, Archbishop Ratzinger approved a decision to move the priest to Munich for therapy.

Here is where things start unraveling for the Pope:

The psychiatrist said in an interview he did not have any direct communications with Archbishop Ratzinger and did not know if the archbishop knew about his warnings. Though he said he spoke with several senior church officials, Dr. Huth’s main contact at the time was a bishop, Heinrich Graf von Soden-Fraunhofen, who died in 2000…

In the minutes taken by the priest in charge of the parish at the meeting with the parents, he noted that they “would not file charges under the current circumstances” in order to protect their children…. Spared prosecution after his transgressions in Essen, which according to the statement released by the diocese he “did not dispute,” Father Hullermann instead was ordered to undergo therapy with Dr. Huth. The archdiocese said that order was approved personally by Archbishop Ratzinger.

So we are asked to believe that, as archbishop, Ratzinger personally approved an order for a priest to be transferred to Munich for therapy, after his archdiocese had been repeatedly and explicitly warned that this priest was a danger to children – but that Ratinger had no idea what that therapy was about, and bears no responsibility at all for the acts of abuse committed then and thereafter by this protected child-rapist.

Yes, it appears that this is what we are being asked to believe.

Juan Cole goes another round. Chait goes after Cole.

Chris Beam answers:

No.

The Code of Canon Law has no provision that allows a pope's removal from office— for any reason, even poor health or psychological trauma. That's because, according to church law, there is no higher authority than the pope: He "possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church, which he is always able to exercise freely." A pope may resign, but his resignation must be "made freely," and he doesn't have to tender his resignation to any particular authority. (The last pope to resign was Gregory XII, who did so in 1415 to end the battle for the papacy known as the Western schism.)

Dahlia Lithwick doesn't see why not:

Polls show that 80 percent of the country hated the Citizens United decision, overturning several precedents and some major campaign finance law when it first came down and they still hate the ruling six weeks later. It was surely bad manners for the president to attack the court as the justices sat, quietly napping, before him at the State of the Union. But I don't see where it was bad politics.

Jeffrey Rosen looks to history and agrees:

The greatest appeal of Court-bashing for Obama is that it can be based on a principled vision of economic populism and judicial restraint. … Obama could gain all the benefits of Court-bashing while avoiding all of the dangers, arguing plausibly that conservatives have betrayed their long-standing principles by using narrow Court majorities to reverse their defeats in the political arena. In this kind of fight, the Roberts Court doesn’t stand a chance.

Via the Columbus Dispatch, from yesterday:

Barbie Latza Nadeau looks at the numbers:

Like a similar church sex scandal that rocked the United States in 2002, the European phase is being handled quietly and swiftly by promises of change and financial compensation to the victims. In the United States, more than $1 billion has been paid to victims of abuse. Most claimants receive somewhere between $5,000 and $500,000, depending on the length and level of abuse. Others have received millions, especially those who were abused by multiple priests over a period of years. Dioceses in Ireland have already earmarked more than $1 billion to pay for the sins of their clergy and the other countries are tallying up the bill.