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QUITTER - bonus 2/19/2013 7:01:40 AM
This is a bonus column. The usual will be published on Saturday, Feb. 23rd; it is called TWO, and it deals with our grandson Hutson’s 2nd b-day, as well as daughter Alex’s 28th. It is not to be missed.)
Benedict XVI (Joe Ratzinger) was elected the 265th pope on April 19, 2005; he resigned on February 11, 2013, the first pope to leave office voluntarily since Gregory XII in 1415, seventy-seven years before Columbus discovered America (if, in fact, he did).
He will be remembered as the second most powerful man on Earth; he rarely used his full title of his Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God — recognition of the first most powerful is often given to the incumbent president of the United States.
Being neither Roman Catholic nor a student of Vatican history, I shamelessly plagiarized lines and ideas from the Internet—the copyright announcement at the end of this column notwithstanding.
Anyway, Joe Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927, and he was baptized on the same day he was born in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany.
Following his fourteenth birthday, he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth Movement — law proscribed by Adolph Hitler required membership for all 14-year-old German boys after December 1939, but he was reputably an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother, Georg.
In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome was taken away by the Nazi regime and murdered during the Action T4 campaign of Nazi atrocities.
In 1943, while still in seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps as a Luftwaffenhelfer (air force child soldier). Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry.
As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he promptly deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household.
As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945. He reentered the seminary, along with his brother in November of that year; they both were ordained as Roman Catholic priests on June 29, 1951.
As Benedict XVI, Ratzinger will be remembered as many things during his tenure, but Middle Easterners will never forget a speech he made on September 12, 2006 in which he said: “Show me just what [the prophet] Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”
Pope Benedict XVI planned on March 5, 2008, to meet with Muslim scholars and religious leaders at a Catholic-Muslim seminar in Rome. That meeting, the "First Meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum, was held from November 4-6, 2008.On May 9, 2009 Benedict XVI visited the King Hussein in Amman, Jordan where he spoke with his His Royal Highness. Neither, I learned, had much to say about the other’s attitude.
The second issue was his recrimination against sexual abuse in the Church. Before 2001, the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of sexual abuse and disciplining perpetrators rested with the individual dioceses. In 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Vatican in charge of all investigations and policies surrounding sexual abuse in order to combat such abuse more efficiently.
According to John Allen, Jr., Ratzinger, an American journalist in Rome who covered the Vatican, Ratzinger “acquired a familiarity with the contours of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic Church can claim” and “driven by that encounter” with what he would later refer to as 'filth' in the Church, the Cardinal seems to have undergone something of a 'conversion experience' throughout 2003–04.
From that point forward, he and his staff seemed driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess — in this role, he “led important changes made in Church law”: the inclusion in canon law of internet porn offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under the age of 18, the case-by-case waiving of the statute of limitations and the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders.
Cardinal “Ratzinger developed a reputation for handling these cases.” According to Charles J. Scicluna, a former prosecutor handling sexual abuse cases, “The cardinal displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases — sine acceptione personarum (without exceptions).”
One of the cases Ratzinger pursued involved Fr. Marcial Degollado, a Mexican priest and founder of the Legion of Christ, who had been accused repeatedly of sexual abuse. Biographer Andrea Tornielli suggested that Ratzinger had wanted to take action against Degollado, but that John Paul II and other high-ranking officials, including several cardinals and notably the pope's influential secretary, prevented him from doing so.
According to Jason Berry, the secretary “pressured” Ratzinger, who was “operating on the assumption that the charges were not justified”, to halt the proceedings against Maciel in 1999.When Maciel was honored by the pope in 2004, new accusers came forward, and the cardinal “took it on himself to authorize an investigation of Degollado”.
After Ratzinger became pope he began proceedings against Maciel and the Legion of Christ that forced Maciel out of active service in the Church.
On 1 May 1, 2010 the Vatican issued a statement denouncing Maciel's “very serious and objectively immoral acts”, which were “confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies” and represent “true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment.”
Pope Benedict also said he would appoint a special commission to examine the Legionaries’ constitution and open an investigation into its lay affiliate, the Regnum Christi. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn explained that Ratzinger “made entirely clear efforts not to cover things up but to tackle and investigate them. This was not always met with approval in the Vatican”.
According to Schönborn, Cardinal Ratzinger had pressed John Paul II to investigate Hans Groër, an Austrian cardinal and friend of John Paul accused of sexual abuse, resulting in Groër's resignation.
In March 2010, the Pope Benedict sent a Pastoral Letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland addressing cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests against minors, expressing sorrow, and promising changes in the way accusations of abuse are dealt with. Victim groups claim the letter failed to clarify if the fact that secular law enforcement has priority over canon law, as well as confidentiality pertaining to internal investigation of abuse allegations. Hmmm.
The pope then promised to introduce measures that would “safeguard young people in the future” and “bring to justice” priests who were responsible for abuse.
n April, the Vatican issued guidelines on how existing Church law should be implemented. The guideline dictates, “Civil law concerning reporting of crimes should always be followed.” The guideline was intended to follow the norms established by U.S. bishops, but it does not require the reporting of “allegations” or crimes where reporting IS NOT required by law. So much for Pope Benedict XVI’s legacy.
Who will be the next pope? As an inveterate handicapper, my $2 will be on Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. He will go off at 9-2, and if he should win, all hell will break loose in the conclave. I never look a gift Cardinal in the mouth.
