It’s a little late for remorse, Pope Ratzi

[source: BrightsOnline]

Excuse me if I don’t take his promises for granted:

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI promised Wednesday that the Catholic Church would take action to confront the clerical sex abuse scandal, making his first public comments on the crisis days after meeting with victims.

During his weekly public audience in St. Peter's Square, Benedict recounted his tearful weekend meeting in Malta with eight men who say they were abused as children by priests in a church-run orphanage.

"I shared with them their suffering, and emotionally prayed with them, assuring them of church action," Benedict said.

At the time of the private meeting Sunday, the Vatican issued a statement saying Benedict had told the men that the church would do everything in its power to bring justice to abusive priests and would implement "effective measures" to protect children.

Now, whether or not Pope Ratzi actually did cry – genuinely, of empathy – in meeting these victims, I don’t know. I don’t believe he actually is evil or truly heartless; merely self-centered and greedy (which tend to be requisites for any positions of power, churchly or not). But, the thing is, his words and promise of “church action” and “effective measures” against clerical child sex abuse may carry a bit more weight if he hadn’t dutifully upheld the Church’s policy of defending and shepherding around priests who were caught molesting children, and particularly, if he hadn’t been caught for having written a 1985 letter of his showing him resisting the defrocking of a guilty priest.

Just sayin’.

(via @todayspolitics)