The Pope's Lesson in Confessional
July 13th 2008 22:55
I have something to confess: I have an affinity for the Pope.
Make your ‘affinity for Catholic priests’ joke there, but it’s true. I saw the former Pope John Paul II in person not long before he died and, while it wasn’t exactly a shock, it was pretty sad when he eventually succumbed to old age. He was replaced by a man known in Catholic circles as ‘God’s Rottweiller’: a firm traditionalist enforcer for Pope John Paul II named Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Benedict XVI. I was concerned at the time that Ratzinger wasn’t what the Church needed but I’ve been proven wrong. God’s Rottweiller is, really, just a pussy cat.
On his first visit to Australia for World Youth Day, touching down yesterday afternoon, he walked straight into a firestorm. As these things often happen, a new speight of sexual abuse allegations against Catholic priests were made public to coincide with his arrival, some decades old. Regular readers would know how I feel about opportunistic action groups. That’s not to say they don’t have genuine claims, but one has to wonder what they are trying to achieve by derailing World Youth Day. Bitterness against the Church? Compensation? Have their claims been hijacked by anti-Catholic groups hoping to embarass the Pope? You can never really tell what people’s motives are, but the point is that they’ve come out on top in this one. Against alot of people’s expectations, the Pope plans to apologise to victims of clergy sexual abuse during his mass at Randwick and call for the Catholic establishment to “consider what was insufficient in (their) behaviour and how (they) can prevent, heal, reconcile”.
In years to come, I think they might call 2008 “The Year People in Australia Apologise for Pretty Much Everything”. First, ‘Sorry’ to the Stolen Generation. Now, the Pope comes all the way Down Under and what does he do? He gets on the bandwagon and says ‘Sorry’ too. And good on him. People may be able to argue the point about the role of government in taking responsibility for past government actions and the true motives of the Stolen Generation, but it’s hard to argue that victims of abuse don’t deserve an apology. In a climate inherently suspicious of the clergy it’s a bold move for the Pope to step up to mistakes made.
Not everyone seems to think so. Chris MacIsaac, spokeswoman for victims group Broken Rights, says to the contrary. She says that the Pope is participating further in an “age-old cover-up”. Umm... Excuse me? The Pope is pretty clearly saying here that mistakes were made and they can’t be allowed to happen again. What is there to cover-up? It seems what the Pope REALLY needs is the Public Relations of another powerful Catholic: the Venerable K-Rudd. His apology to the Stolen Generation was praised by most as a successful enterprise, using firm and emotive words, dramatic looks down the lens of the camera broadcasting nationwide in a room full of victims and a Greek chorus of politicians stationed behind him chanting “hear, hear” at appropriate moments. Maybe Rudd should loan out his ‘Apology 08’ crew to the Pope, while he’s in the country, to help organise an apology that will satisfy all. The victims groups say that the Pope apologising in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands of people at Randwick mass and watching via broadcast is not enough of a mea culpa. You can imagine that if someone told you that kind of embarassment wasn’t good enough, you would be at a loose end, divine intervention or not. What can you possibly do to satisfy people that can beat such a public gesture?
Call in the Rudd Public Relations Squad. If there’s one thing they are good at, it’s listening to the public and knowing what will make them salivate. Clearly they have read alot of Pavlovian theory. But, nonetheless, they could solve the Pope’s problem of making things right with the victims.
Something tells me it’s not going to be as private as the confessional booth.
Make your ‘affinity for Catholic priests’ joke there, but it’s true. I saw the former Pope John Paul II in person not long before he died and, while it wasn’t exactly a shock, it was pretty sad when he eventually succumbed to old age. He was replaced by a man known in Catholic circles as ‘God’s Rottweiller’: a firm traditionalist enforcer for Pope John Paul II named Joseph Ratzinger, now known as Benedict XVI. I was concerned at the time that Ratzinger wasn’t what the Church needed but I’ve been proven wrong. God’s Rottweiller is, really, just a pussy cat.
On his first visit to Australia for World Youth Day, touching down yesterday afternoon, he walked straight into a firestorm. As these things often happen, a new speight of sexual abuse allegations against Catholic priests were made public to coincide with his arrival, some decades old. Regular readers would know how I feel about opportunistic action groups. That’s not to say they don’t have genuine claims, but one has to wonder what they are trying to achieve by derailing World Youth Day. Bitterness against the Church? Compensation? Have their claims been hijacked by anti-Catholic groups hoping to embarass the Pope? You can never really tell what people’s motives are, but the point is that they’ve come out on top in this one. Against alot of people’s expectations, the Pope plans to apologise to victims of clergy sexual abuse during his mass at Randwick and call for the Catholic establishment to “consider what was insufficient in (their) behaviour and how (they) can prevent, heal, reconcile”.
In years to come, I think they might call 2008 “The Year People in Australia Apologise for Pretty Much Everything”. First, ‘Sorry’ to the Stolen Generation. Now, the Pope comes all the way Down Under and what does he do? He gets on the bandwagon and says ‘Sorry’ too. And good on him. People may be able to argue the point about the role of government in taking responsibility for past government actions and the true motives of the Stolen Generation, but it’s hard to argue that victims of abuse don’t deserve an apology. In a climate inherently suspicious of the clergy it’s a bold move for the Pope to step up to mistakes made.
Not everyone seems to think so. Chris MacIsaac, spokeswoman for victims group Broken Rights, says to the contrary. She says that the Pope is participating further in an “age-old cover-up”. Umm... Excuse me? The Pope is pretty clearly saying here that mistakes were made and they can’t be allowed to happen again. What is there to cover-up? It seems what the Pope REALLY needs is the Public Relations of another powerful Catholic: the Venerable K-Rudd. His apology to the Stolen Generation was praised by most as a successful enterprise, using firm and emotive words, dramatic looks down the lens of the camera broadcasting nationwide in a room full of victims and a Greek chorus of politicians stationed behind him chanting “hear, hear” at appropriate moments. Maybe Rudd should loan out his ‘Apology 08’ crew to the Pope, while he’s in the country, to help organise an apology that will satisfy all. The victims groups say that the Pope apologising in front of an audience of hundreds of thousands of people at Randwick mass and watching via broadcast is not enough of a mea culpa. You can imagine that if someone told you that kind of embarassment wasn’t good enough, you would be at a loose end, divine intervention or not. What can you possibly do to satisfy people that can beat such a public gesture?
Call in the Rudd Public Relations Squad. If there’s one thing they are good at, it’s listening to the public and knowing what will make them salivate. Clearly they have read alot of Pavlovian theory. But, nonetheless, they could solve the Pope’s problem of making things right with the victims.
Something tells me it’s not going to be as private as the confessional booth.
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Comment by Damo
For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics
I rarity these days on Orble.
So you get my vote before the colosseum is opened and the lions are teased again.