Pope Benedict XVI is so “on-message” during his USA trip that he started in his airplane, before he landed. His message seems to be:
Sex abuse by priests is very very bad.
Even when it isn’ t child sex abuse by priests, which it usually is.
Even when it isn’t gay sex abuse by priests, which it usually is.
Sex abuse by priests is part of the sexualization of American society.
Sexualization of American society is part of the secularization of American society.
Ergo, secularization is responsible for sex abuse by priests.
Victims of sex abuse by priests would really benefit from pastoral counseling.
By priests.
Perhaps Mr. John Wojnowski will have something to say about that.
You may have noticed Mr. Wojnowski when driving by Observatory Circle. He has held a vigil there since 1998, holding protest signs, usually reading My life was ruined by a pedophile priest. He stands there in all weather, as close to the Apolstolic Nunciature to the United States (Vatican Embassy, 3339 Massachusetts Ave NW) as Federal guards will let him. Mr. Wojnowski, long regarded as a harmless local lunatic, has certainly been proven right by events; it seems to give him little satisfaction.
While in Washington, His Holiness made passing reference to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Lebanon, Iraq (”particularly the precarious state of Christian communities there”), and Latin American immigrants in the U.S., all issues in which the Church has direct interests.
There is starvation and war around the world. Food riots. Fuel riots. Homelessness. Systematic cruelty and torture. Perhaps the Holy Father feels he must round up his strayed, scattered, and scared American flock before dealing wih these issues.
But dealing with an in-house Church scandal is one thing; doing so to the exclusion of world events is quite another. Isn’t that what Pope Gregory (then Joseph Ratzinger) said he had learned from his childhood in World War II Germany?
