Comment from Dessert:
Benedict XVI has made a step towards facing the issues.   But he faces a journey of many more steps.

Worldwide web-sites are raising issues well beyond the “sinfulness and forgiveness” theme.  The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for Class A actions by victims of abuse to sue the Vatican.  They are accusing the Vatican and their Bishops of conspiring to cover up criminal activity. That raises matters of crime beyond sin. A question is “will the Vatican ever submit to judicial examination with the risk of being found guilty?”

Then, taking a global view of the Vatican and Bishops, a growing number of voices from disaffected laity, religious and priests are raising quite different questions. Questions about clinging to power rather than service, prestige rather than simplicity, religious morals rather than Christian values and of asserting their own will before God’s will,  to make God in their own image.

Many Christians are mindful also of an Easter teaching. That Jesus surrendered to the Will of God to die rather than to pursue self preservation. That Jesus trusted in a God who would not desert him. That through the death and resurrection, God would raise him up him anew.  Surely such faith is relevant today!

Particular questions of the Vatican and Bishops being asked are “How could they have denied the working of the Holy Spirit (and the People of God) by turned their backs on Vatican 11?” Why can’t they read the current “Sign of the Times” that they are in a hole, and that  no amount of digging deeper will  shore up a traditional church that has failed? “How could they ever accept the exploitation of innocent people when it contradicts a core value of Jesus and Christianity? How can they hold onto self-interest and avoid a key meaning of Easter?  How can they uphold Seminary training and a quagmire of religious theology crafted to justify the avoidance of Christian living. (It is interesting to see that the media protagonists of the Vatican remain in praise of the “other church” that is Catholics in the frontline of the mission of Jesus to heal the afflicted and to bring justice.)

So, whatever the judicial courts may decide, the courts of the People of God may well find the Vatican and the Bishops guilty of a much wider range of offences. Offences that could lead to most people of good-will deciding to ignore, condemn or assail the old structures.  Of course, the judgment and will of God will be what finally decides.  We can only pray and trust in the knowledge that no matter how harsh, that judgment will emerge and that we will have the grace and wisdom to read it and to heed it.

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