RNS Digest

c. 2010 Religion News Service

Pope calls abuse of minors ‘terrifying’ sign of church ‘sin’

By Francis X. Rocca

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Benedict XVI called the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests a “truly terrifying” example of “sin within the church,” which he said demands a response of “penitence” and “justice.”

Speaking Tuesday, May 11 to reporters accompanying him on a flight to Portugal, Benedict struck a markedly different tone than recent statements by other church leaders, who had characterized controversy over pedophile priests as hostile press coverage and “petty gossip.”

“The greatest persecution of the church comes not from enemies on the outside, but is born from sin inside the church,” Benedict said.

“The church thus has a profound need to relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness, but also the necessity of justice,” the pope said. “Forgiveness does not take the place of justice.”

An American advocate for sex abuse victims quickly dismissed Benedict’s words as insufficiently self-critical.

“The pope does a disservice to children, victims and Catholics by trying to perpetrate the myth that the church is somehow a ‘victim,”’ said Barbara Blaine of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Children are victims.”

Benedict’s statement came after he was asked about a possible relationship between the clerical sex abuse scandal and the “sufferings of the church” reportedly predicted by the Virgin Mary at the Portuguese shrine of Fatima.

The pope’s four-day (May 11-14) visit to Portugal focused on observances at Fatima on Thursday (May 13). Those observances will mark the 93rd anniversary of the first of six reported apparitions witnessed by three shepherd children, who reportedly saw and heard prophecies from the Virgin Mary in 1917.

During his visit, Benedict was also expected to reiterate the need for an increasingly secular Europe to rediscover its Christian heritage, one of the major themes of his pontificate.

“Secularism is something normal, but the separation and opposition between secularism and a culture of faith is anomalous and must be overcome,” the pope said Tuesday, in response to another question during his in-flight press conference.

Benedict also drew a parallel between that opposition and what he described as a loss of business ethics, which he indicated as a cause of the financial crisis now besetting Portugal and Europe.

Portugal is 84.5 per cent Catholic, according to the 2001 census, but a 2005 survey found that only 27 per cent of Catholics there regularly attend mass.

The nation’s parliament voted in February to give same-sex couples many of the rights of marriage, a policy that Benedict has called “gravely unjust.” Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco Silva, a practising Catholic, has yet to sign the bill into law.

Pope calls abortion, gay marriage ‘insidious and dangerous threats’

By Francis X. Rocca

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday (May 13) singled out abortion, divorce and same-sex marriage as “some of today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good.”

The pope made his remarks in an address to social workers at the Portuguese shrine of Fatima, on the third of a four-day visit to Portugal.
“Initiatives aimed at protecting the essential and primary values of life, beginning at conception, and of the family based on the indissoluble marriage between a man and a woman, help to respond to some of today’s most insidious and dangerous threats to the common good,” Benedict said.

Portugal’s parliament voted in February to give same-sex couples many of the rights of marriage, a policy that Benedict has in the past called “gravely unjust” and the “legalization of evil.” Portugal’s President Anibal Cavaco Silva, a practising Catholic, has yet to sign the bill into law.

Portugal is 84.5 per cent Catholic, according to the 2001 census, but a 2005 survey found that only 27 per cent of Catholics there regularly attend mass.

During his visit to Portugal, Benedict has reiterated the need for an increasingly secular Europe to rediscover its Christian heritage, one of the major themes of his pontificate.

Speaking to Portuguese bishops later on Thursday, the pope specifically criticized “politicians, intellectuals, (and) communications professionals” who promote “disdain” for religion, and called upon Christians in those fields to bear witness to their faith.

“In such circles,” Benedict said, “are found some believers who are ashamed of their beliefs and who even give a helping hand to this type of secularism, which builds barriers before Christian inspiration.”



Russian patriarch, praising World War II, sidesteps Stalin’s legacy

By Sophia Kishkovsky

MOSCOW (RNS/ENI) Sidestepping a debate over the legacy of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church said the Second World War had “redeemed Russia from its sins.”

“The church does not look at the war as historians or politicians do,” Patriarch Kirill I said in a May 9 sermon at the Church of Christ the saviour to mark the Russian victory over Nazi Germany. “The church has a particular stance, a particular spiritual point of view.”

The Patriarch said he believed the war — which Russians call the Great Patriotic War — had redeemed the nation from its sins, the “bloody events of the beginning of the 20th century.”

“How many lies, how much evil and human suffering there was. But God washed away these lies and this evil with our blood, with the blood of our fathers, as has happened more than once in human history.”

While Kirill did not mention Stalin by name, he nonetheless took issue with historians who equate Nazi Germany with Stalin-era Russia.

“When some homegrown historians tell us that the evil here was no less than there, they are not seeing beyond their own noses, and fail to see the divine horizon beyond their extremely primitive and sinful analysis,” said Kirill. “The Great Patriotic War revealed to us God’s truth about ourselves. It punished us for our sins but revealed to us the great glory and strength of our people.”

The Moscow Patriarchate has been embroiled in a public dispute after Stalinist author Aleksandr Prokhanov accused church leaders of insensitivity and “placing themselves against the people” in their criticisms of Stalin’s bloody legacy.

Archbishop Hilarion, the church’s director of external relations, had earlier labeled Stalin a “spiritual monster” — statements that Prokhanov and others have called dangerous and damaging to Russian identity.

Three days before Kirill’s sermon, the church had posted a letter from Hilarion’s office saying “an inhuman system was created under Stalin, and nothing can justify it. ... The regime created by Stalin was based on terror, violence and repression, by lies and denunciations.”