Benedict is Alive and Kicking

So, the former Pope, Benedict XVI, who retired in 2013, stating that he would devote his remaining life to penance and prayers, has now come out with the product of his first six years: a message to the world about those who are really to blame for sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

EUREKA, he has found the culprits. It is all because of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and those “homosexual cliques” among seminarians and priests. They openly watched sex films and more… Seminarians, he hastens to add, avoided reading his books: “My books were hidden away, like bad literature, and only read under the desk.” Had they only read his books instead.

How about all those bishops and cardinals, who actively hushed things up, hiding the information from the law enforcement agencies, terrorising the victims and their families and when they had no alternative, paying hush money, so the information does not come out? Who is responsible for that, hey? Grown-ups having consensual sex against the rules of the Catholic Church, or the Church apparatus that instructed bishops not to report molesting and raping priests to the police and the bishops who followed Vatican rules instead of the law of the land?

J’accuse, Benedict, is not what penance should be about. Go retract your essay, and try mea culpa  instead. By the way, in your spare time, you could read my book about the Church. It is no longer in print, but I am sure that you will find a copy.