JOHN PAUL II’s beatification on May 1st may yet have been the most exalted
ceremony at the Vatican since his funeral six years ago.
More than 50
heads of state attended, plus hundreds of thousands of the faithful,
largely from the late pope’s native Poland.
The former pope is now just
one stage—canonisation—away from full sainthood.
The adulation of his
communism-toppling 27-year reign and powerful personality will
inevitably highlight the less stellar record of the accident-prone
Benedict XVI.
Pontifical aides hope the event may mark a turning point.
The second,
most important volume of Benedict’s trilogy on Jesus has been
published, with no gaffes and much praise.
He has given a television
interview (carefully staged, but a papal first).
He has tried to defuse
the crippling clerical sex-abuse scandal, expressing unreserved shame
for the crimes and cover-ups and meeting victims in Malta, Portugal and
Britain.
Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of the Vatican’s semi-official
daily, L’Osservatore Romano, says that Benedict’s actions show
him to be “not just a great intellectual, but also a simple, humble,
good man”.
The peak of the scandal, in the “annus horribilis” of 2010, is past, he says. But he acknowledges that the situation in Ireland still requires a “long penitential journey”.
And not only there, many would say.
Outside the Vatican, the
sex-abuse scandal still defines the church’s image.
And it looks
horrible enough.
In Philadelphia the church suspended 21 priests from
active ministry on March 8th following accusations of improper conduct
with juveniles. This followed a grand jury report the previous month
alleging a big cover-up by the religious authorities.
In Belgium a
former bishop, Roger Vangheluwe, who has already admitted abusing two of
his nephews, was this month put under investigation on suspicion of
abusing two altar boys.
The Vatican has sent him for treatment but has
yet to unfrock him, even after he seemed to trivialise his actions in a
television interview.
This pattern of indecision chimes with a persistent criticism of
the 84-year-old pontiff: that he has failed to make the Vatican’s civil
service (the curia), work effectively.
The shy former theology professor
once admitted he had “no talent for...administration or organisation”.
As head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican
department that enforces doctrinal orthodoxy, he sensibly delegated
managerial work.
Admittedly, John Paul liked to bypass bureaucracy and bequeathed a
mess to his successor.
But he did entrust the key post of secretary of
state (a kind of prime minister), to a canny ex-diplomat, Cardinal
Angelo Sodano.
Benedict’s choice fell on his former deputy Cardinal
Tarcisio Bertone, an inspirational pastoral leader but lacking curial
clout and international experience.
A group of cardinals last year privately implored the pope to replace
Cardinal Bertone.
“Tired of unpleasant surprises”, according to a
frequent associate, Benedict responded by giving a broader mandate to
his secretary, Father Georg Ganswein.
Officials say “The Apartment”,
(the pope’s private circle) is getting a lot more involved in day-to-day
curial administration.
A tighter grip cannot come soon enough. The latest fracas came with
the unveiling on April 13th of the trendily named YouCat, a new
Catechism (in effect, the church’s FAQ for youngsters).
Supposedly
authoritative, the Italian translation differed seriously from the
German original on the vital issues of euthanasia and birth control.
That led to a public rebuke from the editor, Cardinal Christoph
Schonbörn of Vienna, to the Patriarch of Venice, Cardinal Angelo Scola,
who had overseen the translation.
Both are leading candidates to succeed
Benedict and are on opposite sides in a vital debate: whether the
church’s sex-abuse woes stem chiefly from structural problems in the
church, such as (implicitly) priestly celibacy, or from sinfulness
(which is Benedict’s position).
While that smoulders at the top, another row is flaring at the
grassroots.
Strange as it may seem, Benedict has disappointed those who
hoped he would correct some of John Paul’s more liberal tendencies.
He
has promoted the old, Tridentine liturgy.
But he has not wooed back
breakaway hardliners or dumped the Second Vatican Council’s ecumenical,
modernist legacy.
Worse, he has even agreed to join (but not pray with) leaders of
other faiths in Assisi in October at an event commemorating a
ground-breaking interfaith gathering in 1986.
At that time, to
traditionalists’ fury, John Paul joined other religious figures in
prayer, including Native American holy men. Some even think that made
him unfit for sainthood.
They also see Benedict’s role in the follow-up
event as a dangerous lurch towards syncretism (the heretical idea of
blending religions).
Such disputes dispirit those who want the church to look outward and
upward, not nitpick over the past.
In a fervent article for Jesus,
an Italian monthly, Enzo Bianchi, the founder of a monastic community
near Turin, said he was tired of “wars between ecclesiastic factions”
and of accusers who “do not want to hear or know the truth, but merely
silence others”.
He says: “I wonder along with many others: where is the
church going?”
For all his faults, that was not a question people asked
of Benedict’s predecessor.