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	Daylight upon Magic The Abuse Scandal Could Be a Disaster for the Catholic Church If It Responds Poorly The Times March 29, 2010 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article7079479.ece UNITED KINGDOM -- The English constitutionalist Walter Bagehot once said of the monarchy something that applies to religious hierarchies too. It does not do to let in daylight upon magic. The mystique of the institution, in other words, is the secret of its power. So, the preservation of a certain distance by the Vatican from the rules of temporal life is to be expected. That said, the inadequate response from Rome to the scandal of clerical abuse is not mitigated by its defensible requirement for mystery. In his Palm Sunday address yesterday, marking the start of Holy Week, Pope Benedict XVI struck a defiant note. He would not be "intimidated", he said, by the "chatter of dominant opinions". Coming immediately after the Vatican unwisely criticised the media for its coverage of the allegations, there is a sense that the gravity of the issue has not yet been fully grasped. If a more emollient tone is not found, then the critics demonstrating outside Westminster Cathedral yesterday, demanding the resignation of the Pope himself, will find a voice. There are lots of unanswered questions about the role of Cardinal Ratzinger — as he was then — and, specifically, his handling of cases of paedophile priests, first as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982 and then later as the head of doctrine at the Vatican. But defenders of Benedict point out that, in his Good Friday meditations shortly before his election in 2005, he did condemn the "filth" in the Church. The Pope has also intervened in the Church on Ireland by announcing an Apostolic Visitation and sending an unequivocal pastoral letter to Irish bishops in which he called sex abuse "a grave sin" and "a heinous crime". No Pope has resigned since Gregory in 1415 and there is no case for such a course now. However, the Vatican has some way to go before it can be said to have responded properly to these extremely serious cases. The Vatican spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, found the right words on Saturday when he said that recognising the seriousness of the cases and making amends to the victims "is the price of re-establishing justice and purifying memories that will let us look ahead with renewed commitment together, with humility and trust in the future". But the correct response is a matter of deeds as well as words and it may be that the Pope needs to call an emergency synod to draw up a credible strategy. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the former Archbishop of Milan, has suggested that the policy of celibacy should be reviewed, though this brought forth a strong retort from Pope Benedict who described celibacy as "a gift to God". Whatever the policies required to restore the trust of which Father Lombardi spoke, it is hard to envisage any such strategy that does not include the resignation of Sean Brady, the Archbishop of Armagh and the head of the Church in Ireland. Archbishop Brady is fighting legal actions brought by five victims of the child rapist Father Brendan Smyth. His position is surely untenable, though he is unlikely to announce a decision until Pentecost, at the end of May. Whether the resignation of Archbishop Brady would suffice is difficult to judge. But a serious crisis for the Catholic Church could yet escalate into an epic disaster if the argument creeps to the top. The Church maintains that it is not trying to cover anything up. The best way to substantiate this claim is to let the daylight in.
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