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	Good Friday? the Papacy's Worst Day for Centuries By Peter DeRosa Herald April 5, 2010 http://www.herald.ie/opinion/good-friday-the-papacys-worst-day-for-centuries-2125554.html IRELAND -- Good Friday was the worst day of Pope Benedict's pontificate. Possibly the worst day for the papacy in centuries. It reminded me of the day the Berlin Wall came down. UN judge Geoffrey Robertson argued that the Pope is not Head of State in terms of international law. The Vatican has no seat in the United Nations. When the Pope visits the UK in September, citizens might take out an arrest warrant against him for crimes related to child sex abuse, as was threatened on Israeli Tzipi Livni a few months ago. Then another lawyer, F Ray Mouton, broke a 25-year silence that might have a devastating effect on the priest abuse controversy. In 1985, Mouton, with Fr Tom Doyle and another priest, presented a manual to the US bishops telling them that not to act would be an unprecedented disaster. This was quashed by a clerical group led by a young bishop who is now Cardinal Levada, appointed by Benedict as head of the Holy Office. Another Cardinal, Bertone, was Ratzinger's assistant at the Holy Office. He said he was a shepherd not a policeman and he had no intention of handing over any priest to the civil authorities. Bertone is now Benedict's Secretary of State. Mouton concluded ""There is no question that had the bishops around the world, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II adhered to our advice, thousands of priests would have been removed from the ministry and turned over to police authorities, and an inestimable number of children would have grown normally through childhood with God's greatest gift, innocence, intact." Next, the Archbishop of Canterbury weighed in, saying the Catholic Church in Ireland has lost "all credibility" over its handing of paedophile priests and traumatised the whole country. Finally, the Pope's personal preacher, Raniero Cantalmessa, in front of Benedict, compared criticism of the Pope to the collective violence suffered by Jews. The Vatican denied he spoke with authority. Unfortunately, the sermon was already on the front page of the Osservatore Romano and on the Pope's desk before he attended the Good Friday service. It aroused a storm of anger from Catholic abuse victims and the Jewish community. In Saturday's Herald, I wrote that thousands of new victims are about to speak. An abuse hotline set up by the Church in Germany reached meltdown on its first day. Of 4,459 callers, only 162 could be dealt with. The Vatican's attempt to stop the flow of bad news on priest abuse is like trying to shoe a galloping horse.
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