Lupica: Don't Bet on It, but Pope Benedict Xvi's Resignation Presents a Chance for a Narrow-Minded Catholic Church to Get It Right

New York Daily News
March 4, 2013

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/lupica-wake-catholic-church-article-1.1278518

Pope Benedict XVI walks away from the crowd Thursday near Rome after delivering the final message of his pontificate. He discplined not even one bishop for suppressing allegations of child sexual abuse during his time as pope.

Pope Benedict XVI extends the final blessing of his pontificate. It is time that the church choose someone more open-minded if it hopes to remain relevant.

The last pope's record on sex abuse an abject failure, the church needs someone who can overcome long-standing hypocrisy and inaction and bring the church into modern times on issues like homosexuality and female priests. Frankly, the church would be wise to choose someone younger, who will have more vigor and be likelier to look forward. It probably won't, though.

t is the Saturday Vigil Mass this past weekend at a small church outside the city, and there is a young priest standing in the back of the church wearing a black vest and his collar, handing out straw baskets to the various parishioners who will help with the collection on this day.

After the money is collected, because the Catholic Church is always pretty great at that, the priest will put on his vestments and help with Communion.

Before he does, I walk over and ask him a question.

“Do you think there’s any chance the cardinals will get it right this time?”

Meaning, when the College of Cardinals officially begins to decide who will succeed Benedict XVI — another who became the face of the Catholic Church with his chin on his chest — as Pope.

The priest just smiled and shrugged, maybe because there is no good answer for a young man to give in a church too often run by old men. It was illness that made Benedict XVI’s predecessor, John Paul II, look as frail as he did at the end. It was just age with the former Joseph Ratzinger, who at 78 was the oldest man to become Pope in nearly 300 years and retires more than seven years later, and not a day too soon.

He leaves behind a Vatican about as relevant to the modern world as the royalty of Buckingham Palace. Leaves with people talking about how he was the “teacher Pope,” even though it is fair to ask what he really taught the world other than how to look the other way for far too long on sexually abusive priests.

There was an Associated Press story last week about how Benedict resigned his position, one that included a quote from a Bishop Charles Scicluna:

“(Benedict) has done his job.”

Not in relation to sex abuse scandals he didn’t. When he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, he at least fought for the Vatican to quickly dismiss abusive priests. Then he became Pope and never disciplined a single bishop for covering up abuse in his church.

So he was no better than his predecessor, who served for 26 years, and that means during a time when the Catholic Church kept turning its back on the most shameful part of its history.

John Paul II once said, “A sin against the Sixth Commandment by a cleric with a minor under 18 years of age is considered a grave sin.” It is more than that; it is a hideous crime. Think of it another way: Think of any priest who sexually abused an underaged boy as Father Sandusky.

This is the same modern Catholic Church that takes such a lofty and high-minded stance against same-sex unions. It is unlikely that a younger Pope will go against the church on same-sex unions, or priests being allowed to marry, or allowing smart, forward-thinking nuns to become priests. That is certainly not the way to bet, even with so much speculation about who the new Pope will be; you half-expect them to go with brackets, make it the Catholic version of March Madness.

It is just the way to root.

This should be a time, starting Monday when the cardinals start planning for the papal election, for the Catholic Church to finally wake up and hire a smart, aggressive new CEO for the first time since Pope John XXIII, who did his best to drag the church kicking and screaming into the 20th century when he took over Vatican City in 1958.

It is supposed to be blasphemous for any Catholic to suggest the church is some huge corporation. But if you do look at it that way, you would wonder how the outgoing Pope was selected to run it in the first place, and how he managed to keep his job as long as he did.

Somehow this College of Cardinals, with this conclave — the official name of a papal election — desperately needs to find a way to radically make the Catholic Church something more than the religious capital of stubbornness and closed-mindedness and, in the case of abuse, being consistently blind.

Much was made of Benedict’s letter of apology to Ireland about abuse, when he openly criticized the church leaders of Ireland for “grave errors of judgment.” But it was too little and too late. He really did sound like Joe Paterno saying he wished he had done more about Jerry Sandusky.

He was too old and too tired by the time he became Pope, looking as ancient as the Vatican itself. In that way, though, he was perfect for his church. Now comes this chance, because Benedict has the good grace to step down, for the Catholic Church to start being something other than the country of old men. If it doesn’t wake up now, you wonder if it ever will.