Pope Moves to Deflate Breathless Portrayals of Stardom

By Jim Yardley
New York Times
March 5, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/world/europe/pope-moves-to-deflate-breathless-portrayals-of-stardom.html?_r=1

Declaring his frustrations with being portrayed as a superman or a star, Pope Francis used an interview to depict himself as a normal person who laughs, cries and misses his ailing sister, while defending the Roman Catholic Church’s handling of the clerical sexual-abuse scandal and reiterating his belief that women should play a larger role in church decision making.

Ahead of the first anniversary of his election to the papacy later this month, Francis spoke with two Italian and Argentine newspapers this week about his personal life, and also discussed issues like the family, civil unions, the Vatican’s relationship with China and the role of his retired predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.

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Francis’ latest statements did not break new ground or signal any new positions, but he did offer his most public defense of the church’s handling of the clerical pedophilia scandal, even as victims’ advocacy groups continue to criticize the Vatican’s response as inadequate. Last month, a United Nations panel sharply criticized the Vatican and called on church officials to rid the priesthood of all abusers and hold accountable any bishops who covered up crimes.

Vatican officials strongly criticized the United Nations report as outdated and ideologically biased in how it went beyond the issue of pedophilia to challenge church doctrine on issues such as abortion. Francis has established a special Vatican commission to address the sexual-abuse crises, and in the interview, he acknowledged the horror of pedophilia, saying, “The cases of abuse are terrible because they leave very profound wounds.”

But he credited Benedict for forcing the church to confront the problem while also noting that pedophilia was a broad social problem, with the “great majority” of cases occurring in “family and neighborhood settings.”

“The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility,” Francis said in the interview published Wednesday in the Corriere della Sera of Italy and La Nacion of Argentina. “No one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked.”

Terence McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a victim’s advocacy group, criticized Francis’ remarks as insensitive and “triumphalist.” He said the pope should have apologized to victims rather than praise the church’s response.

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RECENT COMMENTS

Phillip Hubbell 14 hours ago

Lowering the Pope's profile doesn't increase respect for the Church. It cheapens it. If nothing is ever grand eventually everything becomes...

Brian Moore 15 hours ago

Ms. McMorrow is right on. There was enormous positive feelings for John Paul II was he was elected, a sense of freshness and hope and...

lulu 19 hours ago

Spin has come to the highest echelon of the church. Same old attitude towards women...no change in acceptance to priesthood or self...

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“The chutzpah of this self-assessment is breathtaking,” Mr. McKiernan said in a statement.

Francis has now granted a handful of interviews to Italian newspapers, and analysts say he has skillfully used them to invite discussion of delicate social issues such as same-sex marriage, atheism, divorce or contraception, even as he usually remains unspecific about what concrete changes he endorses.

“Francis has undoubtedly opened the room for debate on issues that were strongly disciplined in the past,” said Sandro Magister, the author of political histories of the Catholic Church and a commentator for the Italian newsmagazine L’Espresso. “But his words are always calculated and a bit enigmatic.”

Francis also said that women must have a greater presence in the church hierarchy, and affirmed as sacrosanct the church’s definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman, though he spoke more elliptically about the church’s stance on civil unions.