ROME
The Irish Times
PADDY AGNEW in Rome
NOT FOR the first time, 84-year-old Pope Benedict flies out of Rome this morning for an important overseas visit that could yet be troubled by clerical sex abuse polemics.
When details of the six-day pastoral visit to Mexico and Cuba were first released, most Vatican commentators inevitably focused on the political implications of a second papal visit in 14 years to communist Cuba.
Will the pope meet 85-year-old Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro? Will he issue a blanket condemnation of the USA’s 52-year-old economic embargo on the island? Will the Cuban regime led by Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, attempt to exploit the pope’s visit, using it as some sort of government propaganda tool? Or will this visit improve both church-state relations and the status of the island’s seven million Catholics?
Before he gets to Cuba next Monday, however, the pope may be confronted in Mexico with the all-too-familiar problem of clerical sex abuse. At the centre of this polemic is the Catholic order, the Legionaries Of Christ, whose Mexican founder, Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, was denounced as guilty of “very serious and objectively immoral behaviour” by the Holy See in May 2010.
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