Criticizing the Pope

Today's New York Times published an article criticizing several decisions made by Pope Benedict.  You could say that the NYT is a Jewish newspaper - so you can't expect it to be fair to a Catholic Pope.  But looking back over time, the paper hasn't usually been so negative - expect when discussing Pope Pius XII, who publicly refused to help Jews trying to escape the Holocaust.

Some of my colleagues are telling me that Benedict is only trying to get the Church to adapt to a new reality - not take it back a few centuries (as it may seem).  Perhaps I should be more forgiving, but I am wary of just about anyone who was in the Hitler youth movement, who in later life was the the director of what used to be called the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

The election of Benedict is a reflection of the growing conservatism throughout the western world - Maybe the next Pope will be more like Obama (not that Obama is perfect, but at least he doesn't have such a shady past).

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Amid Scandals, Questions of Where the Pope’s Focus Lies

New York Times
By RACHEL DONADIO and NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: February 16, 2009

ROME — Close on the heels of the pope’s rehabilitation of a group of schismatic bishops, including one who denied the Holocaust, a second scandal has compounded a debate within the church over whether Pope Benedict XVI’s focus on doctrine and his perceived insensitivity to political tone are alienating mainstream Catholics and undermining the church’s moral authority.

Pope Benedict XVI drew criticism when he appointed a priest known for provocative statements for a post in Austria.

On Sunday, a priest known for such provocative statements as blaming the sins of New Orleanians for Hurricane Katrina asked the pope to rescind his appointment as an auxiliary bishop in Austria.

The affairs have engendered a storm of criticism of the church hierarchy and led to frantic efforts to mollify angry and confused parishioners around the globe, while the latest controversy has raised concerns that the actions could be part of a disturbing pattern.

The Vatican expert George Weigel, in a recent essay in First Things, an American religion journal, criticized the Vatican for its “chaos, confusion and incompetence.”

In Vienna on Monday, 10 Austrian bishops convened a crisis session to deal with the fallout. Erich Leitenberger, a spokesman for the Vienna Archdiocese, said church officials around the country had been inundated with letters, phone calls and e-mail messages, including from parishioners saying they were leaving the church.

Austria, a majority-Catholic country with a complicated Nazi past, had been reeling from the pope’s revocation of the excommunication of four schismatic bishops from the ultraconservative Society of St. Pius X, including Bishop Richard Williamson, who has denied the existence of the Nazi gas chambers as well as the scale and genocidal intent of the Holocaust.

While that firestorm was still raging, Benedict ignited another by appointing the Rev. Gerhard Maria Wagner, known for his Katrina comment and for saying that homosexuality was curable, as the auxiliary bishop of Linz...more