Efforts to tag Pope Benedict XVI with failings of the Catholic Church to deal with the scandal of sexual violation of young men by priests is sputtering. Try as it will, The New York Times cannot find a record that contradicts the reality that Cardinal Karl Ratzinger, now the pope, has been a force promoting reform.
Maybe he could have moved faster. Easy for an outsider to say. But the charge that he actually was part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is growing less and less credible the more the Times carries on.
In the end, the Catholic Church will be stronger for the present challenge, forced to strengthen its resolve in Europe as it did in the U.S. this past decade. Then, the Church may (one hopes) be bolder in addressing the root causes of its own weakness in the past and the towering limpness of secularism in the West today, dealing more frankly with the true issues of materialism and human life. When people are treated as things, and things as people, no wonder the world is inverted.
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