Should Pope Benedict Resign the Papacy?
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The fury over child sex abuse and the Vatican is intensifying by the day. Pope Benedict himself has now been implicatedin a potential cover-up — when he, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, allegedly failed to defrock an American priest accused of molesting hundreds of boys. Today, the Vatican stood by that decision, citing the aging priest’s repentance, his age and health, and more than 20 years without new allegations. So tonight, we ask: Should the Pope resign? Some might say that would be a beautiful and historic act of penance in the name of the Church, for a sin that has reached so many places in the Church. Or would resigning the Papacy be considered a surrender to secular forces — and a secular media — simply out to attack the Church? Tell us what you think. Embedded below is tonight’s “World News” segment on the topic, “Pope Benedict: What Did He Know?”
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I am a lifelong Catholic, soon to be 76 y/o. I do believe he should resign for this longtime coverup of the sins of the Priests against boys. For shame, shame, SHAME !!!!
Posted by: jack | March 30, 2010, 10:04 pm 10:04 pm
No, because at this time, it is clear that Fr. Masael was punished, but just not enough. How much is enough? People can differ on this, but transparency and change are as important as punishment, because without it we cannot continue on this path.
I am a 67 year old grandmother, born a Catholic.
Posted by: M.C. Cooney | April 1, 2010, 8:17 pm 8:17 pm
I am proud of the catholic pontiff, for him to come out in public and confess his sins, I praise his courage. If he chooses to resign or the entire Bishops wishes it, God will surely forgive him. Again, I think the other christian or religious leaders still hiding in their sins should emulate the pope, for God is a lover of humility.
Posted by: Uzodinma Nwaogbe | April 2, 2010, 4:13 am 4:13 am
It’s nice that many people agree on any given subject, but in this case, there is a clear directive from Scripture that any eggregious sin result in the priest or pastor, being defrocked for life. Paul, the Apostle wrote about this at length in the New Testament. The punishment and the crime are laid out in Scripture, what must any church do about it? The right thing.
Posted by: Wayne Cook | April 2, 2010, 2:36 pm 2:36 pm
i’m not even catholic, but i was sexually abused by male and female members of my Baptist church and the preacher knew nothing about it – he was too busy seducing wives and members of the choir.
when it all came out the Southern Baptist Council transferred the preacher, dismissed the deacons and closed the church in shame only to reopen it the next year under a different name acting as if nothing
BAD had ever happened!!
ever church is full of sins and lies and much of it is covered up, but to single out one person to prosecute when the evil lurkes below too many layers is all wrong. the pope is the head of a world wide church with a billion members with a big portion of them committing sins – how could you hold him responsible for all that??
now i heard he did know of a problem in his own parish, that he had the laws applied, but it wasn’t enough to stop those sinners from re-sinning.
man is flawed and no amount of preaching or laws be enforced is going to stop it – so stop looking for the easy way out by blaming the main man!!
Posted by: john | April 3, 2010, 1:21 am 1:21 am
In an ill-advised and poorly constructed analogy, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa got it completely wrong. Making a victim out of the perpetrator in any crime only serves to deny accountability and responsibility. The cover-up continues. While the disparity of numbers and severity of the crimes are not in any way equal in the two circumstances, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa would more have appropriately stated his analogy correctly if he had stated “Jews are to Nazis as abused children are to the Catholic leadership.”
Posted by: truebeliever | April 3, 2010, 2:34 am 2:34 am
I have been raised as a Roman Catholic. I spent 6 years in High School, ruled by Franciscan priests. Everybody knew even then, that you could not trust priests. They always tried to touch you.
I turned away from the Catholic Church long ago, because their crimes in 20 ages, on behalf of religion.
Here in The Netherlads, may regard the Roman Catholic Church as a criminal organisation, which should be prosecuted for all their crimes.
Posted by: Rob | April 3, 2010, 2:38 am 2:38 am
Puh-leeeese. Comparing the criticism for the Catholic Church’s protection of its pedophile priests to the whole anti-Semitism thing is like discussing apples and bananas.
I was born & raised Catholic, 8 years of grade school and 4 years of private all-girl high school.
I will be the first one to tell you that a LOT of the things the Catholic church has done, in the name of ‘God’ have been wrong, wrong, wrong. But we won’t even go into the politics, the persecutions, the ‘controlling through fear’, the greed and corruption.
Protecting predatory priests – covering up their transgressions and then moving them on to new parishes, where they had a whole fresh crop of new children to prey upon – is collusion, aiding and abetting in the purest sense.
Interesting that these sexually deviant individuals never picked on, say, grown women, or even, grown men, which, while morally questionable given their vow of chastity and purity and all that, would STILL boil down to two consenting ADULTS.
But to prey on children, the innocent, defenseless and vulnerable, is reprehensible. These men should have been booted immediately from the Church and turned over to the civil (lay) authorities for further punishment.
And if ruining the lives of thousands of kids wasn’t enough, the Church has been closing parishes and gobbling up money to pay off the huge lawsuits that they are getting hit with.
Yes, the Pope should resign if it can be proved that he knowingly swept the actions of ANY priest under his jurisdiction under the rug.
Posted by: SJF8124 | April 4, 2010, 12:06 pm 12:06 pm
When you protect the guilty men who victimized innocent children you become one of the guilty. It’s time to insist the Pope step down and accept his guilt for protecting those who abused children. A holy man ceases to be holy when he commits a crime against the Other. At that point he becomes a criminal. A man who protects child abusers has no right to wear the robes of the Church, and he has become that man.
Posted by: Michele Long | April 6, 2010, 8:42 am 8:42 am
Without a doubt, the Pope should resign but forcing him to leave is not allowed. The College of Cardinals elected him and now he needs to leave on his own volition. Resigning must be voluntary. It cannot be forced. I hope he does it soon. I believe he cannot be taken seriously as God’s emissary on earth any longer. Not man of God would allow things like that to happen to a child, especially by a representative of the Church. Walk away Pope Benedict.
Posted by: Diane | April 6, 2010, 5:34 pm 5:34 pm
Absolutely he should resign, so should most of the cardinals bishops and ordinary priests. Everyone of them knew of or heard something, and did nothing. There isnt a man in that criminal organization. I would hope that Catholics all over the world wake up to the lies the “church” has layed upon its sheep. born and raised catholic, became a survivor.
Posted by: sean | April 6, 2010, 9:18 pm 9:18 pm
My mother in-law, who is devoutly Catholic, was bemoaning the fact that in a public high school, two girls were attempting to attend their high school prom as a couple, as lesbians.
One thing I can say with confidence: the odds of those two “girls” raping my 2 year-old or my 5 year-old are virtually zero.
From an outsider who was raised Calvinist but who has no dogmatic affiliation (but has married a woman who was raised Catholic and attended Catholic school, grades 1-12, but is now an agnostic), the Catholic church needs to impress upon the world that it actually cares about people, whether they are in the Catholic fold or not, more than they care about their image or their power.
As a heterosexual, monogamous male, I find the official church position of demonizing gays and lesbians, but routinely allowing children to be ravaged by “chaste” priests, to be disgustingly ironic, if not pathetic.
If I have a choice of two lesbians living next door to the yard where my children play, versus a priest, I’d take the two lesbians without a second thought.
Posted by: Doug | April 8, 2010, 2:06 am 2:06 am
The Pope should resign
Posted by: jaki | April 10, 2010, 5:50 pm 5:50 pm
If the Pope resigns, then all the priests who abused children should come forward and resign, but not only them also all those teachers, coaches, grandfathers, step-fathers, uncles, neighbors, pastors, rabbis, lawyers, doctors, reporters, and so on . . . after all it is a societal sickness and we should offer all the same opportunity to confess and repent, since over 80% of child abuse is done by relatives, friends and others in charge
Posted by: Frank | April 13, 2010, 11:13 am 11:13 am
Repent? You rape a child you go to jail. You don’t get to say “I’m sorry”, do 200 Hail Mary’s and go home. You go to jail.
How do you transfer someone who raped a child instead of calling the police?
How could the Pope have chosen to protect the prestige and profit of the church over the rape of children?
The church will recover and go on. It just has to have the moral will to absolutely clean house. It’s time for an internal Inquisition and jail time for the offenders.
Posted by: Bkoch | April 27, 2010, 4:13 pm 4:13 pm