http://news.aol.ca/2011/01/21/pope-condemns-berlusconi-sex-scandal/19810387

Excerpts from article:

"Silvio Berlusconi's Casanova ways have gotten him into hot water with the Pope.

"Last Friday, Italian prosecutors formally submitted reports of yet another sex scandal involving Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The news may not have come as a surprise -- after all, the Italian leader has seen more than his fair share of controversy.

"But many waited with bated breath for the Vatican's take on the matter, as the church has weathered some sex scandals of its own [understatement!].

"On Thursday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, publicly denounced Berlusconi's alleged actions, claiming they tarnished Italy's image and set a bad example. And then finally, Pope Benedict spoke out.

"The singular vocation that the city of Rome requires today of you, who are public officials, is to offer a good example of the positive and useful interaction between a healthy lay status and the Christian faith," he said."

---

I cannot even call this ironic. It is beyond that - the Pope admonishing someone else about their sex scandal in the face of what is _still_ going on within Catholicism. I'm nearly speechless. Literally cannot think what to say...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/2011 10:28PM by Nightingale.

"I cannot even call this ironic. It is beyond that - the Pope admonishing someone else about their sex scandal in the face of what is _still_ going on within Catholicism. I'm nearly speechless. Literally cannot think what to say..."


All I can say is the Vatican makes me apoplectic ...

According to investigations, some of the girls, when the facts happened, where still minor.

And please, even if your comment was rather about the position of the Vatican on this matter rather than about what Mr. B. has done, I have had enough of Berlusconi, I don't want to read his name also here on RfM!

LOL. So true, and honestly, I limited interest in scandals--personal scandals, anyway. Institutional scandals get my blood boiling, though, because they are so often connected with wide abuses of power.

Sin is sin; regardless of who the sinner is.

The Pope is obligated to condemn sin. Keeping silent about it or even being hypocritcal about it does not change its nature.

outofutah

When you're the self appointed (Ooops, I mean divinely appointed) moral authorities on this here planet it's your job to comment on this kind of thing.

We all learn to compartmentalize.

In this case, they have to work a little harder at it than most of us ;-)

Irony?
Nope, the would be a statement in which 'the intended meaning of a statement differs from the meaning that the words appear to express.

Stupidity?
Nope, it's his job to comment on this sort of thing. His comments were not foolish.

Gigantic blind spot?
Nope, to ignore this would be an indication of a gigantic blind spot. It would be impossible for them not to comment.

Deflection?
Nope, here's a nice list of 18 different forms of deflection. I don't see a match there,
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ambigamy/201006/teflon-rhetoric-18-easy-ways-say-well-dont-look-me

Irony is provided by the context. The statement intended to criticize another also applies to oneself, which is *not* intended.

Foolishness is in failing to see that others would notice the irony.

Blind spots are one result of the compartmentalization you mention.

Deflection. Oh, I would pick Exempt By Contempt: Claim that since you find a trait disgusting, you must not have that trait. For example: "Me selfish?! Impossible! I hate selfish people!"

The Pope is saying, "Sex scandals! Us?! We condemn sex scandals!"

Thanks for the list, by the way. I bookmarked it. :-)

The Catholic Church has acknowledged the sex scandals which does not by any means makes it right...it doesn't...you can't can't even get inside a Catholic grade school without special training...period. You can only do so much to guard our children...it happens in all walks of life...

So it is right he speaks out against this...not to do so would be condoning the behavior.

All Catholics and Christians are called to live their faith every day...not just when it's convienent...are Mormons also suppose to do this?

Sex abuse won't just go away...it has to be brought out in the open and the offenders then sent to Jail....not to another parish or another Christian Church a thousand miles away...jail time...

winddancer

I hear you, it's just hard to accept the Pope as a credible voice in light of this recent news:

"A newly disclosed document reveals that Vatican officials told the bishops of Ireland in 1997 that they had serious reservations about the bishops’ policy of mandatory reporting of priests suspected of child abuse to the police or civil authorities.
Related

The document appears to contradict Vatican claims that church leaders in Rome never sought to control the actions of local bishops in abuse cases, and that the Roman Catholic Church did not impede criminal investigations of child abuse suspects."

[continued]


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/europe/19vatican.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

You said: "I hear you, it's just hard to accept the Pope as a credible voice in light of this recent news"

Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Thanks.

outofutah and winddancer both make a good point and I think they are correct. At the same time, the Vatican and SLC don't apply the same standards to themselves as they would apply to others. The Pope does not admit the part he played in the cover-ups and apologize and offer correction; the Mormon leadership does not own up to the dark side of polygamy nor to its ill treatment of gays. Both churches maintain attitudes and teachings about sexuality that are harmful and contribute to the abuse they decry.

I understand we cannot fail to decry abuses even when we ourselves fail to meet the standards we profess. If we stayed silent because we fall short, we would be complicit by our silence. It is embarrassing and painful to fall short of what we publicly hold to be right and good. I think we've all experienced it--I have more often than I care to think about.

However, the kind of disconnect the Pope seems to suffer from needs to be pointed out. My comment wasn't simply a "gotcha." That's easy and something we're all vulnerable to. I am deeply disturbed by his lack of reflection, empathy, soul-searching and leadership.

outofutah said: "The Pope is obligated to condemn sin. Keeping silent about it or even being hypocritcal about it does not change its nature."

winddancer said: "The Catholic Church has acknowledged the sex scandals" and "...it is right he speaks out against this...not to do so would be condoning the behavior."

Yes, but my point is that he/they did "keep silent about it" when it was in their own environment so it's a bit much to be pointing the bony finger at somebody else's acts. To me, it isn't about "sin" but about what has occurred that was/is the Pope's responsibility to prevent or address, either now or in his former roles. The point isn't that according to some religious beliefs this or that person sinned but that the man in charge of a huge institution with its own big fat skeletons in the various closets shouldn't be so quick to call out any specific person on their particular actions. It reeks of hypocrisy, which is detestable to me.

Also, yeah, he acknowledged the scandals, when it all finally came out into the open. At that point he had little choice. Things were so bad that even he had to finally admit it, only once it was so huge it could no longer be covered up. That is not much of a praise-worthy admission at that point.

Yes, exactly - not to speak out - as he did not - would indeed be "condoning the behaviour".

But my point was that after you are in the quagmire of your own major scandal, not yet fully revealed or made right, you could perhaps practice a bit of discretion or even just plain common sense and shut the hell up about what other people are doing wrong.

robertb: "...the Vatican and SLC don't apply the same standards to themselves as they would apply to others. The Pope does not admit the part he played in the cover-ups and apologize and offer correction; the Mormon leadership does not own up to the dark side of polygamy nor to its ill treatment of gays. Both churches maintain attitudes and teachings about sexuality that are harmful and contribute to the abuse they decry."

Yes, agreed. But if I were having an affair, for instance, I would scarcely call out someone else in public and point the finger at their bad act while secretly harbouring my own identical shortcoming.

rb: "I understand we cannot fail to decry abuses even when we ourselves fail to meet the standards we profess. If we stayed silent because we fall short, we would be complicit by our silence."

I understand what you're saying but in the Pope's case I think he would do well to shut the hell up sometimes and spend the time thinking over his legacy and that of the organization he leads.

robertb: "It is embarrassing and painful to fall short of what we publicly hold to be right and good."

Yes, in a personal sense. Hopefully we can make things right asap and move on to be better. I don't consider that the Pope or the Catholic Church has followed that pattern. I don't know how they can ever "make it right" for one thing, but they haven't let enough time go by after their own actions before calling out others for acts that could conceivably be considered lower on the scale of wrongdoing than what occurred inside Catholicism. I think when you are guilty of a greater wrong you need to look after that first before decrying others, especially when the issues touch the same realm, in this case sexual sin, if that is what you want to call it.

rb"...the kind of disconnect the Pope seems to suffer from needs to be pointed out. ...I am deeply disturbed by his lack of reflection, empathy, soul-searching and leadership."

Yes. That is how I felt. Thank you for putting it into words, and succinctly yet.

and that's why the Vatican kept child abuse files in a secret vault which they denied existed and for years did not provide in response to discovery requests from victims' lawyers.

I am just finishing William Lobdell's book "Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America and Found Unexpected Peace." Some of you may remember Bob's presentation at the Exmormon Foundation meeting.

I thought I knew something about the subject having worked on a biography of a man who grew up in a boys' home in the Seattle under the care of the Christian Brothers. Horrible. The brothers carried a knotted rope which looked like maybe a rosary decade which dangled from their waist. They actually beat the boys with that and every night they fetched boys from the dormitory for their pleasure...

Anyway, back to Bob's book. He attended a meeting of the victims of the Catholic priests and heard details which left him sick for days and left my hair standing on end. Like molesting young girls through a hole in the confession screen. Like forcing anal sex on an altar boy ON THE ALTAR until he defecated. Like teaching them to lie about blood in their underwear.

When you learn the details, the church's statements on behalf of the priests, admitting in lofty and overgeneralized statements that there was "inappropriate love" and "unacceptable closeness" makes a person wonder if the Mormon church wasn't right after all--maybe it is the church of the devil.

The author was actually taking classes for becoming a Catholic and the shock he received in discovering the Church's complicity in protecting the priests and even blaming the children was a bell that couldn't be unrung. He couldn't go on with his own baptism lest he send a message to the victims that he supported his abusers.

It is too late for the Pope to make a difference now. The entire world knows the Catholic Church allowed children to be molested without penalizing the perpetrators.

Anagrammy