28 August 2019, The Tablet
Pope Emeritus rebuts critics
Benedict XVI: 'Western society is a society in which God is publicly absent.'
Pope Benedict
XVI walks down steps after giving a talk at the conclusion of a Mass for
the Knights of Malta in St. Peter's in 2013
Photo: CNS/Paul Haring
Photo: CNS/Paul Haring
Pope
Emeritus Benedict XVI has replied to the critics of his essay on “The
Church and the Scandal of Sexual Abuse” published in the Klerusblatt, a
German monthly for clergy in April this year.
In the essay, he said that the godlessness
in society and a general estrangement from the faith that had set in in
the late 1960s had led Catholics to renounce Catholic sexual morality.
He suggested these were the reasons that clerical sexual abuse
occurred.
His brief reply to his critics was
published in the September issue of the prestigious German theological
monthly Herder Korrespondenz.
Entitled “68 and the Abuse”, the Pope
Emeritus deplores the “typical inadequacy” of his critics’ reaction to
his essay and recalls that in his essay he put the main focus on God.
“I wrote, ‘A world without God can only be a
world without meaning … Western society is a society in which God is
publicly absent and in which He has nothing more to say to society. And
that is why it is a society in which the measure of what is human is
becoming increasingly lost’.
“As far as I can see, in most of the
reactions [to the essay] God fails to appear at all and so the crux of
what I wished to discuss is not discussed at all,” wrote Benedict. “The
majority of the critical reactions I have seen prove the seriousness of
the situation, namely that the word God has in many cases become
marginal in theology.”
The reply is signed “Benedikt XVI”.
Careful review says that Benedict XVI is more part of the problem than part of the solution. If those of his ilk are hell-bent on keeping crotch morality at the heart of Catholocism, then he and the rest could at least don their academic robes and make a serious study of the advances in psychosexuality in the past 80 years. Unfortunately, the most up to date statements concerning sexual morality in the Catholic church are built upon the concept of "fecundity". Ask any normal Catholic, young or old, male or female, what that word means and I guarantee a blank stare. Contrary to Benedict's belief that a small/remnand church is good enough, the Gospel seems to call out preaching love rather than sexual guilt to the nations, especially to the young and the young at heart.
ReplyDelete