Talking about the scandal of paedophilia in the Church and the media campaign against the Vatican, little over a year ago, the pope said to a journalist, Peter Seewald, “So long as it’s a matter of shedding light on the truth, we must be grateful. The media could not have given those reports if evil had not taken place within the Church. People were able to direct this evil against the Church, only because evil was already present within it. In a time such as this the most diabolical temptation would be for the Church to try and free itself on its own of this evil within”.
Even in this context the words contained in the book-length interview with Ratzinger sound like a free and freeing view. In the Saturday and Sunday speeches to the cardinals, Benedict XVI did not deny the presence of a crisis, the confusion- real or not- or the Curia, the lack of a leader within the Secretariat of State. He made it all seem relative, calling for the cardinals and his collaborators not to think themselves as protagonists in ‘the governing’ of the Church, or ‘strategists’ of communication, perhaps using as a pretext the current difficulties in preparing the future papal programs . He reminded that they too are poor devils who need forgiveness and compassion like any other Catholic. He invited them not to try to ‘guide’ the Church with their abilities or with writing dossiers, but to let the real leader of the Church be the guide and that leader is not the Secretariat of State, nor the pope himself, but He of whom the Pope is the mere representative here on earth.
What an example he is to all of us.
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