The Catholic Church is facing a crisis unprecedented in the modern era, and one that threatens not only the power of the Vatican, but also its sanctity.
The papacy of Pope Benedict XVI, who will mark his fifth year as the pope today, has been stained by numerous allegations that he ignored or tried to cover up allegations of child sexual abuse within the church.
Accusations of abuse aren’t new, but laying them at the pope’s doorstep is.
It takes accountability for sex abuse in the church to the highest levels, and has flung open a door on priests’ abuse of children around the world.
Last Sunday, a priest in East Longmeadow, Mass., called for the pope to resign. Christopher Hitchens, the Vanity Fair writer and noted atheist, and others are demanding he be arrested for crimes against humanity.
The Vatican first went on the offensive in the scandal, comparing the attacks on the church to anti-Semitism and dismissing them as anti-Catholic “petty gossip.” But recently, Benedict XVI has agreed to meet with victims.
For the first time, the Vatican also acknowledged that the police should be contacted with abuse accusations. The renewed attention and the Vatican’s response have divided the world’s 1 billion Catholics.
As Mass let out of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston last week, parishioners were met by members of an abuse survivors support group. They held up photos of victims and signs that read “The Pope Knew.” One parishioner gave them a thumbs-up.
“I don’t condone anything he does,” Patrick Guido, 42, said of the pope outside a church in Brooklyn.
Guido, is a parishioner of St. Mary’s Star of the Sea, where a visiting priest was convicted of groping a girl and now reportedly serves a parish in India. “If you hear about abuse, stop moving them around.
They’re not doing enough about this,” Guido said.
But Sal Mazzucco, who attends the same Brooklyn church, countered him.
“Show me the proof,” Mazzucco said of suggestions that Benedict XVI knowingly ignored abuse.
