Pope's defenders push back [John Allen]

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By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Rome
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Both in the media and on the street, defenders of Pope Benedict XVI pushed back this weekend – in effect, insisting that the pope still enjoys popular support, and that media focus on the Catholic church vis-à-vis the sexual abuse of minors, as opposed to the broader culture, amounts to “moral panic.”

On Saturday, the prestigious Jesuit-edited journal *Civilità Cattolica *published the second installment of a two-part series on pedophilia. Meanwhile on Sunday, an umbrella group of lay Catholic movements in Italy organized a massive rally in St. Peter’s Square to show support for Benedict XVI, which drew more than 150,000 people.
Though neither development was sponsored by the Vatican, both were obviously welcomed by senior advisors to Benedict XVI.
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The *Civilità Cattolica *article was written by Italian Jesuit Fr. Giovanni Cucci and German Jesuit Fr. Hans Zollner, both of whom teach in the Institute of Psychiatry at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

In summary, their piece makes the following points:
More…
 
It will be unfortunate if the improving public mood toward the Pope and the church is credited to gestures like the two mentioned rather than to the Pope’s recent statements. For people other than Hitchens and Dawkins the recent statements have provided reassurance that the problems have been taken seriously and that steps such as the recent resignations of some officials are in motion.

That said, I am sure that the show of support must have been a wonderful experience for the Pope and I’m sure that he cherishes it deeply.
 
I strongly encourage everyone interested in the psychology of the priest pedophilia scandal to click on the link and read the story!

John Allen discusses two scholarly articles on clerical pedophilia by the two Jesuit psychology professors, Fr. Giovanni Cucci and Fr. Hans Zollner. Allen’s distillation of the articles is very informative.

If for some reason you don’t want to read NCR (John Allen is a very thorough and neutral writer, IMHO, despite that he writes for NCR), here is another synopsis of Cucci and Zollner’s articles:

The Pope, the Cardinals, the Jesuits. Three Responses to the Scandal by Sandro Magister (Scroll down to “3. THE CULTURAL BATTLE”)

Also, if someone who has good Italian is willing to check on this, I would greatly appreciate it. The journal, Civilità Cattolica seems to be offering pdf downloads of the original articles, in Italian, for free. laciviltacattolica.it/it/ I would hate to download the articles and find out that my credit card was charged. Thanks in advance!

God bless you all!
 
I wonder if the authors heard the Pope’s observations about the problem being in the Church itself. I think as soon as the victims are properly compensated the furor will fade away. In short, this can be solved by getting out the checkbook
 
If he was involved in covering those abuses up then I hope he drops dead and rots in hell, there is NO EXCUSE for covering that kind of thing up, NO EXCUSE :mad:

I don’t give two rats who he is or what position he holds, if he knowingly left those priests free to abuse their charges and vulnerable children he deserves the full wrath of whatever god or gods there are in the world, the same as anyone who either abuses or helps to cover it up
 
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