Readers of
this blog will know—I never wasted much time, or indeed any time,
thinking up nice things to say about Joseph Ratzinger, the
guy whose one unconventional move was to resign
and become Pope
Emeritus. But Ratzinger took it on the chin all during his papacy—and
however much he kicked and clawed to get there, it must have given him little
joy.
Yet the
journalist cited above wasn’t talking about Ratzinger, but about John Paul II—and I
couldn’t agree more. Because what did he have?
Call it the
Ronald Reagan
effect—it didn’t matter what he said, he looked the part. In fact,
playing president of the United States was Reagan’s biggest role. And John Paul
did exactly the same.
“He never
listened to anyone—he was always talking,” said the journalist. “He had some
100 speeches, and he went around the world making them. But he never listened
to anyone. He was theologically conservative, and he let the curia rule—and
nearly ruin—the church. And after doing nothing about the priest abuse
scandals, then the whole thing erupted during Benedict’s watch. But it was
mostly John Paul’s doing. And the press never challenged John Paul, never
questioned why he wasn’t acting more decisively. They idolized him.”
Oh, and
speaking of the press—where is our press? Because though I’m not a journalist,
I did grow up around them. And so when the news came out that Jozef Wesolowski,
the ex papal nuncio to the Dominican Republic
now being
investigated for sexual abuse of minors, hung out in Arecibo and may have
engaged in illicit activities—well, I sat back and expected the press to tackle
the story.
What did
they do?
They acted
as press agents for the Catholic Church. The New York Times, in contrast, asked some difficult
questions of the Vatican. Questions like why did the church recall Wesolowski,
when in 2010 it established new rules that said that anyone—Vatican
employee or a member of the diplomatic corps—accused of sexual abuse would be
turned over to the civil authorities in the country in which the abuse took
place? Had the Dominican Republic been notified? Yes—by the press, not the
church.
Here’s
what the Times said:
The
Vatican’s own rules for conducting sexual abuse investigations under church law
call for cooperation with the civil authorities and reporting abuse allegations
to the police where laws require it. Those norms were shaped after an explosion
of sexual abuse cases in 2010, when thousands of people came forward in Europe,
South America and elsewhere detailing abuse by priests whom church officials
had not reported to the police.
To my
knowledge, nobody locally picked it up. Why not? Is the Times too difficult to read?
El
ex nuncio Josef Wesolowski obstaculizó investigaciones de pederastia en Puerto
Rico contra más de una decena de sacerdotes de la diócesis de Arecibo.
So
Wesolowski hindered more than a dozen pederast priest cases in the diocese of
Arecibo and nobody is going after that?
And is
anybody aware that this case is unique because it is the first time a Vatican
official may have committed crimes in Puerto Rico? And Puerto Rico, by the way,
falls under US jurisdiction. So that means that for the first time, after years
of trying, a court can challenge the Vatican directly—instead of whatever
diocese the bishop or priest belonged to. And that might lead to a mother lode
of information.
Is anybody
asking our justice department if they are conducting an investigation of the
more-than-dozen cases that Wesolowski may have obstructed? Is our justice
department cooperating with the Dominican Republic? Are they considering
pressing charges? And by the way, are there any abuse victims out there? What’s
their story, and are they considering pressing charges?
Is anybody
poking around Arecibo, trying to figure out why the Catholic Church had to close
down an entire seminary? Was it that full of gay men?
Or we could
ask—what about the rumor that there was a close relationship between Wesolowski
and the former bishop of Arecibo, Iñaki Mallona?
Oh, and where is the former bishop? Is he still in Puerto Rico? Because
an odd thing seems to happen in the Catholic Church—clerics tend to be
curiously out of sight. I have just consulted the website Switchboard.com and
learned that there is a Marc Newhouse, age 57, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Oh,
and I got my number, as I did for five of my friends. But frequently, when I
try the same thing for a member of the clergy, I can’t track them down. They
are living in rectories or parish houses or retreats or somewhere; they tend
not to have phones in their own name, except, of course, for cell phones. So
they’re hard to find.
The New
Day, our local paper,
has a large staff of reporters. But does it have a religion editor? Most papers
do. And on an island where 80% of the population is Catholic, shouldn’t there
be at least one reporter who’s on top of issues affecting the church?
Just as
John Paul got a free pass, so, in Puerto Rico last week…
…did the
Catholic Church.
