Dear Mr. Josef Ratzinger:
You are the Pope now and according to La Civilta Cattolica you are the “upholder of justice, and the protector of the oppressed.”
As leader of your institution, what you are doing to bring the serial molesters in your churches to justice? What are you doing to protect their victims?
What justice will you impose on Marcial Maciel Degollado, who offered his young seminarians absolution for their youthful sins, and claimed to possess a papal dispensation for his sordid sex games? His victims wrote to you and begged you to act. What comfort will you offer them?
Your silence betrays them and betrays Jesus.
What justice will you recommend for the 63 pedophile priests and Cardinals Anthony Bevilacqua and John Krol in Philadelphia? What justice for those under your direction who covered up their crimes, and moved these molesters from parish to parish, to stalk new victims?
When Cardinal Bernard Law could no longer hide the pedophiles in his Boston archdiocese, you anointed him as archpriest at St. Mary Major Basilica in the Vatican. Is this your justice? What would dear Mary say? What will you do for the wounded casualties?
How will you compensate the victims of the Rev. Bruce Ritter in New York, military chaplain Robert Peebles in Texas, Archbishop Juliusz Paetz in Poland, Bishop Franziskus Eisenbach in Germany, and victims of sodomy rings run by the Christian Brothers in Canada and Australia?
Mr. Ratzinger, your flock awaits divine justice. You said you talked to God and he told you that people shouldn’t wear condoms when having sex. What did he say about your priests, bishops and Cardinals who have abused millions of innocents worldwide? Did God suggest recompense to the casualties? What justice for the perpetrators? What justice for those who covered up their crimes?
You haven’t said a word to comfort these victims, and your silence erodes the faith of your flock. Can you imagine the embarrassment to your faithful priests whose vocation is devastated? Will you apologize to the honest Catholics whose religion has been mocked? Can you see how these crimes tarnish the name of Jesus for all Christian believers? Are you not aware of the horror of every single human whose sense of common decency is shattered by these crimes?
Humanity longs for a spirituality of justice and common decency. Jesus healed people, shared food, comforted the poor and gave hope to society’s outcasts. This is spirituality in practice. Justice here and now. What can you offer the suffering of this world that truly honors the example of Jesus?
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