Less a Smoking Gun, More the Bullet

The latest revelation regarding this Pope means he is in very serious trouble. Associated Press shows that ,as Cardinal Ratzinger back in 1985, he wrote a letter resisting the defrocking of Stephen Kiesle in order to put the Church bureaucracy first. In other words, he did precisely what the accusations are regarding the Church, the law, and the victims and itself. Cover it up and cover it up again. It is, of course, moral bankruptcy. It is hardly the "petty gossip" that one cardinal recently called the accusations focussing upon this pope.

It is said that Ratzinger wanted more to clean up regarding paedophile priests compared with those around him; yes, but the letter is the document, the actual bullet never mind a smoking gun. He signed the document, it was sent by him. There are also several other incidents involving him now: such as his failure to act over US priest Lawrence Murphy in the 1990s, and that he didn't act against Arizona priest Michael Teta for more than a decade. These have been smoking guns, but a document is a document.

If he had any decency he would resign himself, because he is providing cover for others not resigning. Their fingers can point at him. He won't, so presumably he will limp on as Pope until the Vatican sees the need for a thoroughgoing internal reformation. He cannot do it. The period of John Paul II's charismatic conservatism, and this pope's rational conservatism seems to have run its course into contradiction, in that this pope's smaller and purer Church is now bankrupt, in that it is instead smaller and self-serving.