Benedict XVI, who served as Pope of the Catholic church from 2005 until his resignation in 2013, has come out of his retirement to make a very bold statement in favor of the church.
Catholic News Agency published the full text of Benedict XVI’s letter wherein he describes his thoughts regarding the Catholic church and sexual abuse. In the letter, the man who was head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office for 24 years blames the sexual revolution of the 1960s for the rise of homosexuality and pedophilia in Catholic establishments.
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In his paper, Benedict XVI writes:
Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom, one which no longer conceded any norms.
The mental collapse was also linked to a propensity for violence. That is why sex films were no longer allowed on airplanes because violence would break out among the small community of passengers. And since the clothing of that time equally provoked aggression, school principals also made attempts at introducing school uniforms with a view to facilitating a climate of learning.
Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of ‘68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate.
Okay.
Then Benedict XVI goes deeper into describing the role of indecency within the church:
The long-prepared and ongoing process of dissolution of the Christian concept of morality was, as I have tried to show, marked by an unprecedented radicalism in the 1960s. This dissolution of the moral teaching authority of the Church necessarily had to have an effect on the diverse areas of the Church.
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In various seminaries homosexual cliques were established, which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries. In one seminary in southern Germany, candidates for the priesthood and candidates for the lay ministry of the pastoral specialist [Pastoralreferent] lived together.
He later mentions:
The question of pedophilia, as I recall, did not become acute until the second half of the 1980s.
Interesting, so Benedict XVI claims that pedophilia in the Catholic church did not occur until the 1980s?
So is very apparent here is that Benedict XVI, who was accused of having swept these issues under the rug during his papacy continues to deflect on the true issues affecting the Catholic church and how sexual abuse and sexuality have been a serious issue in the Catholic institution since its inception. There are cases that have come forward dating back further than the 1960s that show that this issue has been the church’s biggest secret for some time.
At the end of his righteous letter, Benedict XVI redirects back to the Catholic church in addressing that it is the lack of God in the hearts of perpetrators that has lead them to conduct themselves in such ways:
Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God. We Christians and priests also prefer not to talk about God, because this speech does not seem to be practical.
He reminds everyone that the church’s foundation has been corrupted and that Catholics must return to the true meaning of the religion:
The timeliness of what the Apocalypse is telling us here is obvious. Today, the accusation against God is, above all, about characterizing His Church as entirely bad, and thus dissuading us from it. The idea of a better Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away from the living God, through a deceitful logic by which we are too easily duped. No, even today the Church is not just made up of bad fish and weeds.
I grew up Catholic and went to church every Sunday. I received every sacrament that was expected of me and was respectful to the priest and church, because that is what was asked of me as a kid. I never encountered any type of abuse or issues, but when I was in high school it was discovered that the priest who confirmed me and other youth in the congregation was being charged with molestation of a young girl and that others were coming forward to accuse him. This was the early 2000s. It was jarring to hear that this was happening so close to home and I think that’s the point when I began to take a step back from the church and take more control over my adult life and follow whatever path of spirituality I wanted moving forward.
It’s the type of teachings like what Benedict XVI is describing in his letter that create division in the church and show that there will never truly be honesty and integrity within system because of the abuse of power. Here we are, in 2019, so fixated about celebrities and the #MeToo movements that have spiraled into every corner of every community, but we are still failing the countless other young people who will never be heard because it’s not proper to talk about the church or the priest.
But Benedict XVI says it all happened because of the sexual revolution. Okay.
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This is an opinion piece by one of Instinct’s contributing writers. The opinions and thoughts herein do not reflect the thoughts or opinions of Instinct or any other of its contributing writers.
H/T: Catholic News Agency
