Tuesday, February 12, 2013

The other Irish crash

David Gardner in the Financial Times (subs. req'd) on Pope Benedict's abdication --

The clearest sign that Pope Benedict’s Vatican was too obtuse to measure up to the torrent of outrage came from Ireland, once the most Catholic of countries, and from Enda Kenny, its devoutly Catholic prime minister. Calling the Vatican bureaucracy elitist, dysfunctional and narcissist, the taoiseach said “the rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’.” While the Pope has regularly expressed contrition for what happened, and not just in Ireland, had he really wanted to send a signal he could have made a cardinal of the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, who has courageously campaigned to bring the full extent of the abuses to light. Instead, like Pope John Paul, Benedict has continued to make cardinals of like-minded prelates, especially from the secretive and reactionary Opus Dei organisation.