April 3, 2010
“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd. Strike the Shepherd, that the sheep may be scattered.” —Zechariah (13:7)
Pope Benedict XVI is facing one of the gravest crises of his pontificate as a sexual abuse scandal sweeps the Church. There have been calls from Germany, England and Ireland for him to resign. Some are even calling for his arrest.
Are these calls fair? Or are they part of a frenzied campaign to smear his name with false accusations?
His implicit faith would give him the courage not to be intimidated by critics. The pontiff said faith in God helps lead one “towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion.”
An old adage says “paper does not refuse ink, it can write a load of nonsense”. The world media is hyper exaggerating and misleading and above all inaccurate.
Why did the victims permit this to happen and get up from their sleep after several decades? There is an ulterior motive behind this to claim enormous compensation. They are under the shadow of Satan to darken the church and make its believers lose their faith as it was in Da Vinci Code movie. This scandal is exploited by the latent enemies of the church who are within the church and who are looking to see the down fall of the Pontiff and the church.
The sexual and physical abuse of children and young people is a Global Plague; its manifestations run the gamut from fondling by Teachers to Rape by Uncles.
Scripture states that Jesus only got really angry on two occasions: when he whipped the money-changers out of the Temple court, He said "they have made my Father's house into a den of thieves" and then he denounced the abuse of children, crying out: "Whoever shall offend one of these little ones, it would be better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
Yet, much of our modern culture tolerates, even condones, the sexual exploitation of children. It is time for our culture to have a millstone hung around its neck.
The sexual abuse crisis has now led to calls for Pope Benedict to resign the papacy, precisely on the 5th anniversary of John Paul II's death and his own election. The goal, it seems, is to “strike the shepherd.” Why? To silence the voice of the Church. But the Pope made it clear, on Palm Sunday, that he would not abdicate.
What of the role of Pope Benedict?
When he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith he made important changes in church law: the inclusion in canon law of internet offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, the case by case waiving of the statue of limitation and the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders. He is not an idle observer. His actions speak as well as his words. Pope Benedict moves swiftly in these matters of sexual abuse, so how can it be conceived that he has kept silent on the matter which the world and those with vested interest are now slandering his name.
In his address in Subiaco Italy, on April 1, 2005, the day before Pope John Paul II died, Benedict (then still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) spoke, in a way that not a single other leader of the Church has spoken, of the imperative to cleanse the Roman Church of "filth. .”
Benedict is a modern Pope who has sought most energetically to cleanse the Church of corrupt tendencies and practices which, from various sources — some known, some unknown or only partially known — took root within the Church decades ago, under other Popes... Benedict XVI is the Pope who is modernizing the church keeping the old tradition intact and thus leading the church in the way, the truth and the life.
The great Irish saint Bishop Malachi had prophesized in the 12th century that the Pope who will take the name Benedict will straighten the Church put it on its right course. There is no iota of doubt that Pope Benedict is harnessing all efforts and will restore back the glory of the Church as it existed before Vatican II.
Pope Paul VI expressed that view when he said, "Paternity cannot be resigned." Discussion of a resignation is ridiculous! the sex scandal accusations " are a pretext for attacking the Catholic church."
"A Pope is never forced to resign, not under the current canon law," "A Pope can voluntarily resign, but it's interesting... Who would take his resignation?"
The Catholic religion is the only religion that has withstood the test of time from Peter the fisherman to today’s Pope Benedict XVI. In the world today, man has decided that he no longer needs God; Priests betray Christ like Judas Iscariot, It is not the Catholic Chruch that commits the crime, its the person, an individual. It is the Catholic that takes the insult and slap on one cheek and then turns the other.
For many years, whenever some one within the Church did wrong, the media puts the blame squarely on the Church and blows the incident out of proportion; the Catholic Church makes up of 1.3 Billion souls. Its just a hand full that commits a crime. If within the government, a person working for it commits a crime, does that mean the whole government should be condemed? Speaking of the Media and New York Times, the USA government should be comdemned for the invasion of Iraq where thousands of innocent lives were lost; Oil being the cause and the greed for the invasion.
It is high time to rise up and defend what belongs to God and the let those who dare to condemn the Church fear the wrath of God.