Having run the Vatican for several years while the incumbent Pope was literally a dribbling idiot, he successfully entrenched the fundamentalists in power behind the scenes. Having done so, the majority had unelectable sycophants, while all the best candidates were moderate and so blocked by Ratzinger's faction. Having created the impasse Ratzinger graciously steps up to the plate for the good of the Church - his church of course.
The problem with surrounding yourself with sycophants is that, well, their qualifications are that they are sycophants, not that they have experience or expertise with the issues.
This has been highlighted by the series of PR disasters the Vatican continues to stumble through.
The welcoming back into the Church of a holocaust denier.
The excommunication of people involved with saving the life of a 12 year old rape victim.
The ongoing falsehoods regarding condoms and AIDS in Africa.
Now comes the latest scandels, the continuing revelations of pedophilia by Catholic priests and the failure by the church to deal with it.
This time Ratzinger is intimately involved, as it appears he was informed about these activities but failed the victims. In fact, he apparently issued an letter in 2001 instructing that all case should be kept quiet and dealt with within the church (now I'm no lawyer, but isn't instructing someone to hide a crime, itself a crime?)
Clearly the Catholic church holds it's priests to a different standard to everyone else. That standard appears to be 'all priests are considered innocent until the crime becomes public'.
The latest attempts at damage control continues the inept performance of this Pope and the Vatican.
The victims have been blamed.
The media has been blamed.
The holocaust has been invoked to support the church.
The 'the fact that some boys were pubescent means that it wasn't pedophilia' defence. (No, seriously!).
The latest defence - change the story. It's now all about atheism
And with that we welcome the latest sycophant to be promoted - Bishop Anthony Fisher OP, DD, BA(Hons), LLB, BTheol(Hons), DPhil, the new Bishop of Parramatta, and historical ignoramus.
In his first easter message The good Bishop says:
Last century we tried godlessness on a grand scale and the effects were devastating. Nazism, Stalinism, Pol-Pottery, mass murder, abortion and broken relationships: all promoted by state-imposed atheism or culture-insinuated secularism, the illusion that we can build a better life without God.Natzism? Really? The army that had "Gott Mit Uns" on their uniform was godless?
The new Bishop of Parramatta, on message and clueless - should go far in Ratzinger's brave new world.
One would think that an on going criminal enterprise would warrant indictments. After all, that was the reason for the RICO statute.
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