THE BUCK STOPS HERE or IT SHOULD STOP HERE
The Pope and associated leaders are in big trouble with widening reports of childhood sexual abuse surfacing on a daily basis. There is no other choice for the Pope and the leaders but to respond to these serious charges directly and to do so with vigor. This is precisely what the leadership of the Vatican have initiated. The jist of their defense is not to assume final responsibility letting the chips fall where they may but counter attacking by blaming the over generalized "media" implying that they are all anti Catholic and waging a vicious campaign to discredit the Pope and the Catholic Church.
Let's take a closer look at this strategy.
It has been said that "The best defense is a good offense." This often used quotation implies that anything goes in defense of your position as long as it works to get you off the hook. This tends to work effectively among many lay individuals and groups. But it is problematic for the Pope and his cabinet. This is so because for the Pope - the self proclaimed and widely accepted intermediary between Christ and mankind - to attack the vicious 'media' as their core defensive strategy is to expose the Pope's vulnerability in his failed claim of infallible moral authority. The Pope has a responsibility to demonstrate consistency and integrity in judgment and action. And when he and others are admittedly wrong he and they must do the right thing and resign. Such an act would be earth shaking for the church and the world - in a positive way. To continue stonewalling try to shift their issue to the "medias issue is an obvious and pathetic transparent attempt to change the focus.
To claim ignorance of the facts - if this is indeed factual - is to acknowledge being asleep on the job. If, on the other hand, the Pope's defense is to rationalize poor judgment it represents nothing less than elevating the selfish needs of one man who supposedly knew or should have known better over the pain and suffering of thousands of innocent children. What kind of moral superiority is this?
I think Montaigne aptly puts this issue into its proper perspective: "Super-celestial thoughts breed subterranean conduct." In other words beware of the intensely pious as over and over again they turn out to be the biggest hypocrites among us. It is high time for the Pope and the leadership of the Catholic Church to shift their focus from what supposedly awaits us in the supernatural after life and better attend to righting glaring wrongs currently happening on our natural earth plane.
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