The Pope comes to America!

The advance billing said that Pope Benedict XVI was coming on his first papal mission to America to promote peace (in the Middle East), foster interfaith fellowship, and pay homage to the victims of 9/11.

Yet there’s no denying that his greatest challenge will be reestablishing the trust between his Bishops and America’s 65 million Catholics, which was betrayed by priests who sexually abused so many children. But this challenge is compounded by the fact that it took class-action lawsuits to reveal the Bishops’ cover up of these abuses. And I doubt the $2 billion the Church paid out to over 11,000 victims did much to restore their shattered faith….

Of course, the Pope’s politically savvy aides are acutely aware that this sex abuse scandal will cloud every word he utters and every move he makes during this visit. And this is why they had him launch a preemptive campaign to frame discussion of this sensitive issue by offering the following lamentation to a gaggle of reporters on his flight to the US:

It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen. It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.

I am deeply ashamed, and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future. I do not wish to talk at this moment about homosexuality, but about pedophilia, which is another thing.

We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry. It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.

However, the Pope’s now patented candor may have done more to anger than pacify the victims of this abuse. After all, a cabal of homosexuals in the Vatican continues to indulge and cover up the sexual exploits of gay priests, including abuse by pedophiles.

Not to mention the widespread (mistaken) belief that there is a positive correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia in the Catholic Church. And I’m sure the Pope is acutely mindful that disabusing Americans of this belief is critical to getting them to replenish the billions the Church has lost in payoffs and tithing withheld as a result of the sex abuse scandal….

Meanwhile, many analysts have marveled at the fact that, for the first time in his presidency, President George W. Bush traveled to the airport to greet a foreign dignitary upon arrival for a state visit. But this was probably because Bush appreciates that the Pope is the only man that Osama bin Laden and Islamic jihadists want to kill more than him.

(Incidentally, this is why we’ll be treated to unprecedented levels of disruption for security reasons in Washington, DC and New York City this week…)

Perhaps you recall how the Pope incited hysterical riots among Muslims all over the world almost two years ago. They went ballistic because – in rejecting what he called the “dictatorship of relativism” (i.e., the notion that all ideas, no matter how fanatical, have equal value) – the Pope alluded to the following prescient challenge to Muslims by 14th Century Christian Emperor Manuel II Paleologos:

Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Of course, it is this unqualified rejection of moral relativism that binds the Catholic Pope and Protestant president. However, where moral absolutism in a religious leader is tolerable, in a political leader it is untenable, which accounts for Bush’s fatally flawed presidency….

Never mind the irony that it was Bush’s moral aversion to “evil doers” that compelled him to invade Iraq; whereas, it was the Pope’s moral aversion to evil doers that compelled him to oppose Bush’s invasion.

At any rate, here’s to the Pope’s mission of peace, love, hope, forgiveness and reconciliation. And, since today happens to be his 81st birthday, I also wish him a Happy Birthday.

Related Articles:
Pope extends olive branch after offending Muslims

Pope Benedict XVI