Pascal Papal crisis?

[lagatta]

I think this is more a question of conservative (including far-right) Catholics playing frail emeritus Pope Benedict against the very different Pope Francis,

That changed earlier this month, when Benedict published a 6,000-word article in a German magazine. It made headlines by blaming the clerical abuse scandal on the moral relativism of the 1960s sexual revolution, and the “homosexual cliques” that allowed this “lawlessness” to infect seminaries. It is a line of argument that directly – and, conservative cardinals insist, pointedly – contradicts all Francis’s efforts (including a summit of world bishops in the Vatican in February) to tackle the damage done by paedophile priests by pointing the finger at a dominant culture within the church; a culture that encourages priests and bishops to operate as if they are above the moral guidelines they preach, and regard themselves as beyond the sanction of civil courts.Pope vs Pope?

This is of course nonsense, as many examples predate the swinging 60s and the coming-out of LGBT people by decades at least. It was a subtext in Carlo Levi's book about fascism and underdevelopment in a village in the deep south of Italy, Christ stopped in Eboli. The pedo priest was a leading Church intellectual from Naples whom the Church had moved about to increasingly remote and illiterate villages with each new scandal. The villagers hated him, of course, and were very wary when he approached their children. peacecorpswriters.org/pages/2006/0611/611booklocker.html Some sex abuser priests were sent to exile in northern Canada where they prayed on Indigenous children (Amerindians and Inuit).

[bjd]

Of course it's nonsense. The conservative elements in the Roman Catholic Church have been unhappy with Francis since the beginning. To many other people, Francis is a breath of fresh air after the conservative JP II and Benedict.

And, as you say, many of the scandals pre-date the "swinging 60s". Unless Benedict's message is that even priests were infected with the scandalous mores of the time.

[kerouac2]

Francis might be a breath of fresh air for certain people (I am not one of them, since he has said lots of papal doctrinaire bullshit, too), but I don't know a single person in France who pays attention to the pope, even among the devout. It is so obvious that the head of the Catholic church is) is out of touch with real life in the 21st century that people just move on with their lives.

It is a shame in terms of the pope's excellent stand on migrants and the oppressed and hungry around the world, but it is impossible to take such a person seriously when he is so out of touch on other subjects.

[whatagain]

I really like Francis. You can't expect him to steer the whole church in the right direction.
First because the right direction is not the same for everyone second because there is so much to do and third because he cannot reasonably change bs that dates from 2000 years - like the small place attributed to women in the church.
So as long as he moves some issues into modernity I am happy.