Interact

The Pope sees the Devil behind the timing of the world being made aware of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse. It was done to coincide with the ”Year for Priests.” 

John Allen reports from the Vatican: “Since the Catholic sexual abuse crisis erupted a decade ago, there have been numerous attempts to explain its causes, from a lack of fidelity to an over-emphasis on celibacy and clerical privilege. This morning in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI pointed to a deeper unseen force lurking behind the crisis, especially its timing: the Devil. It’s no accident, the pope implied, that precisely as the Catholic church was celebrating a “Year for Priests” in 2009-2010, the sexual abuse crisis once again took on massive global proportions. “It was to be expected that this new radiance of the priesthood would not be pleasing to the ‘enemy,’” Benedict XVI said. “He would have rather preferred to see it disappear, so that God would ultimately be driven out of the world.”The term “the enemy” is a traditional Catholic way of referring to the Devil.”

When I first heard it, that excuse reminded me of Flip Wilson’s old Geraldine routine’s “The devil made me do it, honey!” Here’s a skit on YouTube here! 

Seriously, I think people at times are open, vulnerable or willing to be instruments of evil. The Devil does exist.

But in the sexual abuse crisis, I see those instruments of the Devil not as the priest perpetrators–who had serious social and psychological problems–but the bishops, cardinals and popes who calmly and steadfastly who covered up for them, and let innocent children be hurt and betrayed in the process.   

“It was the devil who brought to light the sexual abuse of children that had taken place for decades?” an NCR reader remarked. “So it is now the devil who brings to light that which was hidden? So who is the light and the truth?”