VATICAN CITY -- Monday was an official holiday in the Vatican, with the city state's regular employees (there are about 4,600 of them) getting a day off and a small bonus to mark the five years since their boss, Benedict XVI, was elected pope.
Benedict himself was taking it easy as well, enjoying a low-key luncheon with 46 cardinals and resting after his emotional 24-hour visit to Malta the day before, a visit that included a brief but intense closed-door meeting with eight men who as children had been sexually abused by priests at their orphanage.
At the lunch in the Vatican, the embattled pontiff praised the cardinals for standing by him: "In this moment, the pope, very strongly, doesn't feel alone. He feels he has all the cardinals near him sharing tribulations and consolation," according to an account in the Vatican daily, L'Osservatore Romano.
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PD toolbar!The clergy sexual abuse scandal has become the hallmark -- and millstone -- of Benedict's papacy at the five-year point, and the encounter with victims was just the latest episode in the long-running crisis that has overwhelmed his past record and future plans on other fronts.
While some see the Malta meeting as signaling a shift in Benedict's approach to the scandals, papal observers and Vatican insiders -- as well as Benedict's own history -- raise serious doubts about whether the pope has an exit strategy beyond what he has done already, which does not appear to be much, at least if judged by his sparse public statements.
Benedict has been virtually silent on the abuse crisis, talking at most in oblique terms about the "sins" and "wounds" suffered by the church, and, as he did Monday in his remarks to the cardinals, telling that the trials meant the church "is experiencing, ever more, the consolation of God."
In reality, Benedict has always been loathe to change once he has taken a position, and in the sexual abuse crisis that perseverance in the face of criticism infuriates his many critics and even confounds some supporters, who feel the pope's reluctance may become a self-destructive intransigence if the scandals drag on and more damaging information emerges about abuse cases and the pope's role in them. (On Monday, in fact, reports out of Munich indicated there may have been efforts to cover up the pope's involvement in a sex abouse case when he was archbishop there in 1980.)
Why does Benedict think this way? It can be difficult to say -- and this is part of the pope's PR problem -- because he has refused to answer questions from the media or even to discuss his reasoning with many of his advisers. But several factors can help to explain his worldview, and why he may have great difficulty extracting himself and the church from the crisis anytime soon.
The first reason is theological. That orientation should come as no surprise, given that Benedict has long been one of the church's preeminent theologians, a man who spent just one year in a parish after his ordination in the early 1950s and the rest in academia or senior church positions debating theological issues. Benedict's theological riff on the present crisis is one in which he identifies himself in almost Christ-like terms, as the "suffering servant" who is unjustly accused but who accepts the criticisms as penance for the sins of others.
In fact, comparing the pope to Christ on the cross has become a regular theme among the pope's defenders, such as New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who in his Palm Sunday homily said that like Jesus, the pope faces "the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob and scourging at the pillar."
Understanding the distinction between being a sacrificial figure and sinner helps to make sense of Benedict's increasingly frequent references to the importance of doing penance, of the need for purification, and of God's grace as the guarantee of overcoming sin.
To some, his comments can sound like an apology of sorts, or at least an indication that the pope is struggling with his own conscience over the scandals. That may be, as he clearly does not exclude himself from those who must repent. But repent for what, exactly?
For Benedict, the penance seems to refer to the sins of abusive priests, while he also lays blame on modernizing trends in the world and the church, or even a lack of sufficient devotion by ordinary believers -- a factor the pontiff cited in his latter last month to the Catholic of Ireland, which has in fact been the most devout nation of Catholics in the world.
Moreover, his exhortations are followed by a reminder that the criticisms of the church's sins are themselves unjust, and even an organized campaign comparable to that of the Nazi and Communist regimes of the last century, as he said in a homily last Thursday. "A conformism under which it becomes obligatory to think as everyone thinks, to act as everyone acts, and the subtle or not so subtle aggression against the church demonstrate that this conformism really can become a real dictatorship," he said.
Benedict made a similar point during his visit to Malta, referring obliquely at one or two points to the sex scandals but also pointing to "the world's attacks on our sins" as an opportunity for healing and witness to the faith. Seen from that view, the more the critics pile on, the more Benedict is reinforced in his sense of moral and spiritual correctness, and the eventual triumph of the church. This is a strain of thinking that has run through his talks and writings since he was a priest in his native Germany, and later as Cardinal Joseph Raztinger, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the church watchdog agency on orthodoxy.
Certainly, martyrdom is a foundational element of Christian witness. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the faith," the church father Tertullian wrote in the second century. But whatever Benedict is enduring in terms of criticism, it is not the martyrdom of St. Stephen in Jerusalem in the first century or Oscar Romero in El Salvador in the 20th century, and there is a danger of confusing genuine persecution with a persecution complex.
Instead, his reaction, or lack thereof, can come across as a kind of passivity in the face of the suffering of others. "He is a very humble man, and that is a strength and also in today's world, it's a problem," said an American churchman who has known Benedict for many years. "He accepts things. He feels this is what God wants to happen."
The second factor underscores that theological vision, and it is that Benedict doesn't feel he has done anything terribly wrong. That is clear from the fierce defense by his aides (in often over-the-top comments that don't help their boss much) and in a few indications from Benedict himself. "I admire the pope for his courage in meeting us. He was embarrassed by the failings of others," said one of the sexual abuse victims who met with the pope in Malta on Sunday.
In truth, Benedict is hardly the mastermind of some global, Vatican-led conspiracy to shield child abusing clergy. There is one case from his tenure as archbishop of Munich (1977-1982) in his native Bavaria, that of a
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