Benedict Walks Back From The Attack On Pope Francis

Vatican scandals that don't involve sex or money probably have a smaller audience than the ones that do, though since they inevitably are about power, maybe they should have a bigger one than they do.  

The one I posted about the other day was based on what was clearly information released by the anti-Francis right about the book to keep Francis from relaxing the rules for priestly celibacy*in order for married men to be ordained as priests. The big news Sunday and Monday was that the emeritus Bishop of Rome, Benedict XVI was the co-author of what was clearly an attack on his successor, the other named author was a right-wing Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Vatican Liturgy office.  Now we find out that Benedict has told him to remove his name as co-author of the book.  I am skeptical, but it is apparently being claimed he didn't intend to be seen as attacking the Pope. 

Though the circumstances as to how an old essay he wrote which, from what I can gather, Sarah asked to use in a book on the topic got turned into "co-authorship" are sketchy - Sarah has produced correspondence with Benedict that he claims as support for listing him as co-author - it's clear that, now he or at least his chief aid and private secretary, Bishop Georg Gänswein, have moved to distance himself from the attack.  

I will start by saying I made a mistake, Monday, based on a faulty memory, though accuracy would have made my point better.  It was during Benedict's papacy that the married Anglicans were allowed to become Catholic priests when they wanted to leave because they didn't want women to be priests.  How he would, then, explain opposing Pope Francis allowing married Catholic men to do the same would be interesting to see.  One of the articles posted yesterday made that point and it pointed out that Benedict had also written about what is so little known even among Catholics, that the Eastern Rites who are as Catholic as Roman Catholics have married priests and have all along without the most right-wing Popes or clerics in the West batting an eyelash. 

Some of the blame for this as the previous attacks on Pope Francis such as those centered around the sleazy Bishop Carlo Maria Viganò and, especially those which are in collusion with many American right-wingers, are due to Pope Francis' desire to be a nice guy, not moving to replace hold-overs from the two previous Popes who were notorious for appointing really bad bishops and cardinals.  I recall one priest commentator saying the U. S. Catholic Conference of Bishops was at about the lowest point it had ever been after JPII and Benedict XVI's appointments.   I would hope that Pope Francis replaces Robert Sarah, getting him out of power, soon.   There are a whole host of Bishop and Cardinal hold-overs who have waged war on Francis who he really should remove.  It's one thing to be a nice guy but his focus should be on The People and their welfare and not on the power and perks of the prelates.  Lots of those need to be taken down a few pegs. 

*   I was rather shocked to be told, while discussing this with a relative yesterday, that a very effective and beloved parish priest who was a close friend of my parents had admitted to a number of people that he had fathered a son as a young priest, who he had supported and was very close to though privately, not publicly.  The priest died a long time ago.  I don't now anything about the son's mother and whether or not she was on good terms with the priest, though he apparently had provided for them both.  

Having met him, I would expect he'd have done what was responsible.  It makes you wonder just how many such situations there are and how many allegedly celibate priests father children who they walk away from.   If they were married to the mothers of their children, they couldn't do that so easily.  If priestly celibacy were to be made not mandatory, maybe they'd have no excuse to not do the right thing.