Holy Shmoley

So has anyone else had enough of the hyperbolic news articles concerning the problematic management of pedophile priests?

Drudge is linking to a Washington Post article with the following bit:

It all comes down to the question of what the pope knew and when. The answer will almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict's papacy.

Now, certainly there were horrible cover-ups that had occurred in various incidents, but the previous quote is a perfect example of overstatement.

To what precisely does the phrase "it all" refer? First of all, the Post writer is using a pronoun with an unclear antecedent. We aren't sure what "it" is...let alone what "all" of it could mean. Sure sounds important, though.

And then we get to the phrase "almost certainly determine the fate of Benedict's papacy."

Fate is a very abstract concept and extraordinarily hard to pin down. It's such a complicated term that Greek poets had to invoke a trinity of characters just to try to anthropomorphize it. What could the author mean by "the fate of Benedict's papacy?" It sound as if the author implies the pope might, oh, I don't know, lose his job...

Scrolling down to the end of the article, you find the following:

Rainer Kampling, a professor of Catholic theology at Berlin Free University, says the idea that the pope might resign - slipping polls not withstanding - is hardly realistic. "The pope is not a politician," he said.

Herbert Kohlmaier, chairman of an Austrian Catholic group that has criticized Benedict, also said a resignation shouldn't be expected. "They certainly won't let a symbolic figure like that go."

While church law allows for the resignation of a pope, there are few precedents over the church's two millennium history. The last was by 15th-century Pope Gregory XII, and that was not over scandal but rather a schism in the church.

These observations that is unlikely that the pope will resign are pretty much non sequitur in the article. The sentence immediately preceding them describes how a German poll shows a significant reduction in trust for the pope, down from 62% to 39% (he's still doing better than most American politicians). But there is no mention of papal resignation in the article to elicit the retort by Kampling. It's something of a non-issue, except for the fact that the article ends by reminding the reader it's still a possibility with precedent...and, by the way, did you know the Church once had a schism?

Would I like the Church to have handled these cases differently? Sure.
Am I suddenly going to abandon my faith because a disciplinary bureaucracy failed to address the heinousness of these crimes? Hardly.