Chiesa: An Assessment of the “Purification” Underway

They are “heart-rending” crimes, an increasingly severe and demanding Benedict XVI said to the bishops of Ireland. A summary of two years of repression: what has been done, and what is left to do...
by Sandro Magister

ROMA, November 20, 2006 – To the Irish bishops gathered before him at the Vatican at the end of October, Benedict XVI clearly said that this is a “time of purification.” It is a time of purification from the “filth” he denounced in the memorable Via Crucis at the Colosseum on Good Friday two years ago, shortly before being elected pope, a filth made up of the “many heart-rending cases of sexual abuse of minors. These are all the more tragic when the abuser is a cleric (1).”

Pope Joseph Ratzinger is very severe and demanding in this area, more so than his predecessor John Paul II. In the year and a half of his pontificate, he has not hesitated to use the lash even against churchmen held to be untouchable by the previous pope.

Along with the United States, Ireland is the country where the Church has created the greatest scandal. The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, 68, confirmed in an interview with “Avvenire” (2) that Benedict XVI, in receiving the Irish bishops (see photo), not only denounced the horror of abuse, but dictated to them “precise indications” on how to clean up – with sanctions that are sometimes more rigid than the ones handed down by civil tribunals.