More Pope defending

I recently questioned a Catholic blogger on whether he believes the Pope should be held accountable for his role in the Church sex scandal, but my comment was not posted because the blogger did not believe there was evidence that he was involved. Here's the blog post:

http://scecclesia.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/militant-atheism-goes-balistic/

Here's the blogger's emailed response to my question:

"And exactly what do you believe the Holy Father s role in the sex scandal was that you believe he should be held accountable , Dave?

I believe he does have a responsibility - a very heavy one - to continue in the task of healing the wounds of the past and making sure that in the future the Church is the safest place for all people.

We believe he has been very successful at this thus far, and that he is continuing to come up with the goods.

We believe that there is no evidence of culpability for any of his actions in the past - the NYT s journalism not withstanding - except maybe a slowness to realise the serious extent of the problem. As soon as he became responsible for the administration of accusations in 2001 he became very aware and very active, all the more so when he entered into the office of pope.

What is your evidence to the contrary?"

So let's look at what this person is saying:

1) The Pope's responsibility is to the Church, not its victims.
2) We think he's doing a great job.
3) There is no evidence that he covered up Church abuse since taking over responsibility for Church discipline in 2001, despite numerous news reports to the contrary.

Here's my response to the email:
"Many news outlets have reported multiple occasions on which Cardinal Ratzinger's office was notified of the abuse and either ignored the warnings or transferred the perpetrators to other jurisdictions. The most prominent recent example was of the head of a school for deaf children in Wisconsin.

Unless you are specifically closing your eyes to these reports, it is hard to imagine that you have not seen them. If you'd like, I'd be happy to provide links to news articles."

Now let's see if they continue to censor my comment. I'll keep you posted...