It seems to be kick Pope Benedict week and as much as I hate to be a conformist he’s the obvious choice for this week’s “honor.” I even enjoyedMaureen Dowd’s column on Pope Malaka yesterday: she sprayed her bile on a deserving target this time. This scans like one of her best screeds about President Beavis:

It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.

Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter
public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the
perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation
rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged —
children.

The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy
Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and
Blame-Others Friday.

Herr Ratzinger finds himself neck deep in yet another pedophile priest scandal; this time in Europe. The Vatican is spending Holy Week trying to spin and make excuses for the Pope’s involvement in the cover-up. Their method is what John Ehrlichman memorably dubbed “a modified limited hangout.” The Vatican, however, erred in allowing the Pope himself to show his teeth andgrowl like a Rottweiler on Palm Sunday:

The 82-year-old pontiff led tens of thousands of people in a Palm
Sunday service in St Peter’s square. He did not mention the scandal
engulfing the church directly, but parts of his sermon alluded to it.

The
pope said that faith in God helped lead one “towards the courage of not
allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant
opinion”. He also spoke of how man can sometimes “fall to the lowest, vulgar levels” and “sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty”.

One
prayer read during the mass asked God to help “the young and those who
work to educate and protect them”. Vatican Radio said it was intended
to “sum up the feelings of the church at this difficult time when it
confronts the plague of paedophilia”.

In the face of one of the
gravest scandals in the Catholic church’s recent history, the Vatican
has chosen to attack the media for what it called an “ignoble attempt”
to smear Pope Benedict and his top advisers “at any cost”.

The
Vatican is facing a barrage of questions about the pope’s handling of
sex abuse cases both when he was archbishop of Munich and when he
headed the Vatican’s doctrinal office.

The then-Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger was the archbishop of Munich when a priest was allowed to
resume pastoral work with children even while receiving therapy for
paedophilia. He was subsequently convicted of abusing minors. In
addition, a case has come to light in which Ratzinger’s deputy at the
Vatican doctrinal office told Wisconsin bishops to quash a church trial
for a priest alleged to have abused up to 200 deaf boys.

The
Vatican insists the pope was unaware of the Munich priest’s move to the
pastoral job and has defended its handling of the Wisconsin case.

Benedict has only spoken out publicly about the scandal in Ireland, writing a letter to the Irish faithful
last week in which he chastised Irish bishops for leadership
shortcomings and errors in judgment for failing to apply church law to
stop abusive priests.

Of course, Herr Ratzinger has thus far refused to address the growing scandal in the German Church some of which happened when he was Archbishop of Munchen. Ratzinger should have paid more attention to what his employees in dog collars were munchen on. Papal underlings have claimed that Herr Ratzinger was sorta like Poppy Bush during Iran-Contra and out of the loop when he was running things in the land of brats and beer. Those who are familiar with Ratzinger’s managerial style aren’t buying it: he’s a notorious micro-manager. It’s quite obvious that he knew what was going on but like most clerics he regards covering up for other Priests as part of the job.

The most horrifying German case is the one mentioned above: it involved a Priest who was a convicted sex offender but returned to pastoral duty. I understand that the Church is in the forgiveness business but this Priest should have been sent to a monastery on a mountain somewhere when the only thing he could bugger was a goat. The Pope, however, sounds like Sgt. Schultz: I know nothing, I see nothing. It’s a pity that the leader of one of the world’s great faiths is guilty of such egregious malaktude but I call them as I see them. Unlike Pope Benedict, Poppy Bush and Sgt. Schultz, I pay attention to what’s going on and when I screw up I apologize, make amends and move on. But malakatude means never having to say you’re wrong or sorry. That may be good enough for politicians but it’s not good enough for the Pope; particularly when children are involved. No indulgences for you, Herr Ratzinger, you’re just a malaka in a cassock as far as I’m concerned.