From the AP report on the Pope’s resignation running in hundreds of newspapers.
The German theologian, whose mission was to reawaken Christianity in a secularized Europe, grew increasingly frail as he shouldered the monumental task of purging the Catholic world of a sex abuse scandal that festered under John Paul II and exploded during his reign into the church’s biggest crisis in decades, if not centuries.
Now I could take them to task for the false notion that the abuse scandal ‘exploded’ under Pope Benedict as it went kaboom earlier than that. But leaving that aside, holy run-on sentence batman.
I would say that the reporter, whose mission it is to fairly, accurately, and concisely report the news, grew increasingly foolish as she shouldered the monumental task of reporting to the world about the resignation of a Pope, a story that that should have been simple to write but rather exploded in the hands of this reporter who embarrassed herself for decades, if not centuries.
Nicole Winfield has sometimes been a decent reporter on Church issues in the past. I suppose her editors would not let her submit a piece without numerous mentions of the abuse scandal. Perhaps she wrote that awful sentence as a coded message revealing the gun to her head.
February 12, 2013 at 8:45 am
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February 12, 2013 at 8:51 am
The abuse scandal was a bigger problem than entanglement with the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
That's cute.
The abuse scandal should not have existed. The clericalism that made some bishops cover up abuse, the subculture of predatory gays in some seminaries—those should've been scandals. But the abuse itself? Please.
Priests, even at the height of the abuse, still abused less than half as much as the general population, which is to say multiple deviations lower than other clergy, who generally abuse at the same rate. Admittedly, almost all of the difference is because of celibacy; 40% of abuse is by the victim's (step)father or mother's boyfriend.
"Children are twice as safe with unmarried strangers as they are with their mom's husbands or boyfriends"—a rational society would say that was the scandal.
Well, that, and "quack therapists claim to be able to 'cure' sexual predators", which was a factor in the scandal among other things.
February 12, 2013 at 5:56 pm
I did read a couple of references to Hitler youth yesterday. She missed that.