Pope leaves behind a spiritual, controversial legacy

(CBS News) VATICAN CITY - The former pope will return to Vatican City later this year to take up residence at his retirement home, a former monastery behind St. Peter's Basilica.

He'll be just a short walk -- if he cares to take it -- from where the new pope will be dealing with a lot of old problems.

The clean up after the papal goodbye party didn't take long. Cleaning up after the papacy of Benedict XVI may be more difficult. He leaves a lot of unfinished business behind.

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Pope Benedict XVI says goodbye to the Vatican

He leaves people still demanding justice for the children abused by clergy -- people like Barbara Blaine, who runs a survivors support group.

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"He offered lofty statements, he apologized to victims, he met with victims," said Blaine, who runs the Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). "And yet, we haven't seen even one bishop punished or even one church employee go without a days pay for the cover-up of these sex crimes."

The cardinals now have a damage-control challenge: How to provide believable assurances that the era of abuse is over.

It's a challenge recognized by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York

/ Mario Tama/Getty Images

"Sadly, tragically, we leaders of the church have often given people reasons not to have trust in the church anymore. So to reclaim that credibility is a big call for us," Dolan said.

And even before they get down to the business of choosing the next pope, the cardinals have the business of the Vatican itself to sort out.

Benedict preferred more spiritual matters. The acknowledged mess of the church's administration and finances was not a priority.

Benedict was a respected thinker, a teacher. An official Vatican spokesman, Thomas Rosica of Rochester, N.Y., admits the next pope will have to attend to more earthly concerns as well.

"You need communication skills, you need a keen sense of collaboration of people working together," Rosica said. "A pope for all seasons. And I'm not sure if there's anyone who exists on this side of the resurrection with that package."

It's not clear when the cardinals will begin the process of electing a new pope. The cardinals say they need about a week, perhaps more, of discussion amongst themselves of the issues facing the church before they're even ready to go into the Sistine Chapel and begin the selection process.

[RolandMathews]

The question that should be asked, is what relevance does a 2000 year old organized religion have, especially one with a history like the Holy Roman Empire? The Inquisition, Crusades, conquest of the New World, Pope Alexander Borgia, colonization, and the child sex abuse scandal just to name a few. Recently it has also come to light that the Vatican Bank may have laundered Mafia drug money. There is also the hint of a scandal in the girl who went missing in the Vatican about 20 years ago, and the bones of whom have recently been found. Since the Vatican is considered soverign territory, it has been difficult for the Italian police to investigate.

The fact is that organized religion has been part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to many of the man made ills in the world. The Christian Coalition, and Moral Majority helped get Bush elected, and thereby violated the separation of church and state. For those who don't believe in the separation of church and state, how would they feel about the church being taxed? The right wing Christian Fundamentalists of the Republican party have been used, either volutarily, or covertly by the Koch Bros., and other wealthy right wing industrialists who have contributed heavily to the Tea Party, ALEC, and other organizations to turn this country into a Fascist Theocracy!

[cleric77]

Let's pray that God's Holy Spirit will guide these bishops of the Church of Rome to having a second Reformation of doctrine and moral behavior within the Church of Rome; especially among their priests.
It's time for both clergy and laity to read the timely directives of the Church Reformer, Dr. Martin Luther, written some 500 years ago for renewal and reformation within the Church of Rome.

[marychgo]

Am I the only aging (ex)Catholic who misses John XXIII? If the sort of reform he championed at Vatican II hadn't been squelched for the past 40 years, I might still be a member....

[Ulgnud]

There are bad apples in any faith. I am sure there were some instances of impropriety. Was it all that wide spread? I doubt it. I will suspect the credibility of any one who shows up after 10 - 20 years and says "Um, he did XXX to me". Even a mass murder suspect gets a fair trial. Now stop and look at all the Priests, Pastors, Fathers, Bishops, and Nuns of many Faiths, many which are not mentioned here who dedicate their lives helping others and doing good to mankind. How many of these "Atheists" do anything on that level to serve their fellow man? No I am not Catholic. I see people like Mother Teresa who dedicated her life to caring for the weakest and children living the most wretched lives imaginable. Why not see people like that and step forward to help, instead of spewing vitriol against the institutions that made them what they are?

[webgone]

Both of you are right,both are wrong,if I may place my opinion.
Our opinion to religious dealings may be truthfull, near the truth or good at sound,but you both forgot one thing, if there is a Creator then how would He Himself place His words here. We do not know? Then this is our problem.
Faith is deviding, knowledge less. So we do not have His words at this moment and at this time to this matter. So why do we keep saying what we think is right, but forgot to search out if He is for real. I know what I said is difficult to catch, but there is some reality we are leaving outside our judgment. I am not playing here, I have some knowlege, and that tells me we all keep being wrong, since we catch not His intentions for all of His children. You may ask is the Pope right or wrong, I think he is right as to him being a child of Our Creator, and he is wrong as not having all knowldege.
Hope we agree in terms of there is never an end for search.Knowledge is not kept from us by faith, but by our own laziness to seek for more. Good luck on your thinking.

[rwsmith29456]

"Benedict was a respected thinker, a teacher. An official Vatican spokesman, Thomas Rosica of Rochester, N.Y., admits the next pope will have to attend to more earthly concerns as well." Yeah, they need a pope that won't cosmotize away real problems.

[A_Canadian_Opinion]

"Cardinals say Benedict's successor must be better at tending to "earthly" matters, like abuse and finances."

WOW! Really?? Wow, wow, wow! So much for the message in Romans 8 about being less carnally minded and more spiritually minded.

Salutes to Benedict for trying to turn the church towards being spiritually minded. However, it looks like his successor will turn the church back towards the carnal, back towards the thorny ground.

The Catholic Church is false religion. I think Benedict stepped down because he is starting to sense that. He's letting peace (or, more precisely, the lack thereof) begin to rule.

[lkrupp]

Reading posts from atheists claiming religion is a fraud always makes me laugh. It reminds me of the exchange between Jody Foster and Matthew McConaughey in the movie Contact. Foster's character asks why McConaughey's character voted against her to pick a representative of humanity. His reply was that 95% of humans on the earth believe in God so how could he vote for someone who thought those 95% were delusional. It takes a LOT of faith to look at the universe and conclude it all happened by accident.

I also laugh at the talking heads and jerk pundits who offer advice to a 2000 year old institution as what it must do to survive or stay relevant. Hilarious. Name another ongoing institution that is 1000 or even 500 years old.

[kbbpll]

Marriage is an institution more than 1000 years old. It's kept us going a lot longer than celebate pedophiles ever will.

[jumkey]

You laugh? I laugh at someone who think 2000 years is a long time when the earth is 4.5 BILLION years older than that. Your church isn't even a blip in age of the earth or life on this planet - it doesn't ever register.

Oh, and if you still insist that your church somehow represents God I can assert without hesitation that the creator of the universe doesn't condone diddling little children.

So you can shove it you disgusting apologist for child molestation.

[kbbpll]

By the way, Buddhism is 2500 years old, and Hinduism 3000. Let me know the next time you hear about a decades-long child rape scandal in either of these institutions.

[YourRearViewMirror1]

Folks,

No Religion was meant to be Democratic. Otherwise, why do we need a religion if one can do as one wishes and the church must approve it?

In other words, why do we need any Moral rules if one can break it when it seems most convenience to one.

[servorum]

TillMidnight,
Since I don't do well with praise - whether high or faint - I will simply say thank you for your kind words.

It is never my intent to do anything when I post comments here except to speak the truth about Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church in an arena filled with those who know nothing or less than nothing about the faith I know and love so dearly.

While I teach Catholic catechesis and have studied the Church for nearly 40 years now, I don't do this for a living and, as is true with all of us who leave comments here, I most certainly don't get paid to do this.

My one and only intention is to testify to what is true in spite of the vast ignorance displayed by so many of the anti-Catholic bigots who waste so much of their energy spreading lies and falsehoods at every turn.

I can only think of what Christ said as he was being crucified - "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

So I will not return their insults. I will not stoop to acting in an un-Christian manner even though they are consistently un-Christian and insulting.
It is simply not what I choose to do or whom I choose to be.

My hope and prayer for them is that they come to their senses before they die and acknowledge their utter dependence on God and the deep need they have for the salvation that comes through and only through Jesus Christ and his Church.

However, many of them have so hardened their hearts that I can only look on them with pity as they daily dig a hole for themselves in hell so deep that they will be lost forever to the light of God.

Again, it has been said that there is no darkness more profound than ignorance and no form of ignorance more unshakeable than the willful rejection of God's love.

In Charles Dickens' work "A Christmas Carol", the Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge two children sitting on the floor and says to him,

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."

There is no love in these people who slander the Church; in fact no knowledge, no love and no forgiveness in their hearts.

Because they do not love they will not be loved. Because they choose to not know they will not be known. And because they do not forgive they will most assuredly not be forgiven.

Don't be like them. Be like Christ Our Lord.
Thank you again. God bless you and God bless the Holy Catholic Church.

[servorum]

Jaylah54200,
Thank you for your comment.
However, you must consider something here that has apparently escaped you and many others.

You speak about "my truth" as though all truth results from some private opinion or personal decision rather than from something that is absolute and eternal.

I'm aware that modern man has chosen to believe only in relativistic truth, that is, only in truth that can be known by experience or chosen by personal judgment.

However, the truth I speak of and the truth Our Lord spoke of during his trial before Pilate (which you quoted) is not relativistic at all but rather, eternal and absolute.

Remember, before Pilate famously asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus had told him,
"You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

Again, modern man is in a state of outright rebellion against God and against the revealed truth God has given his Church and through his Church to the world.

Why? At least in part because no one wants to be told what to believe. We - all of us - value our freedom (I would say our God-given freedom) of will, and so in exercising our free will we wish to believe what and how and when we choose.

However, in denying what God in his goodness has chosen to reveal to us we are not actually exercising our freedom at all.
We have instead, in that act of denial, surrendered our freedom of will since our freedom is entirely dependent on being one with the God who gave it to us in the first place.

Believing a lie binds us to that lie as surely as abusing an addictive drug makes us a slave to that drug, and in the end, suppressing our freedom.

You wrote that I should "stop trying to force people" to believe what God has revealed. Perhaps you did not put your thought into quite those words, but that is how I understood them.

However, I have never once forced anyone to do or believe anything. In fact how on earth could I do that simply by writing words in the same way that you have written words? It's a rather silly thought if you ask me.

Perhaps you want us - we Christians - to stop testifying to the truth that is there for all to see, but if that is your desire or intent, I assure you it will never happen.

If you don't like what I write, don't read it. You're certainly free to do at least that.

But don't fool yourself into believing that what I write is a function of my opinion alone, since my opinions are ultimately irrelevant in comparison to God's truth.

If you believe that the Moon is made of green cheese, the absolute truth of the Moon's nature does not change simply because you have formed an incorrect opinion about it.

All the more so about the nature of God and of his absolute, divine and eternal truth.