As anyone who paid attention in history class knows, when Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés landed in what’s now Mexico in 1519, he promptly scuttled his ships, thereby leaving his men no choice but to press on in conquest of the Aztec empire.
For centuries, that rash act has loomed as an object lesson in total commitment.
This week Pope Francis scuttled some ships of his own, on two fronts which have been sources of scandal and heartache for the Catholic Church: sex and money.
On Monday, Francis held his first meeting with victims of clerical sexual abuse.
Two days later, the Vatican announced a sweeping financial overhaul, including new leadership and a sharply limited role for the troubled Vatican bank.
There’s such hunger in the world to believe Francis is the real deal that it’s tempting to confuse announcing a plan for reform with actually implementing it.
To be clear, what happened this week was not reform itself — it was more like a prelude to action, an attempt to create the conditions for something good to happen.
In both cases, the key effect was to commit Pope Francis definitively to a particular course of action.
On the abuse front, the fact that Francis met with victims was no novelty, as Benedict XVI held such encounters six times.
Likewise there was no breakthrough in his plea for forgiveness, since such apologies date all the way back to 1993 when John Paul II voiced sorrow for the sins of “some ministers of the altar.”
They became sharper under Benedict XVI, who first used the magic words “I’m sorry” in Australia in 2008.
Nor was Francis’ pledge of zero tolerance a novelty.
The classic papal statement comes from an April 2002 speech by John Paul II to American cardinals: “There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young.” Continue reading
Source
- John L. Allen Jr. in The Boston Globe
- Image: wn.com
John L. Allen Jr. is associate editor at the Globe, specialising in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.
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