Come To Boston
Gelzo at Boston Herald to Ben XVI:
On Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI will travel to the southern tip of Manhattan to pray at the spot where fanatical strains of religion and politics converged to provide us with a glimpse of hell on earth.
It is not only right, but necessary that the pope go to Ground Zero. Still, it is not the only “ground zero” Pope Benedict needs to visit.
Just before New York’s towers of glass and steel crumbled, the underpinnings of Boston’s Catholic church began to collapse under the weight of nearly half a century of sex, lies and locked file cabinets.
Boston became ground zero for a clergy sex abuse scandal whose shock waves would spread across the country and eventually make their way back to Rome.
How does Pope Benedict XVI, the 81-year-old successor to one of the most dynamic and charismatic pontiffs of the last century, make his first visit to the United States not only significant, but relevant?
He stops and prays at our ground zero. To be specific, the pope needs to and should come to Boston - to pray at the epicenter of an archdiocese where the corruption of faith by generations of clergy has crippled the church.
… does the pope understand it deeply enough to come to the place where the wounds and the betrayal cut the deepest? Boston is a devoted Catholic city who’s had its deep faith both tested and rocked to its core. We needed - and deserved - the healing words of our Holy Father. Beyond that, the rest of the country needed to see reconciliation and healing begin here . . . at the ground zero where faith was corrupted.
John Paul II began his romance with America in Boston. The quiet, scholarly gentleman who followed him has missed a crucial opportunity to keep that faith alive.
Meanwhile, the Economist looks at the Vatican and the Bush administration’s dance re Islamic extremism.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:26 am on Wednesday, April 16, 2008
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