ny times of trial

I've had these for a while, but didn't get to read them until today - what with Holy Week, ordination and the end of the semester going on.

They are well worth reading.

1. The Pope and the New York Times

A few years later, when the CDF assumed authority over all abuse cases, Cardinal Ratzinger implemented changes that allowed for direct administrative action instead of trials that often took years. Roughly 60% of priests accused of sexual abuse were handled this way. The man who is now pope reopened cases that had been closed; did more than anyone to process cases and hold abusers accountable; and became the first pope to meet with victims. Isn't the more reasonable interpretation of all these events that Cardinal Ratzinger's experience with cases like Murphy's helped lead him to promote reforms that gave the church more effective tools for handling priestly abuse?

2. Mark Shea on the "current media feeding frenzy on Pope Benedict XVI."

3. Mark Shea, again. This time on the realities behind what the media thinks they're talking about.

4. George Weigel: Don't blame celibacy. To fight the plague of sexual abuse, the church needs to become more Catholic, not less.

What is essential throughout the world, however, is that the church become more Catholic, not less. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" proposed an understanding of faithful and fruitful human love as an icon of God's inner life. That vision is far nobler, far more compelling, and far more humane than the sex-as-contact-sport teaching of the sexual revolution, the principal victims of which seem to be vulnerable young people. Those who are genuinely committed to the protection of the young might ponder whether Catholicism really needs to become Catholic Lite—or whether the Augean stables of present-day culture need a radical cleansing.