No, he should not.  He should be more forthcoming about his own mistakes and ask forgiveness for those mistakes from the Church as a whole. But he most certainly should not resign, for this or any other such reason. Let me explain:

In the first place, the pope is not some merely political office such as the President of the United States. The office of pope- or Bishop of Rome, or Successor of St. Peter, or Vicar of Christ- (insert your favorite title here) is a sacred trust that ought to be carried out as long as the office holder is able to do so. The pope is not chosen to be popular or look good on television or promote a particular agenda; the pope is chosen to lead the Church with the wisdom that he has acquired and with the grace imparted by the Holy Spirit. Now, one way that people often obtain wisdom is through their mistakes- and so to think that a pope ought to resign because of mistakes he has made is not to understand the nature of that office. And yet one major responsibility of the pope is to recognize his mistakes and deal with them- infallibility does not mean (and has never meant) that the pope is not a man and does sin or make mistakes in his judgment.  It merely means that, when it comes down to a crucial question of doctrine that is to be formally defined through his office, the pope is able to be preserved from error as the spokesman of the infallibility that the whole Church possesses.

In the second place, to my knowledge, Pope Benedict XVI has not yet publicly admitted (or even directly addressed) his own failures with regard to this issue. I would like to hope that he recognizes his mistakes privately and has simply not admitted his mistakes publicly out of concern that people who do not understand the responsibilities of the pope (such as, it seems, most of you) will assume that any admission of failure should result in his resignation.  I am more concerned that he may be unwilling to recognize his possible mistakes at all- but, in that instance, my concern is more for the problems that would pose to his own spiritual life (as well as the great loss in popular “moral authority” that may result and has already resulted) than it is for his actual authority as pope. And he will remain pope, with all the genuine authority that entails, whether you like him or not- or even acknowledge that he possesses it.

In the third place, there is no question that the activity of which those pedophile priests were guilty was both heinous and utterly reprehensible.  The Catholic Church will look with shame upon this period of her history until the end of time. There is also, however, no question that the first person in the Vatican to recognize that this situation was far more serious than was commonly thought (at least among those in the Vatican) was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. It took the American scandals to bring it to light- and it took Ratzinger a long time by our standards to figure out what a terrible problem it was- but the whole Vatican had a very misguided notion of this problem, based on psychological studies that had helped to set Church policy on such matters decades earlier as well as older (largely Italian cultural) predisposition to regard sexual matters such as this as both private and relatively inconsequential. The fact that, slowly, the CDF became the location where these issues were handled and from which new policies began to develop were due more to Ratzinger’s own insights and efforts than is commonly realized.

That being said, let me answer several earlier comments with some additional comments of my own:

1. Whatever you may like to believe, Catholicism has always been very clear about one thing: People sin and no one is perfect (except, of course, for our Lord and, to a lesser extent, His mother). Although the Catholic Church has traditionally honored and promoted the holiness of her great saints, she has always recognized that sinfulness is a part of the human condition and that the members of the Church are not exempt from this.  The goal is holiness- but sinfulness is the norm for most all of us. The Church is intended to be the hospital for sinners not a sect for saints and, although human beings were created good and in the image and likeness of God, we have fallen to a state in which that image is often hard to recognize and acknowledge.

2. Traditionally, as a result of this view of the human person, the Church thinks in terms of sin, not of crime- and in terms of forgiveness, not of punishment.  That may strike you as absurd- the Gospel often seems absurd- but that is how the Church thinks, historically.   This is the reason why, in the Late Middle Ages, people with sufficient political power would often attempt to have their trials moved to religious courts (aka “Inquisition courts”) rather than royal courts- because the Inquisition was substantially less likely to torture and execute than the king was (popular myths to the contrary).  The result is that it is, sadly, not particularly surprising that Bishops routinely did not report cases of abuse- because they don’t think of their responsibilities in terms of reporting to civil authorities but in terms of helping sinners to overcome their sins. We all wish that it had been different- but to not recognize that the very way of seeing that make one a good priest might also make one a poor administrator in a context such of as this is simply not to think about the situation very carefully.

3. For much of the twentieth century, psychological profiles/theories regarding pedophilia did not see it as we do today.  It was commonly thought (based on the now outdated research of psychological experts) that the activity of a pedophile had to do with a single relationship and that to severe such a relationship was to severe the likelihood of relapse.  We no longer think that today- but to accuse people of moral failure based on bad science (which, to at least some degree, is what is going on here) is once again to not look at the situation carefully. There has also, historically, not been the kind of concern with (or even consciousness of) long term psychological trauma, which we now take for granted in such cases, as there is today.  Finally, as hard as it is to imagine, the kind of horror which we almost universally have of pedophilia was far less even two generations ago in America, when it was more often seen as a distasteful practice than as a severe moral failing.  I know- this is particularly shocking to all of us now- but our views as a society have substantially changed and it shows historical and psychological ignorance not to recognize that Ratzinger and other cardinals of his age would have the same kind of backwardness on this issue that my 91 year old grandfather still has on race relations (which is a constant embarrassment to my family in public but is beyond possible correction). I’m not trying to excuse Ratzinger’s poor judgment- merely to contextualize it and so render it comprehensible.

4. Is it more illogical to have some confidence in the ultimate wisdom of an institution that can trace its history back two thousand years – or to believe a news organization that has a very real stake in certain political agendas when it claims to be “fair and balanced?”

5. Whatever you may think about the Catholic Church, I am convinced that the level of secret and unreported molestations that go on behind closed doors in our country every day dwarfs anything that the Catholic Church has done or will ever do. I’ve just known too many people- male and female- who were molested by close friends or family members that they trusted- and I suspect that most all of us know a lot more people who have been molested but whom we will never know about because they will never tell us or anyone else. This kind of crime isn’t a Catholic problem, uniquely- I think it is based more on the way that we as a culture worship youth. Yes, many priests were guilty of these things and many bishops were guilty of covering them up.  And hopefully the Catholic Church will learn from these revelations so that future horrible situations are corrected as quickly as possible. But the problem isn’t going to go away because sin won’t. All we can hope for is that future cases will be handled with greater wisdom.

6.  If you’ve read this far, I thank you for reading my post and being willing to think about my point of view.  If you have not read this far, then I think you have shown your interest in actually understanding (and helping to constructively solve this problem) rather than simply judging the situation from afar without thinking it through carefully, to be relatively small.

Matthew G. Minix
melchizedek137@yahoo.com