GUEST COMMENTARY: Let the man do his job

(UNDATED) Attacks on the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI have become increasingly frequent in the secular media, most recently over the pope’s decision to lift the ex-communication of a schismatic bishop, Richard Williamson, who has publicly denied the Holocaust. One of the more curious examples ran in The Times of London on Feb. 22: “Cardinals […]

(UNDATED) Attacks on the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI have become increasingly frequent in the secular media, most recently over the pope’s decision to lift the ex-communication of a schismatic bishop, Richard Williamson, who has publicly denied the Holocaust.

One of the more curious examples ran in The Times of London on Feb. 22: “Cardinals Turn on Pope Invisible.” The story critiqued the pope as “regal” and someone who leads the Catholic Church “like a monarch cut off from the world.” This in a country where the head of the national church actually is a monarch whose life has indeed been “cut off from the world.”

Williamson’s views are stupid, and perhaps even more than stupid. But they have nothing to do with legal standards under church law regarding ex-communication, or the lifting of that sanction. Regardless, he remains a schismatic bishop without a diocese or any role within the Catholic Church.


The fundamental premise of democratic society is that good ideas will drive out bad ones. In the early 20th century, Germany failed to learn that lesson during its experiment with democracy and found itself subject to a regime that began by burning books and ended up by burning people.

More recently, Germany has tried to banish bad ideas by criminalizing them — in this case, denying the Holocaust. That’s why Williamson faces possible prosecution for Holocaust-denial remarks he made in Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has also criticized the pope on the Williamson affair, might do well to consider whether the best way to refute a bad idea is to make it illegal.

But if we’re looking for good ideas and good history to push out the bad, a wise place to start would be Benedict’s moving and profound address regarding the Holocaust during his 2006 visit to Auschwitz. Those remarks, unfortunately, have been largely overlooked by the secular media during the present controversy.

More troubling, however, is the public criticism among certain so-called “Vatican watchers” who claim to detect a new ineptitude and disarray among the Vatican bureaucracy. Of course, there is always room for improvement in the curia as there is anywhere else. But governing is an imprecise art at every level, including that of the Vatican. And where would we go to find a more successful model? The boardrooms of corporate America and Europe that have managed to plunge the world economy into a near global depression?

There was a similar media frenzy a year ago after the pope was forced to cancel a speech at Rome’s La Sapienza University because students there were convinced the pope was anti-science. Here’s what I said at the time. It still applies:

“… What is really at stake is whether Pope Benedict will be able to define his pastoral mission and teaching ministry on his own terms, or whether he will have to submit to the politically correct terms of debate established by the secular media and other critics of the Church.”


Those who know Benedict know that he has a clear and distinct idea of his mission as leader of the Catholic Church. He is a man of great intellect, humility and spirituality. Not the least of his strengths is his determination to lead 1 billion Catholics in the renewal begun by the Second Vatican Council and to spread the gospel across the globe. At age 81, we might say he has already a long list of remarkable accomplishments. Yet he is not served well by those who constantly look over their shoulders to ascertain how the secular news media views his ministry.

We will soon mark the first anniversary of Benedict’s astonishing pastoral visit to the United States. Did we witness a “monarch cut off from the world” during those days? Not by a country mile.

(Carl Anderson is the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, based in New Haven, Conn.)

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