Stand With The Pope

Sigh. Seems we are always going to have "the myth of the silent pope." Now that the black legend of Pius XII is finally giving way, we must invent a new narrative, by which the guy who comes riding in wearing a white cassock to clean up the filth of the 1970s is the bad guy.

"Grossest yuckiness of all gets closer and closer to the Pope" say the headlines in the London Times, Formerly Gray Lady et al.

Actual stories?

• Some choir boys were abused at the choir where the pope's brother taught. Before he was there.
• Then-Cardinal Ratzinger is alleged to have returned a pedophile to ministry, even though he didn't, and the priest's relapse into sin took place when he returned to another diocese after the Cardinal was in Rome.

I'm not sure when not having done something became proof of having done it, but I guess in the world where measurable global cooling is proof of man-made global warming, anything goes.

Too sickened to comment further, but wanted a defense on the record.  Read up.

• The fable of the silent pope
• Jimmy Akin w/ the facts of the story and an interview with the AG of the Vatican
• Phil Lawler: the fable of the silent pope
• "Myth of the silent pope" comes from Bp. Zollitsch in Die Welt; awkward translation here
• Sandro Magister thinks this week's audience was the Pope's response.
• Fr. Z. with a journalism lesson
• Damian Thompson on the counter-reform...of the newspapers

Update: The Pope's open letter to the Irish Church.