By Damian Thompson Religion Last updated: September 29th, 2009
Today The Guardian published a vitriolic attack on Pope Benedict XVI by Tanya Gold which accused him of colluding in the protection of paedophiles and ended thus: "Welcome, Benedict XVI, Episcopus Romae, Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles... Don't tread on the corpses."
I described it this morning as the most poisonously anti-Catholic article to have appeared in the mainstream media in decades. However, The Guardian is anti-Catholic these days, and we do have free speech in this country, and on the whole I think professional offence-taking is a bad thing.
But, as CP Scott himself put it, "comment is free but facts are sacred", and when Gold accuses the Pope of colluding in the protection of paedophiles she is making an accusation that requires a pretty high level of proof.
Which she doesn't have.
She writes: "In May 2001 [the then Cardinal Ratzinger] wrote a confidential letter to Catholic bishops, ordering them not to notify the police - or anyone else - about the allegations, on pain of excommunication."
No, he didn't.
As Archbishop Vincent Nichols pointed out in 2006, when a BBC Panorama documentary made this allegation, the 2001 letter to bishops "clarified the law of the Church, ensuring that the Vatican is informed of every case of child abuse and that each case is dealt with properly.
"This document does not hinder the investigation by civil authorities of allegations of child abuse, nor is it a method of cover-up, as the [BBC] programme persistently claims. In fact it is a measure of the seriousness with which the Vatican views these offences.
"Since 2001, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took many steps to apply the law of the Church to allegations and offences of child abuse with absolute thoroughness and scruple."
Gold's article is also highly selective, not to say misleading, in its presentation of the facts relating to the Church investigation into the scandal surrounding Fr Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ. Maciel was a favourite of Pope John Paul II, on whose instructions Cardinal Ratzinger closed down an investigation into various allegations. Perhaps he should have refused to obey the Pope - but what Gold fails to mention is that the moment Ratzinger was free to reopen the case (ie, when JPII became mortally ill) he did so, and as Pope sent the dying octagenarian priest into exile while a proper investigation into this massively complicated case began.
It's nowhere near finished, but Pope Benedict is determined that the truth comes out, even at the price of dismantling the entire order. Quite right: Maciel was a vile piece of work, a seducer of young men and the father of several illegitimate childrn - but even if you think Cardinal Ratzinger colluded in his protection, the awkward fact remains that the Mexican was not, so far as we know, a paedophile. A nice distinction? Not in a court of law, which is where The Guardian would end up if it had made these claims about an ordinary individual.
Gold's attack on Pope Benedict doesn't read like the work of someone very familiar with the detail of the paedophile scandals. I'd like to know how much research actually went into it. The sad fact is that the upper ranks of the clergy are stuffed with prelates who were complicit in the protection of paedophiles - but the former Cardinal Ratzinger, whose Congregation assumed responsibility for investigating the scandals only at the end of JPII's pontificate, is not one of them.
On the contrary: Benedict XVI is currently engaged in "purifying" (his word) the Church of the "filth" (his word again) of priestly sex abusers. It's one of his priorities as Pope. It wasn't one of John Paul II's priorities, though it should have been. But he is dead, so Gold goes after his successor, intending to trash his reputation but actually doing serious damage to that of The Guardian.
