William J. Levada, the American cardinal who now heads the doctrinal office, had this defense:

Anyone can say, ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ ‘You could have done this better.’ That’s part of life, but certainly it’s not the case to say that he is deficient,” Cardinal Levada said. “If anything, he was the architect of this step forward in the church and I think he deserves his credit.”

I’m not sure what the requirements are to be Pope; the apostle Peter was famously deficient but still made the cut. But it’s hard to blame people for thinking that Ratzinger should’ve shown more moral force than what documents reveal. Levada blames the Father Murphy scandal on the slow actions of the Wisconsin church, but the NYT’s documents argue that it was the Milwaukee bishop who had to tell the Vatican that Murphy’s alleged molesting of 200 boys required more than just prayer and a restriction of sacraments.

Ironically, Ratzinger is credited for being far more aggressive in dealing with the sex abuse crisis than Pope John Paul II; so did JPII, who really was God’s man during the time of the scandal, avoid judgment (he’s currently in running to be a saint) because he passed away in time? The more the Vatican argues that Ratzinger should be commended for taking action, the more it implies that inaction took place under JPII.

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