E.D. Kain protests:
Thinking about this some more, it appears Andrew has missed my point entirely. The aesthetic argument was not my defense of Benedict at all. My defense is simply this: the Pope is innocent until proven guilty and nobody has in any way proved that the Pope has had any role to play in covering up sexual abuse in the Church. Yet people would hang him sans trial just the same. There is only assertion and speculation, yet that apparently is enough. Thus, calling for his resignation is not at all about accountability’ but rather about finding a scapegoat or as a personal political vendetta.
The aesthetic question was an attempt to explain why people so dislike Benedict and so loved John Paul II when the two men are so similar in every conceivable way. My explanation? They find this Pope sinister looking, unlike his predecessor. (Andrew surely links to plenty of sinister looking photos of the Holy Father…)
"Nobody has in any way proved that the Pope has had any role to play in covering up sexual abuse in the Church"? Where has Kain been?
The evidence linking Benedict XVI to protecting child rapists in the Murphy and Hullerman cases is now thoroughly laid out in public. This is the source of the new wave of stories - from Wisconsin to Munich. In so far as proof is possible in these old cases covered with bureaucratic layers of deniability, the proof now exists. As for me, I never let JPII off the hook either. His protection of Maciel was vile, blind and possibly corrupted by the vast amounts of money the cult-leader hauled in for the church.