The international Catholic movement ‘We are Church’ has expressed its numerous concerns about the actions of Pope benedict, ahead of the visit by the Pontiff to the US.
The Pope’s visit to the United States – which contains one of the world’s biggest Roman-Catholic churches – will be the “acid test for the political and for the pastoral abilities of Pope Benedict”, says Raquel Mallavibarrena, Chair of the world-wide reform movement within the Roman-Catholic Church.
In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly on April 18 the Pope should ‘be very sensitive to find the right words’ the organisation urged in a statement. They pointed to other recent statements which had caused huge controversy – most notably his words at Auschwitz in Poland about Jews in May 2006, in Regensburg, Germany about Islam, and in September 2006 and about indigenous people in Brazil in May 2007.
“When the Pope talks about human rights and justice at the United Nations he will have to explain why he started an appeasement policy towards China and why he uninvited the Dalai Lama a few months ago” the statement continued. “The Pope’s plea for human rights would be much more convincing if the Roman-Catholic Church itself did not deny equal rights and responsibilities to women within its own church.”
The group has also raised concerns about the Pope’s meeting with President Bush (which will take place on the Pontiff’s 81st birthday). It is urging that the Pope repeat the Vatican’s opposition to the Iraq war during the meeting.
The group also pointed to ‘growing disappointment about pastoral standstill’ within the catholic church. “Three years after his election, disappointment is growing…even among those who originally had hoped Ratzinger would act, as pope, more courageously than he did in his position as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith”, said Vittorio Bellavite, spokesperson of Noi siamo Chiesa (We are Church Italy).
“The end of John Paul II’s long pontificate, under the guidance and inspiration of the new Bishop of Rome, could have been marked by a return to the process of reformation of the Roman-Catholic Church such as to offer a renewed proposal of evangelisation able to relate comfortably to modernity. This has not come to pass” the statement said.
“For Pope Ratzinger relativism is the principal enemy, Europe the contested territory, ‘family and life’ the battleground.”
“According to Benedict XVI, all societies, all cultures, and almost all religions are required to conform to the values which, as spiritual leader of the whole world, he proposes. The overall picture, only lightly disguised, is that of the reintroduction of a societas christiana guided by the Roman Catholic Church.”