Achtung Achtung, Ratzinger is dead!

"No amount of spin will change the fact that Pell, like Ratzinger, allegedly covered up sex crimes against minors."

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, former Hitler youth and anti-aircraft gunner in the Nazi war machine, recently died. He also went by the name Pope Benedict XVI, a job he held between 2005 and 2013 before he resigned.

I'm not Catholic, nor a follower of the book for that matter, but I thought the Pope couldn't quit because they had the job until the big man called them upstairs. My mistake. 

Ratzinger is the first resignation in 600 years. The record shows four popes stood down, including another Benedict, who departed in 1045. He opted to marry and inherit some money.

Before examining why Ratzinger handed in his notice, let's consider how he got the job. The whole procedure could come from the pen of J.K. Rowling. The idea is that the holy spirit — a kind of divine sorting hat — helps a roomful of cardinals select the infallible one. As things stand, there are 224 cardinals, 125 of whom are eligible to vote in Papal elections because those over 80 years of age are ineligible.

Note these are all men, and the ladies don't get as look-in. Today women can vote in every country where men can vote but one, Vatican City. 

Also, the ordinary members of the Church have no say. This exclusion strikes me as odd when you consider that some of the loudest critics of Hong Kong's pace towards democracy are leading Catholics. I'm sure the bible has something to say about such hypocrisy. 

White smoke from the Sistine Chapel chimney tells the world when a two-thirds majority from this very small-circle election has chosen their man. And from this absurd process emerges the Pope to run the multinational corporation that calls itself the Roman Catholic Church. 

I wonder if Ratzinger's CV mentioned his wartime role. Then again, the Catholic Church proved a willing accomplice to Hitler, much as they've participated in various other nastiness throughout history. "The Pope at War" by historian David I Kertzer paints a damning picture of Pope Pius XII, who chose to remain silent about the mass destruction of European Jewry. 
Instead, he was more interested in protecting the Vatican. Lest it's forgotten, even as Soviet tanks rolled into Berlin, the local Catholic diocese offered prayers for Hitler and sought divine intervention. 

And like any business, the Catholic Church has a distinct structure, with rank conferring powers and much internal intrigue. In addition, surveys reveal that senior clergy score high on psychopathic traits; as a profession, they sit in the top ten, along with ruthless CEOs. This should be no surprise because you need certain relentless qualities to get to the top, including being good at the 'God' stuff.

In 2013, Ratzinger put in his papers. But why? While his resignation statement spoke of him being "no longer suited to the role", this message hid a host of crises at the very core of the Catholic Church. 

For starters, Ratzinger's former butler leaked allegations of corruption at the highest levels to the media. Meanwhile, the Vatican bank faced criticism over its dodgy dealings, leading foreign financial institutions to suspend credit transactions temporarily. I thought Jesus had kicked that lot out of the temple — my mistake again. 

And above everything else are the ongoing revelations of rampant sexual abuse by Catholic priests and a decades-long effort by the church hierarchy to cover up. In this regard, Ratzinger faced some difficult questions about his role, specifically the failure to report alleged crimes to the police and the swift transfer of an accused priest to another parish. 

Then you have many other issues related to the Catholic Church. For example, the unmarked mass graves on Catholic property in Ireland speak to the horrors women and babies suffered at the hands of the Church.

Yet the most significant stain on the Catholic Church remains that it harboured and covered up the appalling sexual offences committed against hundreds of thousands of victims. And this is not even a complex moral issue once you remove the blinkers of religious doctrine. So why not take the cases to the police, hand over the evidence and let justice work? That is something Ratzinger couldn't see. 

Des Spiegel documented Ratzinger's actions in Germany during the 1980s when he purportedly covered up sexual abuse. In 2001, as another sexual abuse scandal rocked the Catholic Church in the US, the then Cardinal Ratzinger decreed that the local churches now had to report all suspected cases to his office. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith received the reports in Rome under strict secrecy. What happened next is unclear. 

Ratzinger will now avoid defending himself in a legal action brought in Germany. He stands accused of ignoring complaints about a convicted paedophile, Father Peter Hullermann. The priest was found guilty of showing a 11-year-old boy pornography and forcing him to have oral sex.

With Ratzinger passing, we've heard much eulogising and praise. Yet, it deserves to be said that some honest reflection would better serve the Church. If the men in the Vatican hope to restore a battered reputation, they must face the hard truth and clear out the filth they harbour. Until that happens, they and their defenders have no credibility. 

Even after resigning, Ratzinger continued to wear the all-white habit of a pontiff and styled himself "Pope Emeritus". In 2020 he co-wrote a book defending priestly celibacy just as Francis seemed to be edging towards easing the ban on married priests.

Almost as controversially, Benedict's personal secretary, Archbishop Georg Gäns wein, suggested in 2016 that the two popes represented a new kind of expanded ministry, with one "active member" and another "contemplative" one. Thus, at times it looked like Ratzinger wanted to retain control of doctrine by expounding his deeply unprogressive views.

Joining Ratzinger in the afterlife is the former Cardinal Pell, who died last week. Pell is the most senior Catholic convicted of sexual offences, although he was subsequently found not guilty on appeal. Still, Pell came in for considerable criticism from an Australian commissioner of inquiry, finding he'd covered up reports of sexual abuse. 

The report noted that Cardinal Pell was aware of child abuse allegations against paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale as far back as the 1970s but took no action. The report said Cardinal Pell was told explicitly about Ridsdale's behaviour at a meeting in 1982. The inquiry rejected Pell's claim he was kept in the dark.

There is a Hong Kong connection to all this; Lord Patten, the last governor, was Pell's spin doctor around the time Patten was also embroiled in the Jimmy Savile sex scandal at the BBC. This was before Pell’s arrest and not everyone welcomed Patten’s appointment. However, no amount of spin will change the fact that Pell, like Ratzinger, allegedly covered up sexual crime against minors. 

For observers like me, it would be easy to treat all devotional matters as the raw material of farce, dismissing it as no better than snake oil. However, this stance would be unfair to the many folks who find genuine solace, restfulness and meaning in religion. Who am I to question them? So my protestations are in no way aimed in that direction.

Instead, I target the vainglory leadership, who wrap themselves in pomp, and strict dogma to hide behind the Vatican's walls. All they seek is to protect the institution while they ignore, rebut or cover up crimes.

At this time, it's appropriate to remember the thousands of abuse victims. In Catholic doctrine, one is supposed to hate the sin and the not sinner—a fine idea if the sinner comes to account for their actions. But, unfortunately, the Vatican appears to have taken that creed to the extreme by allowing the sinners to walk free. 

Ordinary Catholics and the victims of abuse deserve better.