Pope Calls for Penance

Pope Calls for Penance

Hermes: What do we do when we break somebody’s window?
Dwight: Pay for it?
Hermes: Heavens, no! We apologize! With nice, cheap words.

— Futurama, The Route of All Evil

The pope said today that the Catholic church must “do penance” for its history of covering up child abuse. Reuters quotes him as saying,

“Now, under attack from the world which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognize what is wrong in our lives,”

and

“opening oneself up to forgiveness, preparing oneself for forgiveness, allowing oneself to be transformed”

This is all very well and good and seems to be a step forward, but I see no mention of actually doing anything useful. It looks as though Benny hopes to put the abuse coverup scandal behind him with “nice, cheap words”.

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One thought on “Pope Calls for Penance”

  1. That’s reminiscent of the “concrete initiatives” he recommended to the Irish church in his letter of March 18, 2010 (Section 14:

    –Set aside Lent this year as a time to pray for an outpouring of God’s mercy and the Holy Spirit’s gifts of holiness and strength upon the Church.

    –Devote Friday penances, for a period of one year, between now and Easter 2011, to this intention.

    –Offer up fasting, prayer, reading of Scripture and works of mercy in order to obtain the grace of healing and renewal for the Church in Ireland.

    –Discover anew the sacrament of Reconciliation.

    –Give particular attention to Eucharistic adoration.

    Yup. Those will solve the problem all right.

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