Jewish columnist: Campaign against Pope is a mere sales gimmick

Madrid, Spain, Apr 7, 2010 / 12:06 pm

Jewish poet, novelist and essayist Jon Juaristi published an article on Easter Sunday in the Spanish daily ABC asserting that “it is not necessary to be Catholic” to understand the motives behind the recent attacks on Pope Benedict XVI and the Church.  He remarked that the campaign is merely a sales gimmick aimed at getting Catholics out of the public square.

In his article, Juaristi wrote that he wants to address the media attacks on the Pope since an increasing number of “journalists and independent bloggers now expect the Pope to submit his resignation.” 

These people have a greater "fascination with the idea of a hypothetical papal resignation, than with the very acts of pedophilia committed by priests,” he said remarking that their intentions are “merely an excuse to corner Benedict XVI.”

“And only the Pope and the Church have taken this issue seriously.  By exploiting the scandal, the tabloids only seek more sales and progressives seek to remove Catholics from the public square, or at least destroy the reputation of clergy if the campaign can’t do the former,” he said.

“In case I haven’t said it enough,” he continued, “I am not Catholic, but even I am not blind to the immense moral stature of the current Pontiff in comparison to his present-day swarm of detractors, who are a bunch of harassers.”

Ever since the release of the Holy Father’s letter to Irish Catholics, Juaristi pointed out, the target of the attacks are no longer the pedophile priests and the bishops who covered them up,  but rather the Pope himself.  “Since it seems in this case that the principle of 'strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered' is not going to work, it is likely that this campaign will drag on for some time and that the stage will be  filled … with spontaneous individuals who recount what they suffered from the pedophile priest in question,” he said.