Pope Benedict Challenges Atheist, Says He Never Hid Abuse Cases
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a letter to an atheist Italian mathematician, retired Pope Benedict XVI defended his own handling of allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and politely criticized the logician's total reliance on scientific facts for meaning.
"I never sought to conceal these things," the pope said of cases of clerical abuse, and lamented the scholar depicting the church as the only place where such "deviation" and "filth" occur.
The publication of the retired pope's comments Sept. 24 to an atheist scholar came the same month a written letter by Pope Francis to an Italian journalist concerning dialogue with nonbelievers was published. Both letters were published, with the two popes' permission, by the Italian daily La Repubblica.
The paper released long excerpts of Pope Benedict's original 11-page response to Piergiorgio Odifreddi, a prolific science writer who authored the book, "Dear Pope, I Write to You" in 2011. The book, presented as a letter to Pope Benedict, proposes the superiority of a worldview in which belief should stem only from things that can be understood and empirically known over worldviews that include belief in things that cannot be fully understood or known.
The pope's response, dated Aug. 30, thanked Odifreddi for seeking to juxtapose his ideas against the pope's own writings "and, thus, with my faith."
The pope, who has long engaged in dialogue with nonbelievers, most notably with his "Courtyard of the Gentiles" initiative and his 2011 Assisi gathering, said he appreciated Odifreddi's efforts to engage in a frank and open dialogue with the Catholic faith.
However, the pope said he met"with deep dismay" Odifreddi's unspecified comments about the clerical abuse scandals.
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