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Papers and radio/TV waves are full today of one of the latest, but actually oldest church scandals, this time connecting the Pope indirectly to alleged abuse in the archdiocese in Munich where he served as Archbishop before he was elevated from fallible Cardinal Ratzinger to infallible Pope Benedict. Poor man! Actually, poor little old rich man, powerful noble man, ruler of the ecclesiastical kingdom which dates, they say, all the way back to St. Peter... man who wears an impossible crown and constricting ring. Some say he knew about sexual abuse by at least one of his priests and that he did nothing when the abuser was reinstated in a church position where abuse could continue... but who knows? The questions posed by reporters and pundits is whether or not he knew and if he knew and did nothing... “What does it mean?”

My questions as I consider the Pope’s predicament then and now is the same as my questions before I knew about it. What does any of it have to do with the larger issues of faith and belief and the role of the church in the world? What does it have to do with the role of religion in the life of the world? Is the problem one that brings into question issues more of belief than of faith? Are the Pope and all his archbishops and the pastors in the churchs where I have worshiped over the years of my life people of “faith” or people of “belief”... or people of both faith and belief. Did my late friend and spiritual mentor Joseph Fletcher really mean “belief” instead of “faith” when he said to me a couple of years before he died at age 86 , “I must tell you, my friend, “I have lost my faith”? “Don’t worry,” he said. “I am not afraid.”

It was more than I wanted to consider today, so I went to the beach in Del Mar and was reminded again of how wonderful the world is with people in it.