Why Should Jesus Weep?

In his recent book-length piece of investigative journalism, Philip Shenon paints a dark picture of the records of the most recent popes. Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church spares no one, except John XXIII, and is most brutal in its assessment of Joseph Ratzinger, both before and during his papacy. Pius XII receives the customary criticism for his failure to do much to address the plight of Jews in Nazi hands, but Shenon does not stop there, pointing out Pius’s administrative failures: appointing no cardinals during the last five years of his reign and leaving the Church without a secretary of state. Paul VI brought Vatican II to its conclusion but blunted some of its more progressive initiatives, only to lose control of his papacy and perhaps the Church in the wake of the 1968 encyclical letter, Humanae vitae. John Paul II was obsessed with meddling in European and especially Polish politics, mostly ignoring the momentous events in the Latin American Church, and signally failing to address the burgeoning crisis of clerical sexual abuse. Benedict XVI was equally weak in addressing sex abuse, most notably in the way that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick got away with so much for so long. Even Francis failed on this score and was assailed by conservative critics, clerical and lay.