Finally, after a daily drumbeat about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI figured out a way to quiet the firestorm of what Cardinal Ratzinger knew and when he knew it.
Go to Cyprus.
The pressing subject there isn’t pedophile priests. A more immediate concern is the protection of sacred Christian monuments and a lessening of tensions in the decades-old conflict between ethnic Turks and Greeks on the divided island. Annexation, military occupation and smoldering animosity are an ongoing reality.
But Cyprus is still viewed as a bridge between Europe and the Middle East. A Middle East where many Muslims remain outraged by the Pope linking Islam to violence during a speech in Germany in 2006. Consequently, this Papal visit featured the Pope as diplomat — meeting with both the head of Cyprus’ Greek Orthodox Church and with a key Turkish Cypriot Muslim religious leader.
Imagine the ethnic/religious/geopolitical cauldron that is Cyprus being a respite from anything. But for this Pope and this church in this era of sex-abuse cover-ups, it was.