For a long time, Iâve been holding up Pope Benedict as a model teacher. Yesterday, he showed anyone watching how to be a pastor as well.  Just knowing that such a meeting happened was a powerful sign in itself. But when some of the victims came forward last night and spoke on CNN, telling their stories so briefly and recounting the meeting with the Pope, I wondered if finally, a shift, and adjustment at the deepest level of this scandal, might finally be possible.  Oh yes, itâs true that for years, policies have been instituted, and it was claimed that victimsâ concerns were at the center of those policies.  But I have to tell you, that through years of following this issue — more than the six years since the Boston revelations, for the public scandals in the contemporary American church go back further than that — I have frequently sensed an undercurrent of what I can name as nothing else but resentment toward victims.  Their lawsuits, the persistence of their cases, their accusations that have taken away priests who we think are wonderful and amazing, their sad, at times angry faces reminding us of the shadows.  The Pope spoke about abuse in his homily on Thursday, a homily that was directed not just at bishops or priests or people who work in the church bureaucracy, but the rest of us. He said: âToday I encourage each of you to do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt.â  Before Catholics go to confession, they do whatâs called an âExamination of Conscience.â All that happened yesterday — the Pope meeting with victims and calling all Catholics to foster healing — functioned, I think, as a call for a churchwide examination of conscience on this score.  Read through the stories of abuse cases, as I have, for years now, and read how many parishes have fought for the return of their abusing priests, and have given them standing ovations when they do.  Yes, lawyers have certainly taken advantage of the situation for their own profit. Yes, there have been false accusations. Victims are not saints simply because they are victims. And no, a meeting doesnât fix the canonical and juridical issues at hand.  But itâs a start. A start that countless bishops and other church personnel should have taken years ago, in countless cases. I wonder if those who refused to meet and listen for so long followed what happened yesterday. I wonder if they watched the three interviewed last night, saw the hope in their voices, and I wonder if they felt something else themselves, something the Pope has spoken of several times the past few days, something novel, perhaps.
A New York Times blog with analysis on Pope Benedict XVI and his visit to the United States.