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So often the papal “we” sounds ponderous and pompous. It has its merits it seems. The Pope's Australia apology for the sexual abuse of children by clergy hardly employed that term. In the texts I read it was almost always “I”. Almost.

A quick check on several other texts/quotes from Australia confirmed that he seems to have dropped the editorial/Papal we generally. The more personal approach seems to be to his credit and certainly more listenable for younger people, more 'authentic' for us older folk. In this instance though, I wonder if it really implied a different message.

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.

According to a Vatican statement released early Monday morning in Australia, Pope Benedict XVI has met with four victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, listening to their stories and celebrating Mass for them.

The meeting came at the end of Benedict's July 12-21 visit to Sydney, Australia, for World Youth Day. On Saturday, the pope delivered a public apology for the sex abuse crisis, saying he was "deeply sorry" and that he shared the suffering of the victims.

After reading the papal 'apology' (Australia) for the sexual abuse of children (he uses the less culpable term 'minors') by '...some clergy and religious...” I came upon John Allen Jr.'s article: “Searching for the how, whys of sex abuse” (July 18, 2008). The article really merits a careful read, I think.

The pope has created a new strawman: proportionalism. His advisors must have councelled him that his favourite term “relativism” (essentially a synonym for p'ism), his pseudonm for the devil, evil incarnate, contemporary godless self-gratifying individualism , whatever, no longer carries the heavy burdon of significance required to legitimize its nemesis, his standard: absolutism. He must have discovered that not only is the earth not the absolute against which the heavenly bodies move, but the heavenly bodies themselves move, relative to each other and indeed maybe the entire universe is in motion vis a vis we know not what. As Heraclitus said, I think:”omnia est in fluxu”.