Writing for Religion Dispatches on “Benedict’s Painful Legacy,” Elizabeth Drescher, who teaches in Religious Studies and the graduate program in Pastoral Ministry at Santa Clara University, uses the opportunity to describe Pope Benedict XVI’s time as pontiff as “troubling.” She interviews a variety of what she describes as “marginalized” groups to paint a picture of the Pope’s “painful legacy.”

As examples, she cites the ‘dismantling’ of liberation theology, the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, the handling of the clerical sexual abuse scandal, the investigation of the Leadership Council of Women Religious, and more.

‘It’s hard to identify a figure who has been more oppressive to LGBT people in the religious world than Pope Benedict,’ she quotes DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke.

Writes Drescher:

…between the smackdown on nuns and the excommunication and silencing of priests supporting the ordination of women and opposing the Church’s position on birth control, it would be hard not to conclude that Benedict’s papacy has been difficult for women throughout the Church.

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