Questions of Vatican competence

Exploring today Pope Benedict XVI issues we have visited, the New York Times raises one question most strongly.

It comes from several directions, but most directly from a scholar interviewed for the piece:

The Vatican expert George Weigel, in a recent essay in First Things, an American religion journal, criticized the Vatican for its “chaos, confusion and incompetence.”

Regarding a Vatican examination of the Legionaries of Christ in light of recent revelations about its founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, and questions raised about his closest associates, Weigel is more pointed still:

In his criticism of the Vatican hierarchy, known as the curia, Mr. Weigel said a curia that allowed the Bishop Williamson controversy to explode was not “a curia capable of conducting an investigation that can command public credibility.”