Pope says civil demonstrations are acceptable in free society

(September 22, 2011) Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday urged for an examination of why people have been leaving the Church recently and the part that clerical sex abuse scandals played in the phenomenon. ``I can understand that some people have been scandalized by the crimes that have been revealed in recent times,'' the German Pope told reporters accompanying him on board the flight from Rome to Berlin, on his first state visit to his native Germany. He explained the importance of knowing that being a member of the Church is not same as being a member of an association. Being the Church, he said, means being in the net of the Lord that pulls in good fish and bad fish out of the waters of death onto the land of life. Perhaps in this net I find myself next to bad fish but it is also true that I am in the Church not because for these or for others but rather I am in the Church for God. The Pope said, “we have to learn to live with the scandals and work against the scandals from inside the great net of the Church." The Pope also told reporters he understood the legitimacy of protests and demonstrations planned during his current German visit saying they were acceptable as long as they remained civil. They are ``normal in a free society and in the secularized world,'' the said. Later Thursday he was to speak in parliament, which many lawmakers have vowed to boycott in protest over what they consider a violation of Germany's separation of Church and state. Another 10,000 people are expected to demonstrate outside. The Vatican's views on contraception, the role of women, homosexuality and its handling of the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Germany last year are seen by many in Germany as outdated and out-of-touch.