So, why shedding light just on the culture generated during the 1960s?
Austen Ivereigh, Pope Francis' biographer and certainly not a Ratzingerian, highlighted the response to this question in a tweet.
Ivereigh wrote: "The John Jay College of Criminal Justice reports of 2004 and 2011, commissioned by the U.S. bishops, locate the greatest frequency of abuse in the 1970s, coming down gradually in the 1980s. Virtually every other major study since it shows the same."
However, Benedict XVI does not say that the crisis of the Church's is the 1960s fault. He sheds rather light on a crisis of moral theology in understanding what was really at stake and in reaffirming good and evil.
The Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Moraltheologie (the association of professors of moral theology in Germany) penned a harsh response that is revealing of the bitterness against Benedict XVI's ideas.
The moral theologians accuse the Pope emeritus of deploying "an extreme form of theology unconnected with the world" and to exploit the topic of abuse to "reiterate an already well-known critic to a moral theology with which he does not share the view on sexual ethics."
They also claim that "those who question from the moral theological perspective that a homosexual act within a stable relationship is always a grave sin, do not legitimate for this reason the sexual violence."
Also, they also stress that "those who, from the moral theological perspective, criticize the traditional rigorism against any form of contraception, do not in the end back a lack in norms."
The German theologians, however, did not get (or did not want to get) the point. Benedict XVI never said that sexual violence might be legitimated by theologians who do not say that a homosexual act, or a sexual act with contraception, is not a grave sin. Benedict XVI instead noted that moral theology was not able to meet the signs of times and somehow experienced some subsection to the logic of society.
The focal point, to Benedict XVI, is not rigorism. It is faith. This is clear in many speeches, interventions, and essays he delivered as professor, archbishop, cardinal, Pope.
For example, in a speech delivered Sep. 7, 2006 to Swiss Bishops in ad limina visit, Benedict XVI underscored that "precisely in the past 50 years or so, it has come a long way in its methodology. On the other hand, however, since much has been lost in anthropology and in the search for reference points, all too often catechesis does not even reach the content of the faith. I can understand this since, even at the time when I was a parochial vicar - some 56 years ago -, it was already very difficult to proclaim the faith in pluralistic schools with numerous non-believing parents and children, because it appeared to be a totally foreign and unreal world".
Pope emeritus added that "the situation is even worse. Yet, it is important in catechesis, which includes the contexts of school, parish, community, etc., that faith be expounded fully, in other words, that children truly learn what 'creation' is, what the "history of salvation" brought about by God is, and who Jesus Christ is, what the sacraments are and what is the object of our hope...."
In the end, what Benedict XVI said in the essay and has been saying for all of his life is that the crisis of the Church is a crisis of faith, and that the crisis of faith is an outcome of a crisis of reason that rejects to explain faith and to use a religious language (that is, the proper language) to understand faith.
This cancer stroke the Church, too.
As said, Benedict XVI has been saying this all of his life. Anytime he did, however, the reactions were of the same tenure of those provoked by his latest essay.
Nor German theologians, nor journalists and intellectuals reacted to Benedict XVI's essay addressing one after one of the points he raised. The attacks were mostly personal. More than analysis, there have been commentaries.
Benedict XVI's essay was even described as "regrettable", while a casuistry of Benedict XVI's record in addressing clergy sex abuse scandal was produced to discredit his point of view.
The essay is not ultimately about the decision Benedict XVI took when he was at the helm of the Church. Circumstances also dictate what kind of decisions are to be made.
Benedict XVI goes beyond. He looks at the cultural background. He tries to understand why the phenomenon is born. In the end, some of Benedict XVI choices can be understood only through the lenses of a more comprehensive analysis. Benedict XVI always tried to protect faith and never tried to destroy people.
For this reason, the "government argument" could not work. So, it was proposed to silence the Pope emeritus or to give the position a more in-depth regulation, as his mere existence could spark confusion or controversy.
However, anytime Benedict XVI speaks out, asks Pope Francis for permission. Pope Francis, in an interview granted to the Italian newspaper "Il Corriere della Sera" on March 5, 2014, said: "The Pope Emeritus is not a statue in a museum. He is an institution. (…) We spoke between us, and we decided together it was better he met people, he went out, he took part in the Church's life."
Yes, someone might argue that Pope Francis wanted that this essay was out n order to generate confusion between Benedict XVI's supporter and to let come out the party against Pope Francis.
This kind of rationale would be equal to another rationale, that deems as "schismatic" the way Benedict XVI's entourage eventually chose the media to deliver Pope Francis' essay. They were, it was noted, conservative media, ready to attack the Pope.
Neither one nor the other rationale hits the nail.
More reasonably, Benedict XVI's entourage chose the media that always tried to tell with the reason the Pope emeritus thought. In addition to those media, the Italian newspaper "Il Corriere Della Sera" was included in the loop. "Corriere della Sera" is certainly not conservative in theological issues and certainly not the kind of medium eager to tell stories from the faith's point of view.
The need to spread the message from the right podium was then at the basis of the choice of those media.
Targeting the media that spread the message seems then to be part of the narrative that targets the model of Church proposed by Pope emeritus. Since it is challenging to counter Benedict XVI with reason, those who have a different view diminish the impact of his words. It was also dropped the suspicion that Benedict XVI did not write the text.
All of this is not new, to Benedict XVI. Even during his pontificate, Benedict XVI was personally attacked. Moreover, Benedict XVI let everybody talk. He did not have supporters ready to attack as schismatic any critic to his thought, nor he wanted them.
No one countered his word; almost everybody attacked him. At 92, after a life spent this way, Benedict XVI is enduring the martyrdom of being misunderstood.