Former cardinal: catholic cult "200 years out of date"

From the excerpts, it sounds as though at least one person in the cult had a clue. Not being a knuckle-dagger must have made him highly unpopular inside the Vatican.

Martini, once favored by Vatican progressives to succeed John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times.

"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous," Martini said in the interview published in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

"The Church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops. The paedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation," he said in the interview.