Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The Arrows Of The Abuse Scandal Hit Closer To The Vatican Center

A drawing from J. Gill illustrating the third part of the secret of Fatima, taken from the book of Sister Lucia of Fatima, “Calls from the Message of Fatima”.

Pope knew about Church abuse all along?
Clerical Whispers - 3/9/2010

While German authorities are seeking to break the Catholic Church's “wall of silence” on child molestation, Catholic reformers turn to Pope Benedict XVI for answers. (Not answers, accountability. We have a pretty good idea about the answers.)

Sexual abuse of child pupils at several German Catholic schools, including a monastic boarding school in Bavaria, have sparked a nationwide scandal with more than 150 ex-students coming forward with allegations of suffering abuse during the 1970s and 80s.

In a German radio interview on Monday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger criticized a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally, saying it had erected a "wall of silence," around the issue.

Recent media revelation about the sexual and physical abuse of former choirboys of the famous Regensburger Domspatzen choir, which was once headed by the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, has turned the spotlight to Rome.

The sexual abuse dates back to the 1960s. Ratzinger, who led the choir from mid-60s to mid-90s, has denied any knowledge of the abuse, and has promised to testify, should a case be built around the abuses.

The choir's director and composer has unveiled terrible details of how as a choirboy, he saw the boarding school's director at the time "come into the dormitory at night and pick out two, three of us boys to take back to his apartment."

A spokesman for the "We are the Church" movement, Christian Weisner, urged the Pope to publicly state what he knew about the abuse by clerics in the Bavarian city of Regensburg during his 1977-1982 term as bishop there.

"From 1977 to 1981 Joseph Ratzinger was the bishop of Munich and Freising, so he must answer the question about what he knew then and what he did about it," Weisner told DAPD news agency.

He said that the senior officials in the church leadership could not have been unaware of the abuse, calling on authorities to take action.

The Pandora's box opened in January, when the student's complaints of abuse at a prestigious Berlin college in the 70s-80s were made public for the first time.

Decades of silence have rendered most of the cases untouchable due to a lapsed statute of limitations. A majority of individuals involved in the scandal can no longer be prosecuted.


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I can't help but reflect that in the third secret of Fatima it is reported that a cleric, dressed in white and climbing a hill, is hit by arrows as he leaves a trail of slain attendants in his wake. Some Fatima followers insist that the cleric dressed in white was JPII and the arrow was the bullet of Ali Agca. If one prefers a literal interpretation, I suppose this incident could certainly fit.
Most visions however, are metaphorical visual stories which point more towards attitudes and consequences than one time literal temporal events. It seems more likely, to me anyway, that the third vision of Fatima refers to the clerical scandal of child sexual abuse and it's gutless cover up. Nothing has impacted the moral authority of Mary's Church with any where near the same damage as clerical sexual abuse. Certainly not the assassination attempt on JPII. It may be that JPII was saved precisely so the third secret would not be misinterpreted and it's warning missed.

The arrows are getting very close to Benedict. That should come as no surprise because Benedict is in many ways a focal point for the Vatican strategies of stone walling, priest shuffling, silence, and re victimizing victims. There have been a lot of clerical attendants left on the long hill of clerical abuse as the procession of accountability keeps winding towards the top. In the meantime, Mary weeps for her children.

Here is a translation of the third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima on July 13, 1917, as written by Sister Lucia:

I write in obedience to you, my God, who commands me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. Flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire, but they died out when they came in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from Her right hand. Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!”

And we saw, in an immense light that is God, “something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it,” a Bishop dressed in white. “We had the impression that it was the Holy Father.”

Other Bishops, priests, men and women religious went up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork tree with the bark. Before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins, and half trembling with halting steps, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way. Having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died, one after another, the other Bishops, priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the cross, there were two Angels, each with a crystal water can in his hand in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs, and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.











12 comments:

  1. The best of our theologians in the US, several if not most of the recent Presidents of the American Catholic Theological society have either been told by the Inquisition that they are no longer Catholic Theologians or that they must recant what they have written. We can go down the example of so many of the great theologians that were told that by Cardinal Ratzinger. We can even see CIA ties to the church trying to get rid of the Liberation Theologians in South America. This shenanigan by our church authorities is the direct reason that we have so many Independent Catholic Churches in South America and has also left room for more honest Protestants to gain favor. It is indeed a dark age for theologians in our Church! It is like a lobotomy when so many theologians are cut away from the Church. It is also very destructive to the University setting of seeking truth when these catechists license theologians, they make our own seekers of truth into the true martyrs of our day. They in a sense ruin or would even martyr a University calling it no longer catholic if it refused such authoritarian licenser. To write what the Spirit shows good theologians means to loose their Catholic carriers. The same of our social worker, to even look at a woman’s ordination, means the sacrifice of ones self and carrier. These and so many more are the martyrs.

    We have at the head of our Church Power Brokers and Money Changers that lead from a totalitarian mind set, yet Jesus was not of that mind set. These brokers of power ruin the carriers of the truly spiritual and canonize followers of Francisco Franco rather than martyrs like Oscar Romero. They launder money from mafiaorum through the Vatican Bank and as in the time of Galileo are too fearful to look down the microscope of scientific observation. They speak as if they were omniscient beings, yet what can one expect from such an authoritarian group? Well, yes, we get it scandals and cover up, meaningless apologies, but no change that would bring spirituality back to the Church. It is indeed a very dark sinful age caused by fearful sinful leadership.

    Will the windows of the Church be opened to allow the light of grace to shine in? Or is it not better that the People of God realize that this group of leaders have left them and seek spirituality from other venues?

    R. Dennis Porch, MD

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  2. Colleen, there is absolutely no doubt that Benedict has known all about the abuse all along - not only in Germany, but worldwide. After leaving Munich for the CDF, he was responsible for "modernising" and enforcing a directive that all accusations of abuse, whether of children or adults,should be treated in strict secrecy and referred directly to the Vatican.

    Moreover, as JPII's right hand man, and later on his own authority, he was instrumental in enforcing all the institutional problems that created the enabling environment - especially the insistence on an all-male (nominally) celibate clergy, and abusive central control.

    His current change of heart and promises to bring everything into the open is welcome - but more welcome would be an honest confession and personal act of contrition.

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  3. Just read this at the bbc. In an article on the decision of Dutch Church leaders to order an inquiry into abuse of children:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7054181.ece

    In the latest revelations, an Austrian monastery head offered to resign for abusing a boy more than 40 years ago.

    Separately, Pope Benedict's brother said in an interview he slapped pupils in the face at a German choir school.


    Chickens coming home to roost! I think we're at the tip of an iceberg about to roll over. This just keeps getting bigger.

    Also this re Hans Kung's remarks on how celibacy is at the root of so many of the Church's current problems:

    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7054181.ece

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  4. Thank goodness for you Colleen and contributors like rdp46.

    I feel more hopeful now.

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  5. TheraP, I read all three of those articles this morning.

    When I look around, whether it's personal or societal or insitutional it seems that the current energy is pushing for the light to shine on very dark places, people to deal with their shadow issues, and if there is too much resistance to this process the person or organization will crumble like Humpty Dumpty. Something new will rise from the implosion.

    I also read an article on Clerical Whispers that Christianity fails in it's mission because it does not teach the truth of the Resurrection. It's hard to teach the truth of the Resurrection when you are constantly in a state of denial about the death in the Crucifixion and who is really being crucified--metaphorically speaking.

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  6. Great post Dennis.

    Benedict/Ratzinger is tied up in so many different aspects of abuse dynamics with in Catholicism. Like Maciel he seems to have a knack for portraying the face of gentle reason while at other times acting out of an entirely different face.

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  7. The more blogs, like yours, that draw attention to these things the better!

    Shine the light!

    And as far as the pope goes, he was in charge of the Vatican office that hushed everything up. And thus I hold him complicit in all of this!

    Why wait for the victims? Every country should order an investigation of RCC clergy via setting up ways for victims to report to civil authorities. Make it worthwhile for them to come forward. As soon as 2 or 3 have named the same person, they will know whom to investigate next!

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  8. colleen, if there was a martyred Pope in my time, it certainly was John Paul I. The chances that he was murdered are very high and of course it would not be the first time a Pope has come to this fate!
    dennis

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  9. Dennis, I really don't want to think about the CIA connections between the Vatican, the Vatican Bank, the Dulles brothers, JPII, MKULTRA connections, and all the other post WWII activities shared by Vatican beaurocrats and the Western intelligence agencies.

    We will probably never know the whole truth and that especially pertains to JPI.

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  10. Here's another, Colleen! (pope's brother - long article at The Guardian)

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/09/pope-brother-violence-school

    It cries out for a post! Certain quotes by this man especially:

    "I believe it's not only the church that was silent. In the whole of society people didn't want to get involved in things that they themselves would nevertheless have condemned."

    Ummm.... so a prince of the church gives the excuse that the "whole of society" was collaborating to keep bad things quiet. Well, yes, there was the holocaust. So... is this an admission they knew about that too? And kept that quiet too? And that's an excuse for abusing children and keeping that quiet?

    If the Church is not the Voice of compassion for the least among us, crying out against oppression in any form, well then something has truly broken!

    I dread what's below the water line of this iceberg!

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  11. TheraP,
    Very interesting comment. I have maintained for a long time that the Church has not been the leader in evolving better societal ethics. This is not what Jesus taught us.

    Colleen, No telling what todays forensics might show if allowed to have JP I's body. There might be enough of a (possible) poison left. In the future I suspect forensics will be even better. Some day, people may know how this man died if he was murdered as many suspect. dennis

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  12. "I really don't want to think about the CIA connections between the Vatican, the Vatican Bank, the Dulles brothers, JPII, MKULTRA connections, and all the other post WWII activities shared by Vatican beaurocrats and the Western intelligence agencies."

    The problem is...that you must think about these horrid realities. Because they define the true nature & agenda of the Opus Dei, which now has complete control over the Vatican & most dioceses. It is Opus Dei which is the linch-pin in all of this.

    It explains why Archbishop Romero was slaughtered at the altar. Why JPI was 'made dead'. Because they opposed their power....and their plans.

    There have been many evil men in clericals since Nicea. But never as such as well-oiled, global group with vast & powerful secular collaborators. These men are, literally, hell bent on evil.

    Understand this: "Opus Dei" does not translate as 'the work of God". Go dig out your old Latin texts.

    There is no qualifier. "Opus de Dei" would mean what they claim it means.

    An opus is a collection of works in art or music. Its other main meanings are a "construction...a construct.....building of.....making of....". The proper translations for their name would be:

    "The Project of Making God......Building (a) God.....Making a Construct of God"

    Or, to be chillingly precise:

    "The Making of the False Christ".

    Jose Maria Escriva exhibited many of the classic signs of possession. There is an online version of his "The Way". Read it.

    The 999 maxims are the demonic antithesis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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