Cardinal Hoyos Speaks Again. Now It's The Masons

Cardinal Hoyos presiding at a TLM, surrounded by lots of ego stroking gold. Unfortunately his is an ego that need no more stroking.

Colombia cardinal defends church's abuse policies
By LUISA FERNANDA CUELLAR (AP) – 15 hours ago

BOGOTA — A senior cardinal defended the Roman Catholic Church's practice of frequently not reporting sexual abusive priests to the police, saying Thursday it would have been like testifying against a family member at trial. (Theological constructs about the brotherhood of priests is not recognized in secular law. Same thing with the brotherhood of the Masons or the Mafia.)

Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos also said in a radio interview that Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was involved in a 2001 decision to praise a French bishop for shielding a priest who was convicted of raping minors.

"The law in nations with a well-developed judiciary does not force anyone to testify against a child, a father, against other people close to the suspect," Castrillon told RCN radio. "Why would they ask that of the church? That's the injustice. It's not about defending a pedophile, it's about defending the dignity and the human rights of a person, even the worst of criminals." (Uhhh...maybe because this is the twenty first century and not the sixteenth century. But you are right, the cover up was never about defending a pedophile, it was about protecting the clerical church from the laity ever knowing the truth.)

While the church stands by "those who truly were victims (of sexual abuse)," he added, "John Paul II, that holy pope, was not wrong when he defended his priests so that they were not, due to economic reasons, treated like criminal pedophiles without due process." (I think this is supposed to be a reference to greedy lawyers--not the one's used by the clergy or their insurance companies---only the lawyers of "those who truly were victims". I guess all those legal tactics employed by the Church were to protect the victims from their greedy lawyers.)

His comments came just days after the Vatican posted on its website guidelines telling bishops they should report abusive priests to police if civil laws require it. The Vatican has claimed that was long its policy, though it was never written before explicitly. (Time is relative in the Vatican. "Long it's policy" is now a whole week.)

The Vatican posted the guidelines as a response to mounting criticism that it mandated a culture of secrecy that instructed bishops to keep abuse quiet, letting it fester unchecked for decades.
Castrillon, 80, was an influential figure at the Vatican before his recent retirement from active duty, heading the Vatican's office for clergy as well as efforts to reconcile with ultraconservatives who had broken away from the church.

Recently the cardinal himself has been drawn into the international scandal over the church's handling of child abuse by priests due to the surfacing of the 2001 letter, which he wrote, praising the French bishop.

Castrillon said last week in Spain that he showed the letter to then-Pope John Paul II, who authorized him to send it to bishops worldwide.

On Thursday, he said the letter was the product of a high-level meeting at which Ratzinger was present. (If true, this is not good for the Pope and the defenders of his 'filth' crusade.)

"It was a meeting of cardinals. Therefore the current pope (Benedict XVI), who at that time was a cardinal, was present. The pope (John Paul II) was never at those meetings. However the Holy Father was indeed present when we spoke about this matter in the council, and the cardinals ruled." (Which Cardinals? The ones with envelopes from the Legion?)

At the time the letter was drafted, Castrillon was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy and president of the Pontifical "Ecclesia Dei" Commission.

The cardinal also accused unnamed insiders and enemies elsewhere of feeding the sex abuse scandals hurting the Catholic Church.

"Unfortunately there are ... useful idiots inside (the church) who lend themselves to this type of persecution," Castrillon told RCN, using a term for people duped into sympathizing with a foe of their interests. "But I'm not afraid to say that in some cases it's within the Masons, together with other enemies of the church." (And most especially those always unnamed gay Masons in the media.)

He would not give details, however, saying that "since I'm not stupid, I don't tell everything I know. Only drunks, children and idiots tell, and I'm not a child, nor a drunk, nor stupid." (Hmmm, no comment.)

This week, after the 2001 letter made news, a Catholic group in the United States announced it would find someone else to celebrate a special Mass this weekend marking the fifth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI's inauguration. Advocates for abuse victims had objected to Castrillon's presence.

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Wow, someone does not like being publicly embarrassed. If Cardinal Hoyos thought he got shafted by the Paulus Institute and the French press, the latest from Jason Berry will just absolutely be the icing on his cake. If readers can take the time, it really is fascinating to read the correspondence attached to Berry's article. Cardinal Hoyos actually writes to Bishop Moreno, who is desperately trying to do something with a serial predator, that Moreno should consider that the priest deserves financial indemnity for the bishop's lack of pastoral care. This to a bishop who had to pay out millions to victims for said priest's predation.

What I find consistent in the Berry story is the bizarre self justifying attitude of the priest is equally matched by the bizarre self justifying attitude of Cardinal Hoyos. This is maximal narcissism on display. It is really frightening to think clerics with this kind of psychological profile hold the positions they do. It's not like there is just one or two of them. There seems to be a majority of them in very high places all protecting others. Maciel sure knew birds of a feather would stick together. They may not all have engaged in sexual predation, but they all seem quite willing to engage in bizarre self justification strategies.

Cardinal Ratzinger appears to have been in over his head when it came to this cabal of Cardinals. It sure appears to me that he is still in over his head because he seems incapable of acting to rid the church of this 'particular filth'. It is this particular filth which fought and is still fighting Benedict over cleaning up the other 'filth'. It is not the Masons, or gays, or the media.

It should not come as any surprise that the very clerics who desire to return the Church to the clerical triumphalism of the Tridentine liturgy appear to have major ego issues. It isn't about a more transcendent triumphalist vertical expression of worshipping God. The worshipping is about someone else. Like any staged production, the props can fuel the ego of the actor, and there is little question the props in the TLM are far more ego propping than the Vatican II rite.

Cardinal Hoyos will continue to be a loose cannon in Benedict's war on clerical sexual abuse. However, Benedict could learn a few things from observing Hoyo's behavior. If he wants to really clean the church of abuses, he needs to re evaluate all those things about the priesthood that produce wealthy clerical narcissists instead of devout humble parish priests like the St John Vianney he seems to admire. Of course, that means giving up some of his own ego props, and it also means spending more time governing and less time writing. Other wise the idiocy of the narcissism of the Hoyos, Sodanos, Bertones and Burkes of the Vatican world will be free to do a whole lot more damage to the moral standing of Catholicism.