Do These Recent Vatican Overtures Really Signal A Change?

This actually has more relevance to some comments from a couple of days ago, but sometimes I wonder how many cookie crumbs have to be found before the Vatican and Pope Benedict will admit they have been eating the same cookies as Hoyos, Sodano, and other Vatican Cardinals.

Cardinal hailed bishop for hiding predator priest: report
Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor - Reuters - VATICAN CITY - Thu Apr 15, 2010

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Vatican cardinal in charge of clergy around the world congratulated a French bishop in a 2001 letter for not denouncing a sexually abusive priest to the police, according to a French website on Thursday.

The letter posted by Golias, a critical lay Roman Catholic magazine based in Lyon, is the most explicit of a wave of recently published internal church documents in showing past Vatican encouragement to cover up sexual abuse by priests.

In the letter dated Sept 8, 2001, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos backed French Bishop Pierre Pican's decision not to denounce a priest who was later sentenced to 18 years in jail for repeated rape of a boy and sexual assaults on 10 others.

Under fire in recent weeks for its secretive handling of abuse cases, the Vatican has insisted the fact that other published documents did not explicitly instruct bishops to inform police of abuse did not prove it told them to hide it.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi did not dispute the letter's content but said it confirmed "how opportune it was to centralize treatment of cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics under the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." (Lombardi is getting better at offering alternative explanations.)

The then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, instructed Catholic bishops around the world on May 18, 2001 to report all case of clerical sexual abuse of minors to the Congregation, the top Vatican doctrinal office that he headed.

Pican, who received a suspended three-month jail sentence for not denouncing sexual abuse of minors, admitted in court he had kept Rev. Rene Bissey in parish work despite the fact the priest had privately admitted committing pedophile acts.

The case shocked France and prompted its bishops to declare that all abuse cases must be reported to civil authorities. (Catholicism would still be shuffling it's predator priests around if it weren't for the evil press.)

"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," Castrillon Hoyos said. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

BISHOPS NOT REQUIRED TO INFORM POLICE

In it, the cardinal said relations between bishops and priests were not simply professional but had "very special links of spiritual paternity." Bishops therefore had no obligation to testify against "a direct relative," he stated. (Seems the Institution used whatever legal strategy it could, whether it was family law, corporate law, or constitutional law to avoid dealing with victims or predator priests.)

The letter cited Vatican documents and an epistle of Saint Paul to bolster its argument about special bishop-priest links.

"To encourage brothers in the episcopate in this delicate domain, this Congregation will send copies of this letter to all bishops' conferences," Castrillon Hoyos wrote. (I thought we were told the Vatican never sent any letter which specifically encouraged bishops not to report priests to civil authorities.)

A staunch conservative from Colombia, the cardinal headed the Vatican department for priests from 1996 to 2006. From 2000 to 2009, he also ran a commission dealing with traditionalist rebels who broke from Rome in 1988 and were excommunicated.

He conducted the talks that led to the January 2009 decision to readmit the four banned bishops of the Society of Saint Pius X to the Church, which caused an uproar when it emerged that one of them, Richard Williamson, had denied the Holocaust. (It is conceivable that Cardinal Hoyos never met an anti semite 'clerical brother' he didn't like.)

The controversy was highly embarrassing to Pope Benedict, who said he did not know about Williamson's views, even though they could easily be found on the internet.

Two months after the incident, Benedict folded Castrillon Hoyos's commission into the Congregation and the cardinal retired.

On Thursday the pope said the church had to do penance for its sins, in a rare public reference to the pedophilia scandal.

Yes, the Pope did address the abuse scandal yesterday:

Abuse scandal painful, pope says
By Cindy Woodenn - Catholic News Service - 4/15/2010

VATICAN CITY -- Recognizing the sins of priests who have sexually abused children, performing penance and asking for forgiveness, the Catholic Church trusts that God will purify and transform the church, Pope Benedict XVI said. (But again, there is no mention of the bishops who protected and transferred these priests.)

"I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word 'penance,' which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace," the pope said April 15 in a homily during a Mass with members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission. ('we Christians' had very little to do with your cover ups.)

"We see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life," he said during the morning Mass in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.

Audio clips and a transcript of part the pope's homily, delivered without a prepared text, were posted on the Vatican Radio Web site.

The pope said Christians know that "to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed, the pain of penance -- that is to say of purification and of transformation -- this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of divine mercy." (Interesting that this is being translated as Benedict using the term 'Christians' and not Catholics. Is this purposeful generalization or just a purposeful mistranslation.)

In his homily, the pope also spoke about the liberating effect of obeying God, even in a world that likes to pretend that freedom means doing whatever the individual wants to do, but still insists on everyone conforming to what the majority believes and does. (Or the institution in some cases.)

Without a reference to God and to God's will for his creation, the final arbiter of right and wrong becomes majority rule or the dictates of the most powerful, he said. (When 'we' all know it is supposed to be the Vatican which is the final arbiter of God's will.)

"The Nazi dictatorship, the Marxist dictatorship" in the 1900s were examples of regimes that could not stand the idea of God's primacy, he said. (You might want to add the Vatican dictatorship to this list. Oh, I forgot, it isn't a dictatorship it's God's will.)

Fortunately, he said, such dictatorships do not exist today, but there are subtle forms of pressure on people to conform to a worldly opinion and not to God's will.

"A conformism under which it becomes obligatory to think as everyone thinks, to act as everyone acts, and the subtle or not so subtle aggression against the church demonstrate that this conformism really can become a real dictatorship," he said.

The reason Christians are called to obey God is because they want to enjoy eternal life, the pope said. Unfortunately today, Christians seem embarrassed to talk about the final judgment and eternal life, so instead they focus on the good works and solidarity faith inspires, he said. (This is the statement that negates this entire spin. Ultimately this talk is not about penance for sins, it is an excuse to yank the hell chain and remind everyone what the Church is really selling. Not good works and solidarity, but get out of hell cards.

The promise of eternal life is also the reason why it is a grace to be able to recognize one's sins, perform penance, ask pardon and know that God will bring forgiveness and healing, Pope Benedict said. (Only through the office of the priesthood.)

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It does appear to me that the strategy being used by the Vatican is to flip bad news into an opportunity to recast Pope Benedict as the hero and at the same time underscore the specialness of the priesthood for our salvation from hell. We will undoubtedly continue to hear a lot more about hell and how the Church can keep us out of it. We will hear very little about the hell that the Church has created for the victims of abuse on Earth--or women or gays.

I am not impressed that the Vatican has cast Cardinal Hoyos adrift. The facts once again show this act was prompted not from newly found transparency but from newly found letters exposed by the press. Hoyos is retired. Nothing was done about Hoyos or his views until he publicly embarrassed Pope Benedict with the SSPX fiasco. So what's the lesson here: Pay backs are a bitch?

The Holy Spirit seems to have the bit in her teeth. On Monday the Vatican published it's sexual abuse policy on it's brand new blog site. Prominently given it's own paragraph is the sentence which mandates reporting to civil authorities. We are told it's really always been that way. Thursday the Holy Spirit counters by producing a letter from a relevant dicastery which completely contradicts that assertion. Apparently meaningful penance can not be accomplished through lies and disingenuous statements.

The exposing of the abuse crisis and the corruption and self service of the Vatican 'reform of the reformers' will continue until Benedict is left defending a circle of one. Himself. And don't kid yourself, it won't be about defending the Papacy or the Church, it will be about defending himself, his theology, and his exalted vision of his own priesthood. That has been his historic pattern and that will not change without a massive personal conversion.

For another example of defending the exalted role of the priest the new Vatican blog has an article about Benedict's ad limina meeting with Brazilian Archbishops whose dioceses include the Amazon. The bishops concern is the social and ecological disaster the Amazon is facing and it's global consequences. Benedict spoke to them about his central vision of the priest led Eucharistic celebration and the need to focus on it's sacrificial nature and not it's communal aspects. Not one word about the Amazon or the social upheaval it's economic exploitation is causing to the bishops' indigenous people. Maybe because a large part of that exploitation is in human sexual trafficking.

Two Catholic Speakers Demonstrate Catholic Cognitive Dissonance

Archbishop Migliore's recent UN speech is indicative of why many NGO's think the Vatican needs to have it's mike turned off--permanently.

Catholic pro-life leader demands protection for abused, pregnant girls

CNA STAFF, Apr 14, 2010 / 10:09 pm (CNA).-

The chairwoman of Alliance for the Family, Christine de Marcellus de Vollmer, denounced the media push to decriminalize abortion in Latin America by using the tragic cases of young, pregnant sexual abuse victims. She then called on politicians to adequately protect and show solidarity with such girls and their unborn children.

Speaking with CNA, de Vollmer referred to two specific cases: one of a 10-year-old girl who was raped in Recife, Brazil, and a similar case in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, one of the 18 Mexican states that has enshrined protection of the unborn into law.

Christine de Vollmer began by explaining the need to "powerfully raise our voices so that people do not fall prey to this malicious information. We are obviously in the midst of a campaign to legalize ‘therapeutic abortion’ in cases where the life of the mother is ‘at risk.’ We know that this step always leads to the legalization of all abortions."

She explained that the “girls are not the primary concern of promoters” of therapeutic abortion. “It is obvious that their priority is the legalization of abortion.” For evidence to back her claims, de Vollmer said, “a clear sign of this pro-abortion priority” can be found in Recife and Quintana Roo, two places that have been “recent battlegrounds in the fight to legalize abortion, and its promoters want to clear the path by using these extreme cases.”

De Vollmer said it is necessary to provide adequate explanations in order to confront the fallacies of the abortion lobbyists and feminists that are being promoted by the media (even by some Catholic media). (Parentheses are CNA's little editorial addition--Media bashing being the in thing at the moment. I'm not bitching, just observing because I do it all the time. But then I don't claim to be media outlet. Now I' bitching.)

She noted that the first explanation has to do with the term “rape.” “We here in Latin America know well that we are not dealing with rape (in these cases), but rather with something worse and more common—and which perhaps we don’t want to face—which is this tragic promiscuity.”

(No, what you don't want to face is the culture of 'machismo' so you call this promiscuity, essentially blaming the girls' mother and leaving the male out of it.)

De Vollmer said that in these situations, “everybody lives in the same little house and sleeps in the same bed. And of course all kinds of things happen there, unfortunately including to children. As the bodies of these little girls are stimulated, they begin to ovulate and become pregnant at some point. It is not 'rape.' In fact, it's something much worse and more endemic."

The second fallacy of the feminists is the use of the word, “stepfathers.”

“They aren’t stepfathers. They are simply men who live in the home with the mother and her daughters, oftentimes for just circumstantial reasons, without any serious commitment,” she underscored.

De Vollmer also told CNA, “We need to look at the entire social reality of the abuse of so many little girls. We must not fall into the ‘false compassion’ and reductive reasoning of the promoters of abortion. They want us to pay attention to the little girl only when she is already pregnant in order to give her what they are selling: abortion.” (No they want her mother to have the right to control her own reproductive choices so sex isn't forced on her daughters.)

“It would be more objective, engaging, and caring to prevent or correct the very common situations of promiscuity and danger of so many young girls before its too late,” she added.

This problem “exists not only in Quintana Roo and Recife. This abuse will not be stopped by legalizing abortion. On the contrary, it will increase because among other things, the visible consequences (of abuse) will be taken away,” De Vollmer said.

“The suffering of these girls and their unborn babies is a call to solidarity,” she continued. “They need special psychological and medical care and perhaps the option to give these children up in adoption.”

“We must expose this and clarify that these conditions must be addressed by politicians and the Church, rather than only paying attention when the girl gets pregnant,” she underscored.

“Politicians must not rend their garments over these pregnancies when they turn a blind eye to the abuse that goes on daily. If they do nothing to stop this abuse, it can only end in pregnancy,” she said.

“This is not ‘a medical opinion’ or a ‘medical case’,” de Vollmer stressed. “It is an eminently social and humanitarian issue, and humanity cannot save itself by killing its weakest members.”

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This is a pretty interesting argument Mrs. Vollmer has going here. First and foremost it seems to me she is doing a great deal of verbal semantics to avoid using the words, 'rape', 'incest' and 'protect the girl's life'. It is not step fathers, it is opportunistic men. It's not rape, it's promiscuity due to close quarters. Combating these pregnancies is not about the very real danger to the lives of ten year old children, it's about giving mothers special care and more options for adoption.

Therapeutic abortions then are just a 'commodity' abortion interests are selling. It has nothing to do with a real medical diagnosis. Kind of like tacos.

And of course, there is no mention of the very real poverty and over population this is all a product of, and certainly no mention of sex education, female empowerment or God forbid, birth control.

I will say this much though, it is refreshing to hear at least one Catholic pro life voice that understands we need to address some real life issues besides the legal prohibition of abortion. Not surprisingly this voice is female. Because our male leadership was in front of the UN saying this:

Vatican diplomat: Plunging birthrates are part of economic crisis
April 15, 2010 - Catholic World News.

Archbishop Celestino Migliore, apostolic nuncio and permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, told a UN commission on April 12 that the world’s nations need to confront the problem of plunging birthrates in order to help solve the international financial crisis.

“As this Commission on Population and Development convenes in the midst of an ongoing economic and financial crisis, we would do well to listen to a growing opinion among economists that demographic trends are part of the problem and cannot be overlooked as an important part of the solution,” he said. (Like with Cardinal Bertone, we are not told who these experts are. For all I know they could be white eugenics proponents.)

“The demographic crisis that in a few decades has brought down annual population growth rates from 7% to below 1% in many parts of the world, in tandem with the aging of the population, has resulted in devastating effects for the economy and governance.” (Maybe using Pope Benedict's gay logic, we should get rid of the idea of marriage with all it's benefits for non procreative old people. Apparently they are a threat to world peace.)

“The correction of the population deficit with constant immigration does not seem to resolve the problems even in the short term,” he continued. “The same demographic policies that caused population growth rates to plunge to unsustainable levels need to be reviewed and redesigned along with appropriate social policies to encourage births. (What areas of the world is he referencing?)

Noting that two million women suffer from obstetric fistulae and that 800,000 people die annually from malaria, Archbishop Migliore also called for a greater attention to prenatal and childhood health care. (Hooray, another call for health care for women and children. Of course, it only comes after a call for women to get with it and get pregnant.)

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I have spent a great deal of time lately on the clerical abuse crisis and our gutless or corrupt male leadership, but the real truth is, Catholicism as we currently experience it does the bulk of it's human damage to women and children.

It is this constantly repeated drum beat of pro creation and pregnancy at all costs that harms the most people. It's the root cause for the situations described by Christine Vollmer. It's the prevalence of the cheap labor markets excessive population promotes that keeps the wheels of western economic interests running. It's the lack of education in these populations that keeps guys like Migliore in their finery and it's their wealthy supporters whose pockets are lined by this poverty. We know that about Latin America too.

We also know, when the other side of the Church talks about these issues and their root causes, they are hung out to dry by the Migliore's of the Church and sometimes assassinated by the supporters of the Migliore's.

And it's the male Migliore's of the Catholic world who keep the female Vollmer's of the Catholic world from uttering the birth control words.

More Craziness From A Vatican Spokesman. This Time It's The LCWR Up Against The Whipping Post

Archbishop Burke feels uppity nuns of the LCWR are not sufficiently obedient and respectful when it comes to the fallible political opinions of bishops and some of those nuns should cease to call themselves Catholic.

Vatican Official Slams 'Obstinate Betrayal' of Nuns, Cath. Health Assoc.

By Kathleen Gilbert MUNDELEIN, Illinois, April 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) -

Catholic consecrated religious who openly dissent from the authority of Rome and the church's teaching on life are "an absurdity of the most tragic kind" and should cease identifying themselves as Catholic, said Archbishop Raymond Burke, the head of Rome's Apostolic Signatura.

Burke gave the remarks in his keynote address Friday at the Institute for Religious Life’s national meeting at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. The Institute also honored Burke with their Pro Fidelitate et Virtute Award at a celebration of the legacy of Servant of God Fr. John Hardon, SJ.

In excerpts of the address published by Thomas Peters of the American Papist blog, Burke took a moment to express his exasperation with the defiance of Catholic religious sisters in the U.S. who supported the federal health care bill - a measure dubbed the most pro-abortion piece of legislation since Roe v. Wade, thanks to its vast expansion of government abortion funding.

"Who could imagine that consecrated religious would openly, and in defiance of the bishops as successors of the apostles, publicly endorse legislation containing provisions which violated the natural moral law in its most fundamental tenets – the safeguarding and promoting of innocence and defenseless life, and fail to safeguard the demands of the free exercise of conscience for health care workers?" Burke questioned. (Whoa, is he using the words 'failed to promote and safeguard'? As in children from abusive priests?)

The Vatican official also severely criticized "public and obstinate betrayal of religious life by certain religious" towards Rome's ongoing apostolic visitation into U.S. religious orders.

After the visitation began last spring, Sr. Sandra M. Schneiders of the Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary said in remarks published on the National Catholic Reporter that nuns should receive representatives of Rome "politely and kindly, for what they are, uninvited guests who should be received in the parlor, not given the run of the house."

"Who ever could have imagined that religious congregations of pontifical right, would openly organize to resist and attempt to frustrate an apostolic visitation, that is, a visit to their congregations carried out under the authority of the vicar of Christ on earth, to whom all religious are bound by the strongest bonds of loyalty and obedience?" he asked. (Oh, the Legionaires probably could imagine quite a bit more and did. Are you looking looking for an envelope? Sorry, not until you have a red hat.)

Abp. Burke indicated that the attitude of sisters towards the visitation represents "a growing tendency among certain consecrated religious to view themselves outside and above the body of Christ as a parallel institution looking in upon the Church with an autonomy which contradicts their very nature." (Hmmmm, most interesting choice of phrase. Didn't a certain bishop or two think the same thing about the Legion and Opus Dei?)

"Religious life lived in the heart of the Church, and for that reason religious congregations are, by their very nature, bound in strictest loyalty to the Roman Pontiff," he said. "It is of course an absurdity of the most tragic kind to have consecrated religious knowingly and obstinately acting against the moral law. (The Pope never issued a teaching on the senate health bill or are you expecting consecrated religious to conflate bishops with the Pope?)

"The spiritual harm done to the individual religious who are disobedient and also the grave scandal caused to the faithful and people in general are of incalculable dimensions."

Burke also directly challenged Sr. Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association, as well as Network, a pro-abortion lobby group of U.S. nuns, whose support for the bill the Obama administration openly acknowledged as critical to its success.

"Was not the Speaker of the House [Nancy Pelosi] glowing to report that so many religious sisters were in support of her proposed health care plan?" he asked. "Was not a religious sister [Sr. Carol Keehan, President of CHA] one of the recipients of a pen used by the President of the United States to sign the health care plan into law? (Did not Bart Stupak sell you down the river? Give Nancy Pelosi the needed votes? What congregation of nuns does he belong to?)

"Now is the time for us all, and in particular for consecrated persons to stand up for the truth and to call upon our fellow Catholics in leadership to do the same, or to cease identifying themselves as Catholics." (Hear, hear. Let's start with Cardinal Bertone. He's not telling the truth and he's in leadership, and he calls himself Catholic. And then there's Rode and Sodano and.........Burke?)

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If this isn't enough to make you shake your head and weep, try this one. I don't even know what to write. I am like so not believing any of this. I've had seriously psychotic clients that have had a better over all grasp on reality.

Political Agendas, Decisions, And A Short Memo To The Pope

Pope Benedict needs to weed some of these 'old boys' out of the ranks of Cardinals before he adds anymore because if he doesn't, he is not addressing the 'filth' in the Church.

I find the thinking of traditionalist apologists very fascinating. While generously accusing liberals of using the sexual abuse crisis to further their theological agendas, they in fact engage in the same. The following is from Damian Thompson who is a traditionalist columnist for the London based Telegraph. The article is referencing the second installment of Jason Berry's expose of the Legion.

Interesting fallout from the Legionaries scandal
By Damian Thompson Religion - Telegraph.com.UK - April 14th, 2010

My traditionalist priest friends are, thank God, not susceptible to the sin of Schadenfreude. But, if they were, they might note that several Vatican officials dragged into the financial side of the Legionaries of Christ scandal were stubbornly opposed to Pope Benedict XVI’s attempts to improve the worship of the Catholic Church by liberating the pre-Vatican II form of the Roman Rite. (It's only the liturgical progressives who take bribes from con artist pedophiles?)

As I said yesterday, I can’t see how Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Dean of the College of Cardinals, can cling on in the light of accusations of his links to the fabulously wealthy Legionaries made by Jason Berry in the National Catholic Reporter. And Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, formerly John Paul II’s private secretary, must also be a nervous man. (I agree. One would think both are nervous men and one can hope, both are remorseful men. But if they are anything like their patron, they are not.)

Dziwisz is accused by Berry of accepting charitable donations that smoothed the way, shall we say, for Legionary supporters to attend the “private” Masses of John Paul. Cardinal Ratzinger abandoned those semi-public occasions when he became Pope, perhaps because he suspected something was not quite right. Also, Berry reports that Ratzinger pushed away one of the Legion’s “charitable” bungs when it was offered to him in an envelope. His puritanical attitude towards money was one of several things that distinguished him from the curial backslappers, who were sometimes surprisingly effective at limiting his access to John Paul II. Another was his wish to act more firmly against senior clergy accused of sex offences. (Wishes do not change reality and Ratzinger made no dent in this reality, and after five years he has made no dent in this reality. Is he still just 'wishing' as Pope.)

Something I’d like to know: in their obsession with getting as close as possible to papal Masses, did the Legionaries exert any pressure on Archbishop Piero Marini, John Paul’s MC (and the designer of liturgies whose rubrics owed more to the Metropolitan Community Church than to Catholic tradition)? Archbishop Marini, you may recall, was given a slap-up party by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor in Westminster to celebrate the publication of a book subtly dissing (as we say these days) Pope Benedict’s reforms. (Please Damian, Archbishop Marini is not implicated in any wrong doing, and just in case you failed to notice, Cardinal Pio Laghi also turned the Legion and Sodano down cold after their bribery attempt to have their pet seminary raised to Pontifical status.)

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One of the complaints traditionalists had with the Legion before it's stunning fall from Grace, was that the Legion did not push too strongly for 'the reform of the reform' when it came to the liturgy. For a bastion of Catholic orthodoxy and piety, the Legion didn't seem to have it's act together when it came to reforming the Mass in the direction of a more vertical expression.

It could be that the Legion wasn't very on board with this reform because it suited their mentality to face their congregation to keep 'an eye' on them. Can't do that very well when your back is turned and you are supposedly focused on Jesus. Besides actors like to interact with their audience--kind of like JPII.

I keep wondering why Damian is so quick to blame Archbishop Marini for his distaste of JPII's Masses. Marini wasn't the actor, he was just the stage director. JPII was the director/actor. Anyone who doubts that doesn't get the type of papacy JPII ran. Even the 'courageous filth reformer' Cardinal Ratzinger, couldn't find the courage to buck JPII. Why would a reasonable person assume JPII was somehow subservient to the liturgical wishes of Marini?

It is nice to see that both liberals and traditionalists can see the need for Benedict to finally do something about the corruption in the College of Cardinals. Pope Benedict might strongly consider removing a bunch of Cardinals before he calls another consistory where he appoints even more of the same. That's just a thought. A sort of hopeless wish.

Msgr Georg Ganswein--Benedict's right hand man and all around papal assistant--was quoted yesterday in the German newspaper Bild that it was not Pope Benedict's job to comment on individual abuse cases. That was the job of respective bishops and dioceses:

"It does not make sense, nor is it helpful, for the Holy Father to comment personally on each case," the he told the German newspaper Bild.
"It is overlooked too fast that various bishops and bishops conferences carry responsibility," he said.
"Criticism that helps the cause is always legitimate," he was quoted as saying. "But I doubt that in this case the criticism really follows this purpose."

Ganswein has something of a legitimate gripe, but it is Benedict's responsibility to discipline and remove offending bishops and cardinals and so far his record is squat with this responsibility. He has removed none. Five years as Pope and the same corrupt Cardinals still have their positions or have actually been promoted. And if he finally acts in the case of Cardinal Sodano, once again it will be because he has been forced to act by the 'anti Catholic agenda driven media'. Just where is the courage in that?

Rumor has it that a papal commissioner will be put in charge of the Legion. That it will not be suspended or disbanded or at the opposite end given a 'certificate of good conduct' as was the hope of Cardinal Rode. Not terribly shocking that Rode would want to give the Legion, not just a get out jail free card, but a pat on the back.

Memo to Benedict, you must remove this guy because he no longer has any credibility. Any decision which comes from his dicastery about the Legion or the LCWR will be vilified. They will not be evaluated on their merits, but on his documented corruption. See, that's the whole issue with the Legion. It can not stand outside the personal corruption of Maciel and neither can any decision that comes from Rode's dicastery as long as that man is it's head.

There is a lesson in this for you as well Holy Father, because you are the head of the entirety of the Church and the less transparent, the less courageous and upstanding you seem, the more you cast the entire church in disrepute. It's all of a piece because that's the way it works in autocratic hierarchy. You are no better than the corruption you leave in place or try to hide.

Sanity Is In Short Supply In The Upper Echelons Of Catholicism, But There Are Other Voices Lower Down, Closer To Reality

The Vatican Secretary of State had better wake up to some hard facts because as it sits right now he is becoming Benedict's biggest PR nightmare. Right behind Cardinal Sodano.

On a day when Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone has this to say:

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia," he told a news conference in Santiago.
"This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms," he said. "The behavior of the priests in this case, the negative behavior, is very serious, is scandalous."

And retired Italian Bishop Giacomo Babini is quoted as saying a "Zionist attack" was behind the criticism of Pope Benedict, because it was "powerful and refined" in nature;

And on a day when Giovanni Maria Vian, editor of L'Osservatore Romano, maintains the whole crisis is perpetuated by the media because:

"The media, not only in Italy, are in decline; their sales are less and less. This kind of news helps them sell." Journalists always have known that stories about animals and stories about sex sell newspapers, he said.

The sex story becomes even easier to sell when it involves the Vatican, he said.

(This link is to John Allen's take on the same press conference.)

And then he added:

"The need to sell is the first key to understanding this campaign. Then there is the hostility" against the Catholic Church, he said. "Anti-Catholic hostility certainly exists. This has been documented," Vian said."The preaching of the Catholic Church bothers many people in many ways," particularly when it comes to moral issues, he said. (Oh, it's not Jews, it's gays and feminists.)

And on a day when Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nicholls is denying he knew anything about predator priest David Pearce until he became Archbishop of Westminster- in spite of the fact he had previously served as Chairman of England's Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults while Pearce was doing his preying and Cardinal Murphy-O'Conner was ware of it:

And on a day when Vatican and Church sources are blaming everyone and everything for their own despicable actions, there was another voice. A voice calling for accountability, transparency, and actually doing something about all the verbiage the Church has said about putting the victims first. And it was a call that came from the altar.

In sermon, E. Longmeadow priest calls on Pope Benedict to step down
By Emma Stickgold - Boston Globe Correspondent / April 12, 2010

An East Longmeadow priest called yesterday from his pulpit for Pope Benedict XVI to step down, demanding greater protection of children and greater accountability from the Catholic Church hierarchy.

The church’s top leader has not been truthful, said the Rev. James Scahill of St. Michael’s Parish, violating an important tenet of the faith. His strongly worded sermon echoed sentiments he shared with parishioners several weeks ago, but this time, he spent more time and spoke with greater conviction on the controversial subject.

“Any who deny the truth deny Christ, and we, as people, must reclaim our church,’’ Scahill said in a phone interview last night. “Those in authority must be willing to admit to the truth, admit their horrific crime of coverup, and beg for forgiveness, and until that happens, there will be no healing.’’

Benedict has been heavily criticized recently for the way he has dealt with some abuse cases, and Scahill said that because of all the information that has been brought to light, the pope should resign.

Scahill, who became pastor of the church in 2002, has long been outspoken on the need for accountability among church leaders.

Parishioners generally were supportive of Scahill’s sermon, said Parish Council president Thomas LaMondia.

“I thought he did a great job of conveying how he feels and how the church feels about the whole issue,’’ he said yesterday. “I thought he did a really nice job of explaining that it’s really about the protection of children. . . . The church really needs to look at what they need to do to hold people accountable.’’

Controversy within the church over priests’ and bishops’ roles in the abuse scandal has been going on for more than eight years since the scandal broke in Boston but recently it has escalated, with new allegations about the actions of the current pope when he was an archbishop.

“If we cannot get a pope that’s going to give us the truth, then our church is dead,’’ Scahill said.

Mark Dupont, a spokesman for the Diocese of Springfield, was quick to distance the diocesan leadership from the comments made by Scahill.

“It in no way represents the position of the bishop,’’ Dupont said. “We find his statements to be unfortunate.’’

Scahill, he said, has not properly recognized measures to ensure safety undertaken by the American Catholic leadership, which has “led the world in their efforts,’’ as well as steps the Diocese of Springfield took over the years to deal with the issue of sexual abuse.

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The Diocese of Springfield was once led by Bishop Thomas L. Dupre. Fr. Scahill's long advocacy on behalf of victims started when he and Bishop Dupre got into it over comments Scahill alleges Dupre made in which Dupre states the Diocese was lucky that it's former bishop destroyed records of priests accused of sexual activity with minors. This was in 2002 at the height of the Boston scandal. By 2004 Bishop Dupre had himself been accused of sexual abuse and resigned, but not until he had done his best to demonstrate why we can not trust Catholic bishops to implement any non binding policies. And of course Canon Law more or less precludes placing Bishops under binding policies because it conflicts with their autonomy as bishops. That's why the Vatican only issues guidelines and that's why some guidelines which, serve to protect their position and resources and wealth, are universally followed, and some will be disregarded for the same reasons.

Fr. Scahill's long battle against his own diocese for transparency and accountability is worthy of acclaim. Say what you want about him, he has never lost site of who this abuse crisis is really about and that of course is not the greater glory of Mother Church, but the victims Mother Church has kicked to the curb and continues to kick to the curb.

Pope Benedict's upcoming trip to Malta should prove very interesting. Maltese victims, as elsewhere in Europe, are surfacing in droves and demanding Pope Benedict deal with reality and not the Vatican fantasy. Speaking of fantasies, someone should tell Cardinal Bertone to actually investigate what reality based mental health professionals know about pedophilia.

In the meantime, yesterday also produced Jason Berry's second installment on Maciel and his money machine--eergh the Legionaires of Christ--and Cardinal Sodano does not fare well. One wonders to just what 'family' does Cardinal Sodano owe his allegiance.

An Attack On The NCR From First Things For Being Right, But In A Wrong Way

This has got to be one of the funniest things I have read in a very long time. It proves what low levels paid Catholic apologists will resort to when they have been thoroughly scooped by another publication which wasn't as thoroughly duped.

First Things bent over backwards to castigate the professional qualifications of Jason Berry and Gerald Renney when they first reported on Maciel. These two reporters were called anti Catholic propagandists amongst other lovely things and the National Catholic Reporter and Hartford Courant were villified for attacking a holy 'conservative' icon.

The same kind of attacks are going on in the following article, but in the end First Things can't deny that Maciel really wasn't the man the founder of First Things Fr. Richard Neuhas, thought:

"I am not neutral about the Legionaries. I have spent time with Fr. Maciel, and he impresses me as a man who combines uncomplicated faith, gentle kindness, military self-discipline, and a relentless determination to do what he believes God has called him to do. They are the qualities one would expect of someone who at age twenty-one in Mexico vowed to do something great for Christ and his Church, and has been allowed to do it. In the language of the tradition, they are qualities associated with holiness; in his case a virile holiness of tenacious resolve that has been refined in the fires of frequent opposition and misunderstanding."

But apparently the editorial staff of First Things still retains their opinion of Jason Berry and the NCR.

Maciel & Money
Apr 7, 2010 - Joseph Bottum - First Things

One of the keys to Fr. Maciel’s influence was money, and after the revelations of his sexual misbehavior, those who’ve been less than trusting of the Legion have long been waiting for the other shoe—the news of dubious financial dealings—to drop.

Here at First Things, we’ve been pursuing for several months now an essay on the finances of the Legion in Mexico, but it has proved nearly impossible to find the real figures and the documented level of reporting necessary. (I'm sure it has been to meet your standards which must platinum and Vatican approved.)

And, as it turns out, we may have been looking at the wrong end of the conduit. The National Catholic Reporter finally drops the long-awaited shoe with reporting from Rome.

The piece is very thinly sourced. Here, for example, is the leading indictment in the piece: “One of the ex-Legionaries in Rome told NCR that a Mexican family in 1997 gave Dziwisz $50,000 upon attending Mass.” (Actually I thought the documentation about Cardinals Rode, Sodano and Somalo were the heart of the piece. Buying access to JPII is one thing, but buying stonewalling from relevant dicasteries is a different ballgame.)

That ain’t exactly what any real journalist would call a smoking gun, and the National Catholic Reporter has clearly rushed the story in a patent effort to link up with the media attention focused on the priest scandals in Europe. (And in a effort to tar with the Maciel scandal the conservatives the paper dislikes.) Not a stunning moment in professional Catholic journalism. (Does being a professional Catholic journalist mean one takes money to write the Catholic apologetic line? Just how much Legion and Opus Dei money have you taken to write your 'professional' apologetics?)

But even though the National Catholic Reporter is fumbling here, I’m convinced they are fumbling toward the truth. The secrecy of the finances of the Legion that Fr. Maciel built was an open invitation to corruption—and we already know that he was not a man to resist such invitations. (Only because Jason Berry and the NCR forced you to admit it.)

Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.

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Although I found the above the most humorous of the slew of Catholic apologetic writings surfacing in the last week, others have been just as vociferous about bashing the media and defending Benedict. All of them are using the same excuses that surfaced from the Bishops in 2002 in the US. We are being asked to believe that poor Benedict was just a victim of his times and bad advice. We are essentially being asked to ignore all the facts that say poor Benedict never concerned himself with the victims, that his primary concerns were the reputation of the Church, hiding the fact of the perpetrators, and keeping everything under silence and in house. Well, c'mon, that's the way things were done back then, the system is what it is. He did the best he could.

If that's the best Benedict could do, then what kind of sick system are you guys defending? The same cast of characters which made Benedict's life miserable are still in charge. It's now five years that Benedict has had all the power any man could want to make real change in this sick system. Where are the changes from the man bound and determined to clean up the filth? Are you asking us to believe that Benedict is still a captive prisoner of the sick system since nothing has appreciably changed and not one bishop, not one Cardinal has been held accountable for the cover up? That all Benedict can do is accept resignations when the anti Catholic media forces one to resign?

The fact is that nothing was done by Ratzinger about Maciel until the scandal of the man became public. Courtesy of the Hartford Courant. Nothing was done about Cardinal Groer until the scandal became public. Nothing was done in the US, Ireland, Germany and on and on and on, until the scandal Benedict tried to cover up became public. The real agent of change in cleaning up the filth has not been Ratzinger, it's been the anti Catholic agenda driven media. Certainly not publications like First Things.

Attacking the NCR for being right, essentially because it's left of center, is unbelievable arrogance. Oh well, I'm sure you got paid well to do it. Here's a look at the NCR from a media source that is not a paid Catholic apologist.

Spiritual Healing for Catholic Abuse Victims Means Growing Beyond Vatican Catholicism

I offer the following prescription from Fr. Tom Doyle describing the route for spiritual healing of Catholic abuse victims. I do this for a number of reasons. First the Vatican's response is creating more victims because the Vatican is making it very obvious that real victims were never their concern in dealing with sexual abuse. Second, although the Church has offered victims psychological counseling, the Church itself has never dealt with the ramification of the spiritual issues abuse causes in victims and how that impacts psychological health. Finally, the response to this crisis from laity is very often abusive in itself. There is a reason well meaning laity become a part of the problem rather than the solution. That reason is because they too are being victimized by their Catholic belief structure and can not afford to recognize, much less deal with, the whole betrayal issue which clerical sexual abuse and it's systematic cover up is all about.

This is an extract from a much longer talk Fr. Tom gave at the 2008 SNAP convention. When reading this, keep in mind that this same process is happening in any Catholic who grew up with the current teachings about the priesthood, the Church, God, and sexuality. The betrayal may not be on the same fundamental level as a victim of physical sexual abuse, but the dynamic is still operative to some extent in most all Catholics.

"The traditional therapeutic responses to sexual abuse trauma do not always provide relief from spiritual trauma. Anecdotal experience with Catholic clergy abuse victims over the past two decades has shown that most counseling situations did not respond to the spiritual trauma.

When the institutional Church has responded to victims it generally has offered psychological but not spiritual counseling. Indeed it appears that Church authorities, all of whom are clerics, were hardly cognizant of the nature and effects of the spiritual trauma. There is no available evidence that any Church office, from the Vatican to national bishops' conferences to local dioceses ever put into place programs or policies to assess the spiritual damage and consequently to respond to it. The late Pope John Paul II publicly acknowledged victims on several occasions but offered only prayer as a healing remedy:

'Therefore, I fully share your sorrow and your concern, especially your concern for the victims so seriously hurt by these misdeeds�.So then, venerable brothers, you are faced with two levels of serious responsibility: in relation to the clerics through whom scandal comes and their innocent victims, but also in relation to the whole of society systematically threatened by scandal and responsible for it�.

I ask you to reflect together with the priests, who are your co-workers, and with the laity, and to respond with all the means at your disposal. Among these means, the first and most important is prayer: ardent, humble, confident prayer.'[39]

"I have been close to you in suffering and prayer, commending to the "God of all comfort" those who have been victims of sexual abuse on the part of clerics or religious."[40] As the Church shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations, all of us � conscious of human weakness, but trusting in the healing power of divine grace � are called to embrace the "Mysterium Crucis" and to commit ourselves more fully to the search for holiness."[41]

The late pope's call to prayer is mingled with his attempt to shift blame to the secular society. The promise of prayer for victims is really a long-practiced tactic for distancing the cleric from the person requesting help or relief. In this case the pope's words have provided no relief for victims and consequently are meaningless.

There is no available tradition or font of information about healing the spiritual wounds of clergy sexual abuse. Consequently one can only look at the damage and its sources and respond to each aspect of the trauma. It goes without saying that any therapist working with victims should be well aware of the idiosyncratic nature of sexual abuse by clergy and by Catholic clergy in particular.

The first level of response should be to the victim's self-destructive belief system. The immediate concern should be the victims' concept of a priest. He or she needs to be aided and supported in shedding the magical notion that the priest is somehow the personal representative of God or the stand-in for God. The dependence of the victim on the priest and on the clerical system needs to be first challenged and then replaced with a deeply rooted sense of personal spiritual autonomy. This "adult spirituality" of the victim-priest relationship will bring freedom from the misplaced guilt that burdens so many victims. (This is certainly clinically true, but the Church itself, cannot afford to take this route because it undercuts virtually the entire Catechism when it comes to the priesthood and sacramental system.)

De-mythologizing the concept of the priest necessarily leads to a re-imaging of the notion of God. This is perhaps the most fundamental and radical dimension of the healing process. Upon it hinges the victim's concept of Church, sin and even self. Catholic theology is rooted in a theistic notion of the Higher Power. God is a supernatural, personal being who controls all aspects of life. It is possible to move to a concept of God that does not lend itself to the toxic beliefs about guilt, suffering, sin and punishment.[42] Such a transition is easiest on the cognitive level but much more challenging to the emotions. Many victims are all too painfully aware of the personal devastation caused by the sexual abuse yet they continue to feel guilt because they have exposed a priest or sued a Church entity such as a diocese. This is all grounded in the irrational belief that God resides in a special way in the institutional Church.

Once a clergy abuse victim begins to accept a Higher Power that is non-judgmental, non-vindictive and not under the control of the ordained office-holders of the Church, he or she will be able to move to the next necessary level of healing which is separating the visible, institutional Church from the Higher Power.

This should include an unfolding of the mysterious emotional ties and reactions associated with the victim's relationship to the institutional Church. Once the variety of feelings are acknowledged it is perhaps time to cognitively examine the historical and doctrinal bases for the Church's contention that it was founded by God, is controlled by God through clerics and provides the only authentic source of spiritual security. At this stage the victims may be helped by reading one or more books that provide an objective and scholarly exposition of traditional Church teachings and traditions on the nature of the Church.[43] As they examine concept of the Higher Power they realize that what they have believed in and feared was not an authentic reality but someone else's vision of what god was all about.

Responding to the Loss of Religion.

The victim's anger at the Church and possibly at religion in general needs to be acknowledged and affirmed as a healthy response to the abuse. If it has not been done earlier in the recovery process this might be the appropriate time to examine the radical distinction between organized religion and spiritual security and strength. The toxic belief that God will be displeased if the victim feels anger towards the Church must be dispelled and replaced with a more realistic belief that the organized religious body has actually been a barrier to a secure relationship with the Higher Power. Victims attribute spiritual power to the visible Church because it has been presented as the only pathway to God. Most Catholics are never allowed to progress beyond a level of spiritual and religious development that is early-adolescent at best. The recovery process from clergy sexual abuse offers a unique opportunity for spiritual maturity. This maturity will provide the emotional security needed for whatever choices the victims makes about the place or religion, worship or a higher power in his or her life.

Affirming the Church's responsibility.

The institutional Catholic Church has thus far avoided accepting its responsibility for the culture of clergy sexual abuse and cover-up. Church authorities have made public apologies for "mistakes made" and have shifted the blame to others such as the media or the medical profession.[44] Yet no public statement has given evidence of a full awareness of the causality of clergy abuse or of the damage done to those abused.

Victim/survivors need to explore the substance of some of the official apologies and then come to an emotional as well as cognitive acceptance of the fact that the institution and its office holders will not because they cannot respond in a manner that would reflect full awareness and accepted responsibility. Some victims get "stuck" in an almost endless contentious process trying to get the official Church to realize the enormity of their actions. They need to come to a realization that the Church's narcissistic self-concept of a perfect society renders its leaders incapable of comprehending that the responsibility is rooted in the very core of the institutional Catholic Church.

The Church's responsibility is directly related to the process whereby it has educated and formed Catholics from childhood to adulthood. The victims need to be able to see this as effective pre-conditioning that is related not only to the grooming for the abuse itself but also for their subsequent guilt and shame in responding to the violation of their bodies and souls. (They also have to understand that experiencing this same conditioning is the reason their fellow laity turn on them and irrationally support what ever excuse the Vatican or a given bishop uses.)

A key aspect of this process is the concept of sexuality internalized by most Catholics. The guilt, shame and fear associated with it are responsible for much of the post-abuse trauma. Re-examining the Church-given sexual awareness can be a slow, difficult and often fear-laden process but it must be done in order to guide the recovering victim in the internalization of a healthier notion of sexuality.

Finding an authentic spirituality.

Most clergy abuse victims did not realize that they had a spiritual dimension to their being until it was taken from them. The final phase of healing involves the discovery of this spiritual dimension and the acceptance of an authentic, life-giving spirituality. God or the Higher Power is re-imaged from an omniscient super person to a source of power and love that is not shaped or limited by human conceptions. The traditional relationship with God was far too enmeshed with loyalty and obedience to the deity's self-styled earthly representatives. When this is abandoned there is room for the transition to a spiritual relationship with a Higher Power or even an institutional Church that is not a source of pain, fear and guilt but rather enhances life and provides joy and balance. This non-toxic spirituality requires a healthy sense of self-worth if it is to take root and grow. The path to emotional and spiritual health is often long, always arduous and usually bewildering at times. Yet is can be traversed with an outcome that promises not only freedom from the spiritual pain but a new and hope-filled future.

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The path to healing that Fr. Tom describes, demands the cross road choice I wrote about previously. It's a choice which will not be made by the Institutional Church because this path of healing necessitates the demise of much of the theology of the priesthood and the institutional power structure which is supported by that theology. It demands a complete rethinking of the nature of God and man's relationship with God. Finally, it demands a rethinking of sexuality, moving towards a theology of relationship and away from one based in sexual acts.

In as much as Benedict is taking the Church precisely in the opposite direction be prepared to hear more dissembling, lame excuses, blame shifting, and thousands of more victims coming forward. Be prepared to hear more from desperate supporters of the clerical hierarchy because it's in their survival interests to do so, but I think it's also going to be important to offer support to Catholics who are lost on a path which no longer supports their spiritual life.

It's One Thousand Years Later And Still The Message Goes Unheard

The following editorial from the Toronto Globe and Mail refers to this story. This one clearly demonstrates that Catholics can not trust the hierarchy to implement their own strategies when it comes to the sexual abuse of minors. It doesn't matter what bishops say they are going to do because they have the freedom not to do it. In this case at least six Ontario bishops were aware of this priest and none of them insisted their own protocol be followed.

The church and the priority of child protection
Editorial from Toronto Globe and Mail - Published on Friday, Apr. 09, 2010 9:43PM EDT

Senior members of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy in Ontario showed contempt for the law and for the most loyal and unquestioning among their adherents, in seeking to protect a sexually abusive priest, Bernard Prince, from police charges.

In so doing they ran the risk that an apparent abuser would go on to abuse other children, and that his victims would be denied justice. As revealed in a letter written by the late Bishop Joseph Windle of Pembroke, Ont., the church preferred to hush up the priest’s serial abuses and spare itself a scandal rather than to face up to its moral responsibility to make child protection and care for victims the priority. The 1993 letter, obtained by The Globe’s Tu Thanh Ha, makes clear that at least four archbishops and two bishops knew there were serious allegations from four or five victims, dating back several years. It was not until 2005 that police received a complaint; Mr. Prince was convicted in 2008 of molesting 13 boys between 1964 and 1984.

The church’s actions may not have broken any laws. But they were inimical to the spirit of the law – that the protection of children comes first. Most of Canada has child-welfare legislation that requires everyone, not just professionals, to report suspected child abuse. While all these rules and laws generally pertain to children who are currently at risk, rather than to incidents from many years earlier, they convey the importance our society puts on protecting all children from serious harm. This is the point that the church still seems unable to grasp, to judge from recent comments at the Vatican in which the subject was dismissed as “idle gossip” and the treatment of the church compared to that faced by the Jews during the Holocaust.

The letter from Bishop Windle to the Pope’s envoy to Canada pleaded that Mr. Prince not be given any Papal honour, lest any of his victims be so angered they complain to the police about the abuse. (He was eventually given the title Monsignor anyway.) Cynically, Bishop Windle pointed to the church’s good fortune; the victims were of Polish descent and had such respect for the priesthood and the church that they had not gone to the police. All this came just a year after the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, after wrenching experiences, especially at the Mount Cashel boys home in St. John’s, Nfld., produced guidelines called From Pain to Hope, on how to deal with child abuse. “Together with all other responsible citizens, the Bishops respect the civil laws and fully collaborate with civil authorities in sexual abuse inquiries,” the church’s website says in introducing the report. But the letter from Bishop Windle suggests the church saw itself, at least in this instance, apart from the law.

When the church puts the protection of its reputation ahead of the protection of children, it is bound to suffer a much larger and more devastating injury, once the truth emerges.

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There are a couple of things about this case which should raise red flags for a lot of people. The first is he was transferred to the Vatican City States where the age of consent for sexual activity is 12. He was seen in Thailand which is a hub of the pedophile sex trade, especially for Western men. He was promoted to monsignor against the advice of Canadian Bishops. He was a friend of JPII and was known to facilitate Canadian laity meeting with the Pope. The Vatican knew about his proclivities and accepted him into their ranks.

Yesterday was not a good day for the Vatican. It was not a good day for Pope Benedict. The AP released a story which included a signed letter from Cardinal Ratzinger in which Cardinal Ratzinger shows great pastoral sympathy for the abusive priest, blocks his laicization, alludes to the good of the Church, and fails to mention one single word about any victims--other than the church.

Some of the Pope's defenders are decrying the amount of publicity all this is engendering. They maintain that Benedict's record in unassailable and that everything is being taken out of context. The implication seems to be that this is the pope we are talking about and we shouldn't be talking about His Holiness in this way because it harms the dignity of his office.

Some of these defensive bishops and cardinals seem to be willfully oblivious to the Catholic tradition. The tradition is replete with reformers who took on the abusive use of power in the hierarchy, especially if the hierarchy were hiding behind exalted theological notions of their august positions. For instance St. Peter Damien, as explained in this article by Anderson C Colt, had very strong opinions about what would happen to bishops and popes who refused to deal with offending clerics. Lest I forget, St Peter Damien was writing about this topic in 1049.

In other words, such men (pedophiles) were supposed to be confined to monasteries where they could be supervised for the rest of their lives. Since these sins require such a degrading, public penance, Peter Damian argued that they were grounds for deposing men from holy orders because canon law forbade men who had to perform public penance from assuming ecclesiastical offices. (43)

Leo IX was not moved by Peter Damian's arguments. He informed him that he did not believe clerics who had seduced boys and young men to commit acts of mutual masturbation and other sexual acts should be automatically deposed. In the name of acting humanely, Leo argued that these men could retain their offices as long as they had not engaged in such behavior for long periods of time or with many people. The pope did concede, however, that any cleric who had engaged in anal intercourse should be deposed. (44) (Does this argument sound somewhat familiar?)

As far as Peter Damian was concerned, any sexual act by a member of the clergy with others, including contractual sex with prostitutes, was a form of sexual abuse that demonstrated the offender was unfit for holding a priestly office. This was true because of the imbalance of power and social standing between the participants. He was more concerned about the spiritual impact that it had on their victims, who were being seduced into mortal sin. He knew that he could not hope to raise these other issues with the pope and bishops if they were unwilling to act against clerics who were essentially raping boys. So Peter Damian continued to work for reform in other areas and waited until Rome was more receptive to his reasoning before again raising the issue of sexual abuse.

After Peter Damian had become a cardinal bishop, he returned in 1039 to the issue again and vented his frustration at a man whom he had helped to be elected pope. Writing to Pope Nicholas II, he made the following warning about bishops who had either participated in the sexual abuse of someone or who had tolerated it in their jurisdiction:

The day will come, and that certainly, or rather the night, when this impurity of yours will be turned into pitch on which the everlasting fire will feed, never to be extinguished in your very being; and with never-ending flames this fire will devour you, flesh and bones. (45) (Words for our time as well.)

Here's another relevant thought from St. Damien. In fact I will let this be today's final word.

" Listen, you do-nothing superiors of clerics and priests. Listen, and even though you feel sure of yourselves, tremble at the thought that you are partners in the guilt of others; those, I mean, who wink at the sins of their subjects that need correction and who by ill-considered silence allow them license to sin. Listen, I say, and be shrewd enough to understand that all of you alike "are deserving of death, that is, not only those who do such things, but also they who approve those who practice them""

Conversion Moments And Personal Choices

Can the pope restore the purity of Catholicism?
By Timothy Shriver - Washington Post.com - Monday, April 5, 2010

The scandal facing Catholics today looks a lot like the Watergate scandal that engulfed the United States in the early 1970s. Then, what started as a crime committed by a few burglars slowly escalated to reveal corruption at the highest levels of authority. The White House counsel, senior advisers and others were punished for their roles. In the end, the president of the United States was implicated and forced to resign.

Is the Catholic Church on a similar pathway to the resignation of a pope?

On the surface, there are many similarities. A few years ago, the church was embarrassed by revelations that some priests were involved in the abuse of minors -- unlike the Watergate break-in, a major crime. Those priests were largely in Boston, but other abusers were exposed around the country. Reforms followed, and the scandal seemed to pass.

More recently, the equivalent of the Watergate tapes have blown open the church's calm. The Cardinal Archbishop of Ireland was involved in not only a failure to act but appears to have been an active agent of cover-up. And the trail seems to be leading even higher: the pope himself, while an archbishop in Munich, may have played a role in failing to respond to abuse.
Must he resign?

That's where the parallels break down. Watergate was not only a scandal; it was a threat to the republic itself. The head had to be removed for the country to survive.

The church is not a democracy. Bishops (and popes) are not answerable to polls; they're supposed to be dismissive of popular trends in search of a higher truth.

But the church's indifference to public opinion is not designed to protect those who condone blatant violations of gospel principles. Yet that is exactly what has arisen in our time. An episcopal culture that placed defense of the structure over the defense of children is broken, pure and simple. The pope may not be guilty of any wrongdoing, but the culture is.
So if the pope isn't going to resign, can the hierarchy survive?

The first part of the answer will depend on justice: Catholics and non-Catholics alike must hear a full confession -- evidence of contrition so pure that it cannot be mistaken. We must see bishops leave their teaching positions because their moral authority is lost. We must believe that civil justice will be served when crimes are committed.

But that isn't enough.

And it's not enough to say that 95 percent of priests and nuns are heroic and dedicated servants of the faith, baptizing our children, caring for the sick and the poor, ministering to our families and burying our dead. They are of course all of that.

It's not enough to say that the church has created an enormous diversity of religious practice and expression, giving birth to contemplative, monastic, scholarly and popular forms of faith that have brought the gospel to life for billions -- even though it has.

It's not even enough to argue that the church traces its roots to Jesus himself -- that it is His church. It does indeed trace its roots to gospel times. But not even that is enough to justify confidence in the bishops.

The capital of trust between the people of the church and their leaders is dangerously close to empty. The bishops cannot take the people for granted any longer. We were raised to love the gospel, to seek the truth, to serve justice, to grow in the bosom of the sacraments. But we will not do it under their leadership unless they change.

What's needed is a conversion of the bishops and the pope himself. That's right: It's time for the pope and the bishops to convert their culture to one that is centered on loving God from the depths of their souls and to leading a church that is as much mother as father, as much pastoral as theological, as much spiritual as doctrinal. It is time for them to listen to the deep and authentic witness of the people of faith, to trust the spirit that blows where it will, to abandon their defensiveness of their positions and trust only the gospel, and not their edifice of control. Conversion is a total experience -- letting go of the old and putting on the new.

The conversion we seek for them is the same conversion they invite for us: Put on a contrite heart and fall in love with God, recklessly, totally and passionately. Let the love of God be the only measure of their actions.

We live in a spiritual age, and until the bishops and the pope learn to lead a people hungry for authenticity, trust and spiritual nourishment, we will look elsewhere. There are millions of Catholics with deep spiritual wisdom -- millions of faith-filled people who love God in transformative ways. We will trust their faith and witness if the bishops fail us.

My faith is not shaken by these scandals. My hunger for my own conversion to a more loving, more just and more peaceful way of living is undiminished. On Easter, my family and I celebrated the hope beyond all hopes and did so with the Eucharist.

But this is Altargate. The hierarchy, not the faith, is in jeopardy. The pope need not resign. He must do something far more difficult: convert.

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I found myself thinking along these same lines this past couple of weeks. I listened to the blame throwing and the diversionary excuses coming from the Vatican and US bishops and thought in some frustration: "Will you act on what you say you believe and stop this pathetic self justification?"

I read Jason Berry's article and seriously wondered how many of these Cardinals actually believe the pious rigid morality they espouse, or for that matter, if they even believe in God on any but the most superficial levels.

I wondered if the real rot and filth in our hierarchy is precisely the fact they don't really believe any of what they teach. Catholicism is no more than the excuse and front they have used to access wealth and power. Or at least that wealth and power is more real to some of them than Jesus.

Numrous folks are writing that Catholicism is at a cross roads. I don't necessarily agree with that because I don't believe the ruling institution will change at all. I think individual Catholics are at the crossroad. The choice is with individuals and many individuals are choosing to leave the institution to find spiritual sustenance within and elsewhere. They are choosing to follow the spiritual path rather than the religious path.

I think that's one of the problems Rode and company have with the LCWR. Too many LCWR congregations have followed the spiritual path rather than the institutional path. They have sought a deeper spiritual relationship for themselves, and that wasn't necessarily with in the Church.

It's getting harder and harder to find a meaningful spiritual relationship with in the Church unless one is content with ritual piety, confuses God with the Pope, and agrees to ignore or excuse all the contradictions. No wonder so many Catholic youth say they are seeking spiritual meaning rather than religion.

The kind of conversion that Tim Shriver writes about is different from the kind of conversion that Benedict spoke of in his letter to Irish Catholics. Benedict means conversion through traditional Catholic religious practices, while Shriver means conversion to the very real power of love. Catholic religious practices are no guarantee for this conversion to love. No pope can guarantee such a conversion. No set of pietistic practices can guarantee this kind of conversion. This kind of conversion is found in relationship with others and with Jesus. It isn't about discipline, or consistent religious practice, it's about meaningful relationship.

Abuse victims represent an opportunity for meaningful relationship for our hierarchy, but it takes being open to conversion to make use of that opportunity. I can remember an article from last year in which Archbishop Martin of Dublin stated that his reading of the preliminary report on clerical abuse in Dublin disgusted him to the point that he threw the report on the floor. That's a description of a conversion moment. He was engaged with and by the plight of the victims, and one can see the result of that in his subsequent actions. He too is at an individual cross road. He will have a choice to make. There are others in episcopal office who seem to be facing the same choice at the cross road. Will they follow the conversion path, or support the status quo?

Benedict seems to be trying to take a kind of middle path. One where he both supports the existing clerical structure while seriously trying to move around the roadblocks. Cardinal Sodano comes to mind.

The Maciel case is not the first case where Benedict had to move around Sodano. This was also true in the Fr. Buresssi case. Buressi was another sexual abuser who started his own order, generated quite a following, and was heavily supported by Sodano. It took the Vatican 17 years to finally act in this case, and action was the direct result of having the case moved to the jurisdiction of the CDF. By that time the Canonical statute of limitations had run out on the sexual offenses but once Pope, Benedict acted anyway.

I wonder about Cardinal Sodano's 'spontaneous' defense of Benedict during the Easter Sunday liturgy. Was Sodano sending some sort of message? In any event this truly is a time for choice for all of us as individuals. Do we choose the power of love as Jesus taught, or just fall in line with the power of the Church? It's a separating of the wheat from the chaff moment, and it's not an easy decision for a lot of good people.

Cardinal Sodano in his more 'angelic' guise.

The following is an excerpt from Jason Berry's expose of the Legion of Christ. The National Catholic Reporter is running a two part series detailing Berry's extensive investigation of Maciel and the Legion. It is really important that people take the time to read this series if only to compare Berry's work with what will come from the Vatican's investigation. The part I have extracted focuses on the part Cardinal 'Angelo' Sodano has played in protecting the Legion.

....After the ex-Legion victims filed a canonical case in 1998 against Maciel in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Sodano as secretary of state -- essentially, the Vatican prime minister -- pressured Ratzinger, as the congregation's prefect, to halt the proceeding. As NCR reported in 2001, José Barba, a college professor in Mexico City and ex-Legionary who filed the 1998 case in Ratzinger's office, learned from the canonist handling the case, Martha Wegan in Rome, of Sodano's role.

"Sodano came over with his entire family, 200 of them, for a big meal when he was named cardinal," recalled Favreau. "And we fed them all. When he became secretary of state there was another celebration. He'd come over for special events, like the groundbreaking with a golden shovel for the House of Higher Studies. And a dinner after that."

The intervention of a high Vatican official in a tribunal case illustrates the fragile nature of the system, and in the Maciel case, how a guilty man escaped punishment for years.

(This is precisely why I maintain Catholics would be totally stupid to trust this system to fix itself.)

"Cardinal Sodano was the cheerleader for the Legion," said one of the ex-Legionaries. "He'd come give a talk at Christmas and they'd give him $10,000." Another priest recalled a $5,000 donation to Sodano.

But in December 2004, with John Paul's health deteriorating by the day, Ratzinger broke with Sodano and ordered a canon lawyer on his staff, Msgr. Charles Scicluna, to investigate. Two years later, as Benedict, he approved the order that Maciel abandon ministry for a "life of penitence and prayer." Maciel had "more than 20 but less than 100 victims," an unnamed Vatican official told NCR's John Allen at the time.

The congregation cited Maciel's age in opting against a full trial. (I wonder how many other cases were purposely dragged out so this excuse could be used to avoid canonical trials.)

An influential Vatican official told NCR that Sodano insisted on softening the language of the Vatican communiqué -- to praise the Legion and its 60,000-member lay wing, Regnum Christi -- despite the order's nine-year Web site campaign denouncing the seminary victims. The Legion's damage control rolled into a new phase with its statement that compared Maciel to Christ for refusing to defend himself, and accepting his "new cross" with "tranquility of conscience."

Maciel left Rome, the scandal seemingly over. Internally, the Legion insisted to its members and followers that Maciel was innocent.

In 2009, a year after Maciel's death, the Legion disclosed its surprise on discovering that he had a daughter. The news jolted the order and its lay arm, Regnum Christi. Yet in an organization built on a cult of personality, the long praise from John Paul suggested a legacy of virtue in Maciel. Legion officials scrambled to suppress skepticism.

Two Legion priests told NCR in July that seminarians in Rome were still being taught about Maciel's virtuous life. "They are being brainwashed, as if nothing happened," said a Legionary, sitting on a bench near Rome's Tiber River.

Thanks to Sodano's intervention, the order clung to a shaky defense in arguing that the Vatican never specifically said that Maciel abused anyone.

How much Legion officials knew about Maciel's other life -- the daughter with her mother in Madrid and three sons with their mother in Mexico -- is a pivotal issue in the Vatican inquiry underway.

How much money did Maciel use to support his families? How much did he siphon off for other purposes behind the guise of a religious charity?

Behind these questions loom others about money in the Vatican. Are envelopes with thousands of dollars in cash given to cardinals when they say Mass, give talks or have dinner in a religious house mere donations? The Legion of Christ raises money as a charity. How does it record such outlays? Does anyone in the Vatican have access to Legion financial records? (Let's be honest here, this isn't just bribery, it's money laundering. We also need to ask who were Maciel's donors. They all can't be little old ladies he bilked out of their money.)

When Dziwisz became a bishop in 1998, the Legion covered the costs of his reception at its complex in Rome. "Dziwisz helped the Legion in many ways," said a priest who facilitated payments. "He convinced the pope to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Legion."
In a book on Maciel published in Spain, journalist Alfonso Torres Robles calls an event on Jan. 3, 1991, "one of the most powerful demonstrations of strength by the Legion ... at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, when John Paul II ordained 60 Legionaries into the priesthood, in the presence of 7,000 Regnum Christi members from different countries, 15 cardinals, 52 bishops and many millionaire benefactors." One can just imagine the envelopes that exchanged hands.)

Maciel had the event filmed and a sequence used in a video the Legion sold until 2006. John Paul was a strategic image in Legion mass mailings and the video shown to potential donors when seminarians accompanied priests to their homes. The Legion no longer circulates the video.

The Legion has a presence in 23 countries, with dozens of elite prep schools, religious formation houses, and several universities.

Maciel's strategy of buying influence unrolled over five decades.

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First off I want to say that I truly believe Benedict was not a part of the bribery/money laundering thing which seems to be how the Vatican functions. Unfortunately, for what ever reason, he did not have any influence stopping it under JPII, and it still seems to be part and parcel of how the Vatican operates during his pontificate.

In many respects, the Vatican City States operate as a rogue state. It is not really accountable to any other International jurisdiction and it's treated as an independent state with full diplomatic privileges. This is a situation which is ripe for exploitation by unsavory people and criminal syndicates. All one need do is minimal research into the Vatican Bank scandal to understand how this situation has benefited criminal interests.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that senior clerics take bribes and foster criminal enterprises. There is nothing in Canon Law or Vatican City State law to force accountability. Leaving it to their consciences is no strategy at all as can be seen in the case of Sodano, Rode, and a host of others. Need to launder some drug money, well Catholicism offers multiple avenues for such a conundrum. For instance, I still want to know who the five families were who gave Mother Angelica 50+ million dollars to fund the building of her Temple in Alabama, and this after her vision about it in---Columbia. I can think of five Colombian 'families'.

The point is not that Angelica took drug money, she may never have, the point is we don't know and the secrecy and lack of accountability for such kinds of large donations make it very possible she could have, knowingly or not. This situation makes the stance of the USCCB about the potential of Federal Tax rebates being spent on abortion insurance utterly laughable. Who are they to threaten the health care of an entire nation over an accounting issue when they themselves are utterly unaccountable for how they spend the money that hard working lay faithful donate?

How do they do that? With the same in your face chutzpa of Sodano who calls the global abuse crisis engulfing the Vatican 'petty gossip'. Which means in his mind, I guess, he was accepting 'petty' cash from Maciel.

Kudos to Jason Berry and the NCR for this series on Maciel. Maybe it will give the Vatican the heads up that it can't white wash it's own report on the Legion.