Friday, April 23, 2010

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.


14 comments:

  1. What a character this Cardinal Hoyos is, eh? What chutzpah! You've hit the nail right on the head, Colleen about the absolutely disgusting "wealthy clerical narcissists" that this system produces.

    Another part of me though is actually laughing and even dancing! The more guys like Castrillon Hoyos and Bertone come up with such public embarrassments, the more total the destruction of the dysfunctional system is going to be, past any kind of band-aid patchwork. Maybe only from the ashes of the destroyed system will the phoenix arise, the beautiful creature that was just a little manifested with the Second Vatican Council.

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  2. Julius I have to admit I had a hard time writing this piece because Cardinal Hoyos is so over the top. He's like a SNL characterization of the worst of Vatican excesses.

    I agree with you totally. Every time one of these guys says something so 'inventive' I go YES KEEP IT UP. The sooner this whole system implodes the faster the Holy Spirit can manifest a far more beautiful creation.

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  3. "Never testify against a family member." Does anyone KNOW how a child feels when a family member ALLOWS daddy to keep molesting him or her?

    Puh-leez!

    Somehow the word of the Welsh and English bishops that there can be no excuses did not migrate far enough!

    Oh, well, these idiots keep fanning the flames! One step forward by the sane. Two or three steps backward by the idiots! And more stuff for the media to report.

    Schadenfreude!

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  4. TheraP I don't think these guys have much of a clue. In my own experience one of the most difficult aspects for abuse victims to deal with is not the active abuser, but the people, like their mother and siblings, who let it happen and happen and happen knowing it was happening.

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  5. This is a really interesting commentary from Tom McMahon. OK it's kind of off topic, but still worth reading:

    http://www.catholica.com.au/gc1/tm3/124_tm_230410.php

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  6. Thanks for the link! I love this guy's image of the church feudal system. And personally, I have no problem letting these criminal priests continue to say Mass - IN JAIL! (Let them even collect money for masses - but the money has to go to the priest's victims!)

    His analysis of the "corporate" church is right on. I'd add that it's like a "token economy" - something like "behavior therapy" where you treat the laity like animals in a lab - and feed them tokens, like the old indulgence system (except for behaviors executed according to schedule). Rats in mazes. All administered by the feudal "lords" the parish priests, as the author alludes.

    And yes, the system worked - till the peasants got EDUCATION. That's us! And began to exercise their minds. Since the feudal system never changed its own education, pretty soon the educated peasants could think more clearly than their feudal overlords.

    That's where we are now. Some laity content to remain non-thinking peasants. The educated pointing out all the contradictions. And realizing they no longer stand on feudal property.

    Thank you for this wonderful link. And boy does that man look familiar!

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  7. ## What can one possibly say ? This entire drama is far too eventful for a "soap"; what script-writer would dare invent any of it ?

    "Another part of me though is actually laughing..."

    ## I think the whole thing is laughable, in a rather dreadful way.

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  8. @Colkoch:

    ## I had some trouble using the link - I think it's actually:

    http://www.catholica.com.au/
    gc1/tm3/124_tm_230410.php

    It's an interesting page, so thanks.

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  9. We watched 3 sets of news tonight: bbc, Deutsche Welle, and PBS. All had reports of the abuse crisis.

    Margaret Warner characterized what's going on in Rome itself - right now - as "like the very early stages of the American abuse scandal. That was on the basis of attending a meeting of Italian abuse victims followed by meeting with folks from the Vatican and a seminary. (One small segment seemed thrown in to pacify the Vatican - showing the pope and the one victim from Malta.)

    bbc covered mostly the Belgian bishop who abused the boy.

    Deutche Welle had the most extensive coverage. Basically a round-up of info as well as current developments in 2 separate segments of a half hour program!

    I see no sign of this decreasing or disappearing. Seems to be a regular feature of the news now.

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  10. Dennis, neither of your comments arrived. Not sure what happened. Since you have no trouble commenting here, it concerns me if you couldn't comment there....

    Please try again. Or Bill at Bilgrimage has my email. (you can find his blog on Colleen's sidebar. and if you click his profile it gives a place to email him.)

    Please don't give up. I do want to help!

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  11. "Never testify against a family member."

    This is of course virtually identical with the proscription of saying anything against a Master Mason...by another Mason....even to requiring them lie under oath: 'to protect the secrets of a Master Mason'

    Opus Dei was correctly characterized in the 1930s as being "Ecclesiatical Freemasonry'. This does not indicate a direct relationship to the Grand Lodge of England or anything like that. It refers to the spirit & mode of Masonry - made painfully obvious in the words of Hoyos.

    He is describing Masonic/Mafia morality. He has personal ties to Opus Dei. Obvious is now obvious.

    Or do we remain in Denial.....blinking like confused sheep?

    For nearly 300 years there have been several official sanctions against Masonic membership by the Vatican. And tons of verbiage from Catholic pens in support of Anti-Masonry.

    Some have been sincere (and speaking spiritual truth!). But have some been mere disinformation?
    Official documents useful for plausible deniability?

    We have Catholic prelates feigning an official Anti-Masonic stance, while simultaneously engaging in a Masonic modality of thought & action, self defined as correct 'company policy'.

    Perhaps it is time to smell the coffee.....

    Somebody is playing games here. And they are wearing robes & pointy hats.

    Official documents & spiritual truth would show that the Masonic modality is of the Evil One. Yet they think, speak & internally live by that modality.....yet claim to serve Christ. In the person of the popem, they claimnot only to speak for Him but to be "the sweet Christ on earth".

    ....forgetting the painfully obvious blasphemies of the above facts.....

    Jesus, who is God, taught that you cannot serve both God & Mammon. Elsewhere He further qualified this indicating "you cannot serve both God & Satan".

    The Vatican Administration, via Hoyos' words (and tons of those of others....) makes things VERY clear:

    1) As you cannot serve both God & Mammon...and they overly DO NOT serve God.....they serve Mammon.

    2) The exact same logic applies to their overt choice between God & Satan.

    If those words to hard to swallow....deal with it.

    As postscript: we can see clearly from the overt connectivity between the P2 Lodge, Mafia & Opus Dei - as per the Vatican Bank Scandals - that the Opus Dei has been using the other two as convenient 'fronts'.

    Just as most regular members of Opus Dei are truly clueless as to what they are serving, ditto for the average Joe who joins a conventional Masonic Lodge.

    Both are very much being used - with layers of plausible deniability.

    Anon Y. Mouse

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  12. Anon I think we also have to throw the LDS Church hierarchy and the New Apostolic Reformation into this grouping as well. All these groups use a distinct hierarchy of access to knowledge, secrecy, and oaths--sometimes blood oaths--to both secure and hide their machinations and secrets. They all claim to be a 'family'. All of them also have armies of well meaning lower levels to hide behind and secure their wealth.

    And of course we should never forget that Intelligence agencies use the exact same strategies. Nor should we ever forget they all have a similar political agenda which places greed, 'sons', and the maintenance of hierarchical patriarchy at the top of their agendas.

    As you point out this is all old old energy. The Vatican just happens to represent the oldest continuous expression of this energy. It needs to go in favor or real Christianity and real spirituality.

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  13. Good observation on the present church governance and the New Apostolic Reformation. I could see the NAR in particular establishing a Land of Gilead a la "The Handmaid's Tale." I must confess this movie has been on my mind of late as I got the CD soundtrack (by Ryuichi Sakamoto,) and the soundtrack is excellent, and scary.

    As for "Maciel sure knew birds of a feather would stick together" he was no doubt aware of many of the cardinals (Sodano particularly comes to mind here) having their hands out to receive the cold hard cash Maciel dispensed.

    One minor point here, the Cardinal's name is Castrillón Hoyos, and he would be known primarily by his father's name, Castrillón. Hoyos is his mother's maiden name. Just remember that there is one church for the connected, and another that the laity are supposed to submit to.

    The Masons have served as a sort of all purpose scapegoat for the hierarchy ever since their origins in the 18th century. In the United States, their interests were primarily fraternal, and less political. It was true that in many business organizations, Catholic men were restricted from moving up into higher positions as there were often unwritten requirements that higher level employees had to join a Masonic lodge. My grandfather experienced this as an employee with the New York Central Railroad from the 1930s to the 1950s, and I have also heard this was true of places like NCR. These days, Masonic lodges, like other fraternal organizations, including the Knights of Columbus (developed as a Catholic alternative to the Masons) are experiencing a drop in membership as younger members often don't join fraternal organizations. The Castrillón claims about the Masons are ludicrous, and the hierarchy's public pillorying has a lot to do more with their failure to adequately address the sexual abuse problems and refusal to reform.

    I look forward to the appearance of a Castrillón look alike (think Don Novello as Father Guido Sarducci) on a future broadcast of SNL.

    Tom McMahon is excellent.

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