Cardinal Dolan Is Off To Ireland To Celebrate The Eucharist-----Oh Really?

Cardinal Dolan looks right to find some inspiration for his latest exercise in blaming the victims--and no one's laughing anymore.

I'm not a really big fan of Andrew Sullivan, but this time I am in total agreement.  I posted a couple of days ago that Cardinal Dolan was not going to be able to laugh his way out of his bribery scheme for laicizing priests, and he isn't even trying.  Instead he is attacking the NY Times, casting doubt on the veracity of his old Archdiocese and blaming SNAP.  Sorry, this is not going to fly with any Catholics other than those whose faith can't accept the truth of our Bishops.  The following is Sullivan's take on the response Dolan gave to questions asked after his noon Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral yesterday.  It's sad to me that a man who just ate and drank the body and blood of his Lord could attack the very people Jesus taught us to find Him in.  This is a millstone of Dolan's own making because Jesus never said the millstones He spoke about would be material.

Dolan: Is He A Republican Pol Or A Cardinal?

 Andrew Sullivan - Daily Dish - 6/4/2012
Here is how the Cardinal has responded to his previous archdiocese's spokesman's revelations that he authorized payments of $20,000 to pedophile priests to expedite their removal from the ministry:

"The New York Times does not have a reputation for fair and accurate reporting when it comes to this issue. So, to respond to charges like that — that are groundless and scurrilous — in my book it’s useless and counterproductive."

Does he regard his former archdiocese, whence the NYT's proof came, as equally fallacious?
And then you get the real Dolan, the man who puts ecclesiastical power before the protection of children or compassion for the abused:

The cardinal also lashed out at an advocacy group — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — that has called the payments 'secret deals' and 'incentives.' But Dolan fumed, “SNAP has no credibility whatsoever.”

You heard that right. A cardinal from a church revealed to have operated a global child rape cover-up for decades says the chief group for the victims "has no credibility whatsoever." After this outburst, Dolan took a week off in Ireland.

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The  last American Cardinal to blame the media for the abuse crisis was Bernie Law.  He was given sanctuary in Rome just before the Boston Police came for him with subpoenas.  Not surprising then that Cardinal Dolan is taking off for Ireland.  The performance of American Cardinals and Archbishops with the sexual abuse crisis is nothing short of abysmal, only matched by most of the Irish version.  No wonder Cardinal Dolan is headed for Ireland where he will take in the Eucharistic Congress.  Given his performance after yesterday's Mass one can only pray he gets more out of the Eucharistic congress than he got out of the religious theater he himself starred in on Sunday.

To be honest, I have really serious doubts these men actually believe in what they purport to enact at the Consecration because in their day to day life it seems to have zero effect.  I wonder how many of them are nothing more than actors in expensive costumes on spectacular stages. That is a very dangerous kind of speculation  for lay Catholics to engage in as far as the hierarchy is concerned.  At least with the LCWR sisters I have met, I never questioned that they believed in Jesus Christ.  Nor did I ever believe they were engaged in some sort of charade.  I may not have agreed with the Jesus they believed in, but never once did I doubt that personal relationship with Jesus was the core that fueled their mission.  Not once.

In the last twenty or so years, but especially the last ten, I have developed very serious doubts about the men who supposedly lead us. I absolutely do not understand how they can express the things they express if they had any real understanding of life in Christ.  Cardinal Dolan is an absolute disgrace as a Christian man, but we Catholics are to believe he is an exemplar of a Catholic.  Which says what,  Catholic Cardinals are not to be confused with followers of Christ?  Something tells me about right now, Pope Benedict is wondering the same thing, and if in truth he is wondering, he should look in a mirror for the reason.

I no longer give a blank belief check to any bishop, archbishop, or cardinal.  They have to prove to me they can walk their talk.  Readers of this blog know there aren't very many I actually think walk the talk or believe in the efficacy of the rites they perform.  I also don't think I am alone.  There will come a time when more and more Catholics admit to themselves they have the same doubts, and when a critical mass is reached there will be enormous change in Catholicism.  It may turn out that 2012/2013 is the time frame in which that critical mass is reached.

In an NCR posting today, Robert McClory posts an article from former Maryknoll provincial John Sivalon.  Sivalon writes the Vatican assault on the LCWR and other Catholic progressives is just a prelude to what's coming in October when Benedict opens the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization for the Transmission of the Christian Faith, the first alleluia salvo for the Year of the Faith.  I don't have any reason to disagree with this assessment and a number of reasons to believe it's true. I also find the designation 'Year of the Faith' a prophetic designation, especially if the Benedict Vatican is out to wage all out war for their view of the faith.  Since they are utterly distracted waging their own internal war, the forces for retrenchment may find out they are up against more than they bargained for and with field generals like Cardinal Dolan they will have only themselves to blame when critical mass is reached and they find they have lost.

Is There A Lesson For The Vatican Of 2012 In The Soviet History Of 1982?

Back in the early 80's group photos of Soviet Leadership let us all know who was in and who was out.  The 'out' were literally photo-shopped out of photos.

I see where our fearless leadership has put another LCWR theologian under notice a day after our fearless leader threw a plum to Philadelphia's Archbishop Chaput.  I can't help but see this as another theologian sent to Siberia and another ladder climbing papal syncophant given a pat on the back. In the meantime we are not supposed to notice the Vatican continues to implode or that the jury in the Philadelphia abuse case is now in deliberation or that Cardinal Dolan has taken the gloves off and is in full bully mode concerning his bribes to predators to leave the priesthood.

Yesterday I read this article and the author, Richard Cottrell, makes a very interesting comparison:

 "Joseph Ratzinger, alias Pope Benedict XVI, reminds me strongly of Brezhnev in his final decline. Then the corridors and chambers of the Kremlin hummed with plots, horrific acts of political treachery occurred behind closed doors as the general secretary quietly faded away, like the smile on the face of the Cheshire Cat.
The communist system effectively died with Brezhnev.
That story is being repeated right now within the sacred precincts of the Holy See.
One Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, was moved to describe the commotion inside the Vatican as the “penultimate act of a medieval battle moved to the 21st century.”
This is slightly an understatement. The Vatican is gripped by a civil war of such bitterness and furious intensity it may never fully recover.
The issue, as with Leonid Brezhnev, is largely but not fully connected to the toxic issue of the succession."

I remember well those times of the Soviet Union under Brezhnev.  It seemed there was endless speculation about who would replace him, just how sick he was, whether the KGB would rig his succession and on and on and on.  The score could be kept by literally paying attention to who was and was not seen on the parade platform with Brezhnev. The infighting got so toxic for so long that by the time Brezhnev finally met his Maker in 1982, the Communist party resorted to old guard old men, (Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, who both died after short terms in office) as place holders until the fighting in the Politburo resulted in some sort of truce.  This led in 1985 to Mikhial Gorbachev who essentially presided over the death of the Soviet system.

There really are some striking parallels between the current Vatican situation and the Soviet situation in the early 80's.  The memberships in the college of cardinals and the bent of most of the curia has been carefully managed to be conservative and traditional.  The infighting in the Vatican is not amongst progressives and conservatives, it's strictly between conservatives.  It is truly a one party system fighting over who gets to replace the old leader of that one party system.  The CDF under Levada continues to act like the KGB, ferreting out dissent and those who question the party line.  These investigations are too often the result of self appointed secret police who the CDF seems only too happy to have in their system.  Benedict may fancy himself a sort of fatherly benevolent monarch, but that's only true in his imagination.  What is happening under Benedict, and what he himself used so effectively to rise to his current position, is not very much different from the Communist system under Kruschev,  a system of patronage and corruption that Brezhnev used in exactly the same way to achieve his own ascendancy.

I can certainly see where a similar scenario could play out in Catholicism where the current internecine fighting leads to the election of another old pope of the old guard that very shortly leads to another old pope of the old guard that very shortly ends, making it obvious to even the old guard that change can no longer be avoided.  I can also hope that someone in the Vatican or the college of cardinals can take a look at Soviet history and just bite the bullet and skip the intervening papacies.


I also think it's pretty ironic that the Pope who was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet system fostered pretty much the same thing in his own Vatican.  God does seem to have a sense of humor. 

More Leaked Documents, More Upheaval, A Different Spotlight On Philadelphia

Pope Benedict gives Archbishop Chaput a big kudo, but you have to read to the end of the post to learn what it is.

 

The Vati-leaks scandal continues unabated by the arrest of the Pope's butler. New documents were published today by the Italian News Paper La Repubblica. Like the sexual abuse crisis, the leaking of Vatican documents is another never ending nightmare for the clerical system. The following is the first part of a longer article posted in Reuters:

No respite for pope as more documents leaked

Philip Pullella - Reuters - 6/3/2012

MILAN (Reuters) - Pope Benedict got no rest on Sunday from a leaks scandal when an Italian newspaper published documents showing that his butler was not the only person in possession of confidential correspondence indicating a Vatican in disarray.

Benedict, 85, ended a weekend trip to Italy's industrial and financial capital Milan with a closing mass for an international gathering in which he praised traditional Catholic family values and re-stated his opposition to gay marriage.

But in its Sunday edition, the Rome newspaper La Repubblica published documents it said it had received anonymously after the arrest of the pope's butler on May 23.

A note received by the newspaper said there were "hundreds more" documents and that the butler, Paolo Gabriele, was just a scapegoat. (Other reports say the butler is being set up as a scapegoat by Cardinal Bertone and the Pope's personal secretary, Msgr Georg Ganswein.)

The furore over the leaked correspondence, which shows power-hungry cardinals and scheming within the walls of the city state, has gripped the Vatican just as it was recovering from a long-running scandal over sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in the United States, Ireland and other countries.

One letter, dated January 16, was sent by Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American who heads a Vatican department, to the pope's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Burke complains that a decision regarding a liturgical matter was taken without consulting his office, which is responsible for such matters.

The person who sent Repubblica the documents also provided two letters signed by the pope's private secretary, Monsignor Georg Ganswein. The newspaper said those letters had everything but the letterhead and the signature whited out.

 The newspaper said that in the note accompanying the documents, the person who sent them said the contents had been whited out "so as not to offend the Holy Father" but threatened to reveal the contents.....

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While the butler, Paolo Gabriele,  languishes in a Vatican 'safe room', otherwise known as a prison cell, other leakers keep the storm moving along.  And like a real storm, it's hard to tell just what exactly is at the center of all this leaking, finger pointing, and scape goating.  I guess that's what makes it such a fascinating story.  Vatican apologists are doing their best to assure us the co occuring Vatican Bank mess is not related to the Vati-leaks story, but I find that hard to swallow, especially since Archbishop Vigano, the US papal nuncio, is a significant player in both stories.  As is Cardinal Bertone, and speaking of Cardinal Bertone and the Vatican Bank, the cardinals which over see the Board of Directors have accepted the Board's advice to dump Ettore Gotti Tedeshi as CEO of the bank.  We are told it was unanimous, except we are also told it wasn't unanimous, not really.   

As far as I can tell from piecing together multiple stories, Cardinal Bertone was not thrilled with the amount of capitulation Gotti Tedeshi was willing to give in order to get the Vatican Bank on the International white list of banks who are serious about money laundering.  Bertone had a number of concerns.  The first was to protect existing accounts from the new regulations, making only new accounts subject to them, and a second was affording protection to depositors who wished to remain anonymous for one reason or another. The only actual reason referenced was depositors whose money originated in totalitarian states and might be subject to confiscation.  In any event, the five Cardinals, of which Bertone is one,  finally agreed to accept the Board's recommendation, but they had to meet twice in order to come to agreement. Or whatever it is they actually came to agree on.

There are also multiple stories that the precipitating event for the barrage of leaking was the past consistory at which Cardinal Dolan got his red beanie.  This consistory irritated hierarchy around the world for two reasons, Vatican bureaucrats were over represented amongst the twenty two new Cardinals and too many of the new members were seen to be loyal to Bertone.  This is important because as Secretary of State, Bertone will be in charge of the next papal conclave.  This was seen as Pope Benedict stacking the deck in Bertone's favor as the next Pope.  It specifically irritated the Italian Bishop's conference, who were already at logger heads with Bertone over his attempts to horn in on their territory in Italian politics, because most of the new Italian cardinals were curial rather than men with any kind of pastoral experience.  The South was not pleased because too many of these new Cardinals were representative of the European or North American Church in which Catholicism is on a steep downward spiral rather than an upward curve.  This was seen as the old guard refusing to give way to the new.  It's probably for these reasons Pope Benedict has now scheduled another consistory for this coming December.  It is hoped the new appointees will give more balance to the College of Cardinals.

An overview of all of this though, is that it is all about money, politics, and personal ego.  Not exactly the things Jesus had in mind in his definition of spiritual leadership.  Sort of makes one wonder just where exactly Jesus' teachings reside with in Roman Catholic governance.  Locked up in some Tabernacle I suppose.

One other bit of news, which may or may not be related, is that the Pope announced Sunday in Milan at the World Meeting of Families that the next one will be held in 2015 in Philadelphia under the sure guidance of Archbishop Chaput.  I imagine by that time, Chaput's red beanie will not have a "P" on it.  I imagine that new red beanie will be his to wear after this December.

Cardinal Dolan Ain't Gonna Be Able To Laugh His Way Through This One

The gregarious Cardinal Dolan may be having more than one of these tonight as he's going to have a tough time explaining the following news story.

 I'm pretty tired right now, having just gotten home from work, but this article was in my own paper,  the Helena Independent Record.  I have a sneaking suspicion I know why they published this article, and it goes beyond the fact that it involves Cardinal Dolan.  Right down the road from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is the Diocese of Madison WI, where our ex bishop Morlino now resides.  I'm willing to bet lots of money was paid to lots of accused priests in lots of dioceses to let abusive clerics ride off into the sunset and keep the lid on their sexual activities.  I'm not at all surprised that all of Cardinal Dolan's appointments were cancelled today.  I will be really interested to hear how he tries to talk his way out of this one.  I don't think using donations to pay off sexual predators is not exactly what any of us had in mind when we placed our money in the collection basket.

Wis. archdiocese no longer paying priests to leave

 Associated Press | Posted: Thursday, May 31, 2012 7:20 pm

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and a former priest who received money to leave the ministry following allegations of sexual abuse say that payment and others were a form of charity meant to help men transition to a new life following the priesthood.
The archdiocese acknowledged paying suspected pedophile clergy after an abuse victims' group produced a court document Wednesday that mentioned a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to "unassignable priests" who agree to leave the ministry. The document from the archdiocese's bankruptcy proceedings includes minutes from a 2003 meeting of its Finance Council, which included then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now a cardinal and head of the New York archdiocese.
Council members discussed how the church should handle sexual abuse complaints, a possible budget deficit and how to cut costs. The $20,000 payments were among the options mentioned.
The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests characterizes the payments as a payoff to priests who molested children.
"This was a signing bonus for signing papers that would be sent to the Vatican," SNAP Midwest director Peter Isely said. "They needed to have been fired. You don't pay someone who has committed a criminal act. You fire them. Period."
The archdiocese says similar payments were made to men leaving the priesthood long before allegations of sexual abuse surfaced in the Catholic church. Archdiocese spokeswoman Julie Wolf said the payments were a type of severance pay.
"In a sense, it was a sense of charity to help those men transition from the clergy state to the lay state," Wolf said. The church has a responsibility not only to victims of clergy abuse, but to those accused of abuse, she said.
"The church is not giving this money, saying it's acceptable," Wolf said. "It's our calling as Christians to be forgiving."
It made sense at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal to "move these men out of the priesthood as quickly as possible" and the money helped the men with the transition, Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff to Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said in a letter sent to church members Thursday. But the archdiocese has since ended the payments, he said.
Since the payments have now stopped, said Isely, the SNAP Midwest director, "Is this not a clear admission that they were wrong in the first place?"
"And isn't it time for Cardinal Dolan and his successor, Jerome Listecki, to acknowledge the deep moral wrong of taking Catholic charitable funds and funneling them to priest child molesters?" Isely said in a statement Thursday.
Wolf said she thought the last payments were made two or three years ago, based on archdiocese correspondence. The archdiocese paid out $90,000 to accused priests in the fiscal year that ended in June 2010, according to a letter Listecki sent members that year. It said nine remaining clerics who had been restricted from the ministry because of substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor would be notified that financial assistance was ending.
Listecki also said any future reports of sexual abuse would be referred to civil authorities if the accused was still alive and the priest would be immediately removed from ministry.
Jerome A. Wagner said he accepted $20,000 from the Milwaukee archdiocese "because it was time to move on" after he was accused of assaulting a minor. He was never criminally charged and declined to comment on the allegations, but the archdiocese has acknowledged the accusations against him.
"I viewed it as a charity payment on their part to help me get along," Wagner said. "I just viewed it as help for me to readjust to a new way of life."
Wagner said he initiated the process to leave the church with the Vatican and was told by the archdiocese he would receive $10,000 at the beginning of the process and $10,000 when it was over.
Wagner used the money to attend a mortuary school in Illinois. He graduated in 2004 and is a licensed funeral home director in Fond du Lac, the same community where he left the priesthood in 2002.
Because the process of leaving the priesthood can take several years, Wolf said, the payments to accused priests are meant to quickly move them out of the ministry and save costs because a priest's salary alone can be about $55,000 a year. She did not know whether other archdioceses offered similar severances.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops didn't immediately respond to a message left Thursday asking about payments in other archdioceses.
The Milwaukee archdiocese acknowledged in 2006 that it gave $10,000 to former priest Franklyn Becker to help pay his health insurance until he became eligible for Medicare.
Dolan, who was archbishop when the payment was made, has denied allegations it was a payoff. Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the New York archdiocese, said Thursday that "the cardinal has read and supports the statements that came out of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee" and would have no further comment on the issue.
Charles W. Linneman, 44, of Sugar Grove, Ill., is among those who think the payments were inappropriate. He is one of the former parishioners who have sued Becker, claiming they were abused by him. The Associated Press does not usually name victims in sexual abuse cases, but Linneman agreed to be identified.
He said the payment to Becker was the archdiocese's way of keeping the abuse quiet.
"It was just a quick way to wash their hands of him," Linneman said. "They kept him on for all those decades. It was very easy to get rid of him."
Dolan asked then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, to defrock Becker in 2003, about two weeks after Becker was arrested in California in connection to a sexual assault there in the 1970s. Becker was removed from the priesthood in 2004.
Linneman said he was an altar boy when he met Becker at St. Joseph's Parish in Lyons in 1980 and was abused by him when he visited Becker following the priest's move to Milwaukee. Becker did not return a call seeking comment.

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It's just really amazing how the light of transparency and honesty -and leaking sensitive material- is just snow balling.  I imagine it's times like these when our hierarchy really wishes for the good ole days when they had armies and such things at their disposal to end all this excessive truth telling.  The winds of change continue to howl.

Vati-Leaks: The Titanic Has Hit The Ice Berg And The Crew Is In A Panic As The Captain Pretends It's All A Drill

This Church is in Northern Italy in Mirandola and was destroyed by yesterday's earthquake.  It's a real time symbol of the different kind of earthquake which has hit Vatican city.

I don't find it all that surprising that things are trending toward paranoia and panic in Vatican City.  That tends to happen when lots of people have lots to hide and all of a sudden the circles of silence, complicity, and trust based on mutual dirt, are suddenly exposed for the fragile things they are.  The Church may have been built on a rock, but the Vatican has been built on sand.  Thank God, for the winds of the Holy Spirit will have an easier time reforming the whole system.

The Curia is in a state of panic as rumours circulate about camera phones potentially being banned in the Vatican

Andrea Tornielli - Vatican Insider - vatican city- 5/29/2012
“The atmosphere is poisonous, heavy. Some claim that in the future we won’t be able to take mobile phones with inbuilt cameras into the Vatican.” The ban on camera phones is just a rumour that has been circulating around the Secretariat of State in the last few days, which have been the most difficult in the Vatican in recent years. “Somehow this is even worse than the storm caused by the Church paedophilia scandal,” said a priest who entered the great gate of Porta Angelica with brisk fearful steps.

Talking moles

Many outside the Vatican doubt the guilt of Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s butler and no one seems to think he could have master-minded the leak of documents published in journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi’s book. We do not know the extent of his involvement yet. If the inquiry remains at this level, the doubts will inevitably grow. The net of moles, which allegedly includes a number of people, struck again, giving once more the same motives that had been put forward by the famous investigative reporter in the pages of “Sua santità” (His Holiness). The leak of Benedict XVI’s confidential papers could apparently have been an act to help the Pope. Few believe this to be true, mostly because the Vatileaks scandal has managed to besmirch the Holy See as a whole and its image is now in tatters.

Infamous dismissal

Yesterday Fr. Lombardi claimed that there is no connection between the motion of no confidence in the Vatican Bank’s former president, Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and the Vatileaks issue. On Thursday the IOR’s lay supervisory council removed the banker who had been chosen by Cardinal Bertone in September 2009 and who was also a leading writer for Vatican daily broadsheet L’Osservatore Romano as well as a friend of the newspaper’s director, Gian Maria Vian. The next day the committee of cardinals met to ratify the vote, but no statement regarding their verdict has been released as yet. The very harsh letter by Carl Anderson, one of the four board members, containing the reasons behind the dismissal of Gotti Tedeschi, whose professional image has been destroyed, was intentionally published. The banker was also accused of not “ explaining the distribution of certain documents” he kept. The way he was dismissed is brand new in the history of the Holy See and could have major repercussions, if and when Gotti Tedeschi will decide to speak up.

Is it time for the cardinal to retire?

According to the moles, the real target of the Vatileaks operation, is allegedly the Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone. The whole thing would have been orchestrated to pressure him into retiring. However, objectively speaking, the explosion of the Vatileaks scandal seems far too extreme for its aim to be the simple removal of a cardinal who will turn 78 in December. Unless one were to believe (and some do) that the ambitions of those who would like to take his place might be the hidden motive behind the storm that is raging inside and outside the Curia and if we were to look even further, perhaps we would find the power struggle for the succession of the ageing Pope at the root of the problems. Ratzinger wanted Bertone by his side because he trusts him and has no intention of removing him, even though the cardinal himself offered to resign. His management of the Secretariat of State has been the target of heavy criticism. However, as happened before, in times of crisis, the ecclesiastical institution has clammed up to protect its clerics. (Absolutely, it's always to protect the clerics and has very little to do with 'protecting the Church from scandal'.)

Pope's secretary targeted
Fr. Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s personal secretary, is facing a difficult time, since Paolo Gabriele had worked alongside him in the papal apartments for six years. Fr. Georg’s influence has grown in the last two years as have the rumours concerning attempts to drive him away from the Pope, such as his possible appointment as bishop in Germany, now that the Diocese of Regensburg is to become vacant and its current bishop is to become cardinal in Rome and cover a different office. But there are very few who believe that the Pope will get rid of his trusted secretary.

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Virtually everything the Vatican has done in so many different area has been designed to protect the clerical system, not shepherd God's Church.  In the last 20 or so years nothing has angered me more than the obvious decision to sacrifice the church on the altar of maintaining the all male celibate priesthood.  I can't for one minute believe that the men who run Roman Catholicism can't see that they are killing the spirit of this Church in maintaining this policy.  Until the clerical system is completely rethought there will be no change in any of the sexual or gender issues because this current system is founded in sexual purity and a gender identity which believes men are both superior to and victims of the feminine.  Gay marriage is a no go because this priesthood can not survive without gay priests and it will not attract gay priests if gay men can marry. 

It's disheartening to witness this implosion, and it's also true that the old must make way for the new.  We can not put new wine into old wine skins. 

On Pentecost Sunday The Holy Spirit Was Most Definitely In Vienna. I'm Not Sure About Rome

I like these two spiritual leaders a great deal.  I am not surprised to see them together on Pentecost Sunday.

The following is an excerpt from a longer article and is taken from the official website of the Dalai Lama.  I have an idea of sorts of where religion and spirituality are headed in the twenty first century and these two men figure prominently.  It is utterly uplifting to me that while the Vatican is imploding, the Holy Spirit was alive and well at the Pentecost Mass in St Stephen's Cathedral.

His Holiness Meets Cardinal Schönborn and Makes a Pilgrimage to St Stephen's Cathedral

May 27th 2012

Vienna, Austria, 27 May 2012 - On the concluding day of His Holiness's visit to Austria, he met Mr Sebastian Kurz, Secretary of State (Deputy Minister) for the Interior and had a cordial conversation with him. Shortly afterwards, Cardinal Schönborn came to meet him again and His Holiness immediately expressed a wish to visit St Stephen's Cathedral. He explained that since 1975, as part of his commitment to work to promote religious harmony, he has adopted a practice of making a pilgrimage to the places of worship of other faiths whenever he can. He told the Cardinal how on several occasions in the course of silent prayer in Lourdes and Fatima, for example, and when visiting Christian monasteries, he has been very moved by the thought of the thousands of millions of individuals who have found immense benefit in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The two spiritual leaders discussed various aspects of monastic life, such as the great silence according to which Christian monks either keep total silence or speak only for a brief stipulated period once a day. They then went together to meet the press.

His Holiness explained again to the press that one of his lifelong commitments is the promotion of inter-religious harmony. He spoke of how, soon after coming to India he had been impressed by the religious tolerance and harmony he found there, how many of the world's major religions, as well as many that originated in India, live together side by side. He expressed his bewilderment that Catholics and Protestants in places like Northern Ireland, and Shia and Sunni Moslems elsewhere, people who follow the same God and the same teacher, could quarrel so bitterly with one another. Since all religions, despite their philosophical differences, convey similar messages of love and compassion it is contradictory for there to be conflict between them. (Precisely why I have such high regard for Cardinal Schonborn. He no longer acts as if he is trapped in the rules.  He acts as if he is fully seeking to live the Spirit.)

The venerable Cardinal publicly addressed His Holiness, “It is a great joy for us in Austria to receive your visit. You have shown great love for our country and I hope we have also shown our great love for you. You have spoken of your conviction that we must work to foster inter-religious harmony. I am a Dominican monk, just as you are a monk, and I believe we both find common human ground in religious life. The conflict you speak of relates to our need for a change of heart. I believe the religious call is to everyone's need to change their heart of stone to a heart of flesh and love.”

His Holiness and the Cardinal answered several questions from the press relating to the current lost generation in Europe and the indications and meanings of faith before leaving for the short drive to the Cathedral. They arrived to find pews filled with people awaiting the start of the Mass on this Sunday of Pentecost. The Cardinal briskly escorted His Holiness around the Cathedral, explaining the history and significance of various chapels and images on the way. He invited His Holiness to attend the Mass, which he readily accepted and was escorted to a seat in the choir.

In his opening words to the congregation, the Cardinal explained that he was pleased to announce the presence among them of a special guest, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a man he described as having deep respect for people of every faith. The Cathedral was then filled with the sublime music of Schubert's Missa Solemnis sung and played by choir and orchestra. As he left the Cathedral, beaming with joy, His Holiness's words were, “Wonderful, wonderful.”

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When I came across this story this morning, my heart skipped a beat.  I have for years meditated on the paths of these two spiritual leaders and how the spirituality at the heart of Catholicism would be so well served if these two came together.  And they have, and on Pentecost no less, and they shared the same spiritual energy of Catholicism's greatest spiritual treasure--the Mass.  This is the future if there is to be any hope for Catholicism as a leading voice for spirituality in the secular world.

Pope Benedict would do well to contemplate on the path taken by the Dalai Lama.  The other 'His Holiness' retired from leading the Tibetan government, getting out of politics altogether.  In the Dalai Lama's case this broke a 400 year tradition of being both the political and spiritual head of Tibet.  He handed those responsibilities over to qualified lay men and Tibet will eventually become a secular democracy right along with it's Chinese occupiers.  The Dalai Lama now concentrates on spreading the spiritual message of compassion and love as the two attributes which can foster peace and human dignity in the world.  Imagine if Pope Benedict took the same path, and turned the political and temporal aspects of Catholicism over to qualified Catholics of both the lay and clerical kind.  He would take Catholicism back to how it originally divided these responsibilities.  With the Vatican now crashing down around him, there couldn't be a better time.  He could then concentrate on grooming a successor, and I can't think of better successor for the future of the Church in the modern world, than Cardinal Schonborn. 

The Response From The LCWR To The CDF Is Coming Soon

The Ya Ya Sisterhood could show the Vatican men a thing or two.  So can the LCWR.

I've been meaning to post this essay by Mary C Johnson for about a week, but between actual work, the latest Legion mess, the Vatileaks and Vatican Bank stories, I almost forgot that the LCWR Board meets the end of this week to determine a response, or non response,  to the Vatican's CDF investigation mandate.  The following is an excerpt of this longer article.

The Vatican Lays A Cunning Trap For American Nuns

 Mary C Johnson - Huffington Post - 5/21/5012
At the end of this month, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will meet to formulate a response to a Vatican trap whose cunning is best appreciated within the long tradition of religious authorities who craft impossible dilemmas for those they perceive as threats.

Two millennia ago, the chief priests sent someone to ask Jesus, "Should we pay taxes?" If Jesus said yes, he would pit himself against Jewish resistance to Roman occupation and therefore, in Jewish eyes, against God. If he said no, the Romans could execute him for sedition. Instead, Jesus famously replied, "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

In the 15th century, Joan of Arc's ecclesiastical inquisitors asked her, "Do you know yourself to be in God's grace?" If Joan answered yes, she would commit heresy because the Church had long taught that no one could be certain of being in God's grace; if no, they could interpret her answer as an admission of guilt. Joan looked them in the eyes and replied, "If I am not in God's grace, may God put me there; if I am, may God so keep me."
 
Today, the Vatican tells the women of the LCWR, "Submit to our oversight and control of your every action for the next five years." The Vatican's official "or else" clause remains unstated but clear to all involved. "Submit to our authority, or call yourselves Catholic no longer."......


......In the 50 years following the Second Vatican Council, the American sisters represented by the LCWR have engaged in discernment and renewal, a process initiated by decree of the popes and bishops at the Council. Not without controversy from Catholics nostalgic for long habits and authoritarian discipline, LCWR Sisters have abandoned traditions that infantilized their members. They've educated themselves, many earning advanced degrees. Inspired by the examples of Jesus and the founders of their religious communities, they moved into ministries with people on the margins: prisoners, the homeless, women, gay and lesbian people, immigrants.

And yes, some of them have occasionally spoken to advocate for gay rights, for women's ordination, for a healthcare plan the bishops opposed. Throughout the process, the LCWR has sought "to develop leadership, promote collaboration within church and society, and serve as a voice for systemic change." The Vatican hasn't been happy to see women blossom as real leaders and they especially don't like that "systemic change" stuff......

.......Now the Vatican is telling these women they're not Catholic enough.
If the LCWR submits to Sartain's oversight, they assent to being treated as ecclesiastic children who don't know what's best for them; they relinquish the haven they've created to challenge and support each other. As Sister Jeannnine Grammick, founder of New Ways Ministry, a group that works with gay and lesbian Catholics and has been cited in the Vatican assessment, told The New Republic, "If we comply, if we submit to what is being asked by the Vatican, it would be a repudiation of all the renewal that we've done in religious life. I don't believe that nuns will say we can do that."

If they don't submit, if the sisters disband the LCWR and regroup in a configuration beyond Church control, then the official Church will claim that they aren't really Catholic any more. If the Vatican would declare any group of sisters to be outside the Catholic Church, then those sisters might risk losing anything their communities had accrued over the years -- housing, savings, medical care.

Even more significantly for many, sisters who have never considered themselves anything but Catholic would find themselves banished.

The sisters of the LCWR face two basic choices: submission or exile.
Like Jesus, like Joan of Arc, the sisters may find a way to reframe the discussion -- or they may choose not to respond at all. I'm afraid that ultimately it won't matter. The religious authorities of their days didn't really care how Jesus and Joan responded; in the end, they had Jesus crucified and Joan burned at the stake. In service of Vatican power and the moral authority the bishops claim is theirs alone, what harm is there in inconveniencing a few old nuns? (Yea, really, what's a little elder abuse on top of all the other abuses perpetrated by this hierarchy on lay Catholics?  In for a penny, in for a pound.)

As the sisters gather to formulate their response, their years of prayer and discernment will serve them well. These are strong, centered women placed in an impossible position by powerful men who feel threatened. May Jesus and Joan show them the way.

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I find both the response of Jesus to the Chief Priests and St Joan's response to her inquisitors brilliant not just because they answered cunning questions, but because they separated out some real truth.  As I look at this LCWR problem, separating out the real truth is not going to be as easy, but the sisters could try a response along these lines:  "We give to Jesus the obedience that is Jesus' and to our order the obedience that is our orders'.   This might work because the Vatican is demanding obedience from the umbrella group the LCWR, and not the individual orders, and secondly sisters do not take vows to the Pope or any bishop.  This way the orders themselves could demand their membership drop out of the LCWR agreeing with the CDF that the LCWR was, oh I don't know, somewhat unwieldy.  That would put Archbishop Sartain in the position of supervising an organization that no longer exists. Should the CDF then push the issue, they would look foolish. On the other hand, looking foolish does not seem to be a problem for the men of the hierarchy.  They are on something of a role with this 'looking foolish thing'.

Once the members of the LCWR made themselves ex members of the LCWR, they could then agree to meet informally once or twice a year for tea and chocolate and a chat around a camp fire.  Kind of like the Ya Ya Sisterhood:

 Little Vivi: These are the headdresses of the queens that have gone before us. They come from Indian holy ground... the jungles of the ancients... prairies of the Norwegians... and the forests of the mighty Amazons. The royal crowns of our people.
[pouring something from a jar into a glass]
Little Vivi: This is the blood of our people, the wolf people, the alligator people, and the moon women from which we gain our strength to rule all worlds.
[Hands glass to Little Teensy. Little Teensy shakes head no]
Little Vivi: It's ok, it's just chocolate.
[Teensy drinks]
Little Vivi: Teensy Melissa Whitman: I declare you, Princess-Naked-As-A-Jaybird.
Little Teensy: [whispers] Ah Cha Cha!
Little Vivi: [turns to Little Caro] Caro Eliza Bennett: I declare you, Duchess Soaring Hawk.
[turns to Little Necie]
Little Vivi: Necie Rose Kelleher: I declare you, Countess Singing Cloud. And I: Viviane Joan Abbott, am hereby and forever Queen Dancing Creek.
[pulls a knife out of a shield]
Little Necie: Now, wait just one second y'all... I don't think we should be cutting ourselves with that knife...
Little Vivi: Silence!
[nicks her hands with knife and passes it down to Little Teensy]
Little Vivi: We are the flames of the fires, the whirling of the winds. We are the waters of the rains and the rivers and the oceans. We are the rocks and the stones. And now by the power invested in me, I declare we are the mighty Ya-Ya priestesses. Let no man put us under. Now our blood flows through each other as it's done for all eternity. Loyal forever. We raise our voices in the words of Mumbo Gumbo... YA-YA!
All little Ya-Ya's: YA-YA!

No offense intended, but you get my drift.  Who needs men supervising them when they have been "the flames of the fires, the whirling of the winds, the waters of the rains and river and oceans.  They are the rocks and the stone......and the blood that built the American Church.   Amen Sisters.  YEA-YEA!
 

Pentecost Message To Pope Benedict: Clean Up The Mess You Call The Vatican

Paolo Gabriele was really close to the Pope.  Perhaps the Holy Spirit is sending Benedict a message.  Kind of like the Archangel Gabriel is used by the Holy Spirit to give some pretty important messages.

Like everyone else I've been following the 'butler did it' story coming from the Vatican.  And I, like a lot of other people, have a hard time understanding why the butler would do it, especially on his own initiative.  After giving it some thought, and reading dozens of articles, I can see where the butler, Paolo Gabriele, could have done it for at least three reasons.

The first one is he is a true whistle blower.  He was hired during JPII's reign by the at the time papal secretary and now Cardinal of Krakow, Msgr Dziwisz.  Dziwisz has been implicated by reporter Jason Berry as one of Maciel's financial beneficiaries as JPII"s gatekeeper.  It could be that Gabriele was truly fed up with the corruption surrounding access to the Pope which under JPII was the ultimate 'pay for pray' scheme.  Hence we get the leaked stories about the EU100,000 truffle donated by some rich Italian and the 10,000 donation from the Italian journalist for an interview with Benedict.  These kinds of stories would be directly in Gabriele's purview, but it doesn't explain anything else.


The second and better possibility is that Gabriele is in league with others further up the chain to discredit the cronyism surrounding Cardinal Bertone, the corruption in the Vatican bank, and the utter countersign to Jesus Christ represented by the whole operation.  In this scenario the butler gets to add his beefs--the pay for papal access--and becomes a central depository for other leakers who have other fish to fry.  Big fish.  The butler agrees to this because he is so close to the Pope he would be above suspicion.  By default he becomes the designated fall guy for the rest of his fellow leakers.  He is the Sancho Panza for other Don Quijotes.


The third possibility is the Gabriele story is a false flag operation and he is falling on his sword for the Papacy itself, and his family will be very well taken care of while he undergoes his martyrdom and the Vatican tries to recover from the fallout.

My money is on scenario number two. My mind keeps returning to Archbishop Vigano and his leaked letters which warned Benedict of the dismay his transfer to the US as Papal Envoy would engender in others who were trying to clean up the corruption in the Vatican.  My mind turns to Cardinal Bertone whose tenure as Secretary of State has been one embarrassing fiasco after another, and one power grab after another.  My mind turns to the Vatican Bank and how suddenly Carl Anderson has become it's spokesman as if Carl Anderson some how has more credibility than anyone else.  Then there is the fact Carl Anderson does represent the KofC which is a very big player in the life insurance business which allows Carl and his boys to donate millions to the pet causes of various Cardinals and Archbishops. For these men Carl would have a great deal of credibility.  Millions of dollars of credibility.

And finally, my mind turns to Benedict who is too old to deal with all of this and has to feel utterly betrayed by the removal of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi as Director of the Vatican Bank.  Gotti is a friend, who answered directly to Benedict and who also had a large part in the writing of Caritas en Veritate.  Twenty four hours after this news he gets the second blow that his private butler has been arrested as the man behind Vatileaks.  I'm sure Benedict will be getting some more personal blows, but that's what happens when a person turns their back on governing in favor of continuous writing to shore up his legacy as a teaching pope.  Unfortunately, his predecessor, with his help, made sure the Papacy returned to being a monarchy with all power for all facets of the Church vested in the Pope.  Perhaps this has turned out to be to big a vision for the talents of one man--for any man.  Perhaps this is why Vatican II had a different governing vision.

Poor Benedict has a mess on his hands and no matter how many times he sermonizes on the 'rock weathering storms',  storms do eventually wear down, create cracks, and break apart rocks.  Thank God the Church is the People of God, not the Vatican curia and City State.  For the sake of any credible future for the Roman Catholic Church, this distinction can not be made enough.  Catholics need to start distancing themselves from the mess called the Vatican.  It is not the Church no matter how much it's done recently to convince us these two separate truths are actually just one.  Perhaps this is the message the Holy Spirit is trying to send one very old pope and one very old and corrupt Vatican.





 

The Legion: A Never Ending Nightmare Continues

This man done enough 'wrist slapping' over the Legion.  Now he needs to do an exorcism.

The AP has released an article from it's Rome bureau in which Legion Director Fr. Corcuera admits he failed to investigate rumors concerning Fr Thomas Williams when he took over the order from Maciel in 2005.  Now he claims he will investigate all accusations against Legion priests.  It is incomprehensible that eight accusations of sexual misconduct have surfaced in the last three weeks, forced by AP investigations, when the Vatican has supposedly been investigating this group for two years.  Why in the world should anyone believe anything that spews from the mouths of Legion leadership or the Vatican about this group?  Sigghhhh.

 

Legion No. 1 admits he knew of priest's kid in '05

 

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press – 4 hours ago 

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The head of the embattled Legion of Christ religious order admitted Tuesday to covering up news that his most prominent priest had fathered a child and announced a review of all past allegations of sexual abuse against Legion priests amid a growing scandal at the order. (In truth it would be more accurate to describe it as a 'scandal of an order'.)

The Rev. Alvaro Corcuera wrote a letter to all Legion members in which he admitted he had heard before he became superior in 2005 that the Rev. Thomas Williams, a well-known American television personality, author and moral theologian, had a child. He said he took Williams' word that the rumors were false.
Corcuera said that after becoming superior in 2005, he confirmed Williams' paternity yet did nothing to prevent him from teaching morality to seminarians or preaching about ethics on television, in his many speaking engagements or his 14 books, including "Knowing Right from Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience."

Williams, for example, was the keynote speaker at a Legion-affiliated women's conference just last month in the U.S. and was scheduled to speak at another one in October.
Williams admitted last week he had fathered the child after The Associated Press confronted the Legion with the allegation. In a new statement Tuesday, Williams said he had resisted his superiors' encouragement to keep a low profile after the allegations were known to them.

"I foolishly thought that I had left this sin in my past, and that I could make up for some of the wrong I had done by doing the greatest good possible with the gifts God has given me. This was an error in judgment, and yet another thing I must ask your forgiveness for," he wrote, according to the text obtained by the AP. (Wrong, he thought he had it all sufficiently covered up, and the Maciel debacle left Legion brass still ripe for a little black mail.)
Williams has not identified the mother or said whether he was supporting the child or involved in the child's life. The Legion has said the child is being cared for.

Revelations of Williams' child and subsequent cover-up have further eroded the Legion's credibility and compounded the scandal at the order, which in 2009 admitted that its late founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel had sexually abused his seminarians and fathered three children with two women. For years, the Legion had denied the abuse allegations and publicly discredited the seminarians who went public with their accusations in 1997.
Maciel, who founded the Legion in 1941 in Mexico, died in 2008.

The scandal is particularly grave given that Maciel was held up as a model for the faithful by Pope John Paul II, who was impressed by the orthodox order's ability to attract money and young men to the priesthood. Maciel's double life, and the continuing problems of the cult-like order, have cast a shadow over John Paul's legacy since the Vatican knew of Maciel's crimes as early as the mid-1950s, yet he continued to enjoy the highest Vatican praise and access until he was finally sanctioned by Rome in 2006.

In 2010, the Vatican took over the Legion after determining that the order itself had been contaminated by Maciel's influence and needed to be "purified" through a process of reform that is under way.
Following an AP investigation, the Legion on May 11 admitted that seven priests were under Vatican investigation for allegedly sexually abusing minors and other sacramental violations, an indication that Maciel's crimes were not his alone. Five of the seven concern sex abuse accusations, the Legion clarified Tuesday. Two concern violations believed to involve using confession or spiritual direction to have inappropriate sexual relations with women.

Corcuera also revealed that a Legion priest is currently under criminal investigation in the U.S. for alleged sex abuse and that three others had been cleared. Three former Legion priests have been referred to civil authorities, he said.
In his letter Tuesday, Corcuera announced that the Legion was going to review all past cases of allegations of sexual abuse to ensure that they were handled properly. Victims of Legion priests and critics of the order have said there are many more cases of abusers which have been well-known to the leadership but covered up for decades.

"Are there other cases waiting to be discovered, more scandals ready to attack your faith and trust? I can never say for sure Corcuera wrote. "I can, however, tell you that we are following the lead of Pope Benedict XVI in dealing with abuse and sexual misconduct in the Legion." (No, what is actually happening is you are being forced in to doing so by the AP who has taken complaints by victims and members far more seriously than the Legion. Benedict is leading nothing.)

Corcuera's letter is unlikely to stem the outrage among the members of the Legion's lay branch Regnum Christi, for whom Williams was a major point of reference in the United States and a top public defender of Maciel when the allegations of his crimes were leveled years ago. Many had forgiven the Legion for its decades of deception concerning Maciel, thinking it was an isolated case. The recent revelations show otherwise. (And there will be more. Jesus weeps for Regnum Christi.)

Corcuera said that after confirming in 2005 that Williams had indeed fathered the child, he asked him to start withdrawing from his public work. But only in 2010 did he limit Williams' work as a priest. Williams, however, continued to write books, speak at conventions, author articles and, most significantly, teach morality to seminarians at the Legion's university in Rome. He only stopped teaching in February, abruptly, after a Spanish association of victims of the Legion forwarded the allegations against Williams to the Vatican.

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It really would be in the Vatican's best interests to disband this organization before much more gets exposed.  This house of cards, based on serving the financial interests of the wealthy, promoting particular political interests, and bilking the innocent out of their money is about to collapse. I would disband this organization before Interpol gets enough complaints and decides it's in their best interests to do the investigating.  The Vatican has demonstrated over and over again, for fifty freaking years,  it has no real interest in 'investigating' this organization in any meaningful sense.  

Personally, I hope Interpol starts moving in on the Legion---- if they haven't already.  I also have no doubt this Vatican will do exactly as it has done, nothing.  Jason Barry has already shown how many Vatican bigwigs have benefited from Legion largesse and the fact those Vatican cardinals are still in power means the Vatican has way too much to lose to attempt to do anything but weather another Legion created firestorm.

Fr. Williams, who had a great deal of access to Maciel for over a decade, has to know way too much and it is most likely for this reason that Corcuera did nothing about the information he received in 2005.  The year 2005 was before Maciel was slapped on the wrist by Benedict.  JPII was still hanging on as Pope and Maciel was still untouchable, and so it seems Williams was able to make himself untouchable.  The fact this untouchable status continued into 2012 until the AP forced the issue should give pause to anyone who still trusts anything about the Legion or about this Vatican investigation.

For me, the Legion represents in an all too real form everything that is corrupt about the Roman Catholic clerical priesthood and hierarchy.  How it does it's business, how it abuses it's laity, how it thinks it's above the laws the rest of us mere mortals have to follow, how it is forced to protect the myth from scandal--demythologizing--rather than act like even half way decent human beings and deal with it's victims.

A commenter wrote the other day about Jesus confronting the demon who named itself 'Legion'. It remains to be seen if our Pope, an alter christus and apostolic descendant of Peter, will confront his own version of Legion.  Slaps on the wrist don't cut it.

The Legion May Not Have A Charism, But ex LC/RC Certainly Do

Given the recent direction of the 'reform of the reform' it's pretty obvious the Legion will be undergoing no 'real reform'.

Robert McClory has a recent post at NCR in which he describes the Church as a family suffering with a parent who has serious issues.  As I was reading his article this morning my mind went to the Legion of Christ as perhaps the quintessential warning to Roman Catholicism of exactly what McClory was describing in his article.  The following two excerpts are the beginning and ending paragraphs of his article:

There's something troubling and neurotic about the aggressive campaign the institutional church is waging these days. Orders are given and compliance is expected from the highest levels down to the lowest. Clearly, "the reform of the reform" Pope Benedict XVI called for a few years ago is moving forward at an accelerated, almost frantic kind of pace.......At this point he goes on to recount the numerous demands for conformity issued by the Church in the last couple years, and he ends with this observation:

...... The church's credibility in the eyes of many, many Catholics has become so thin you can practically see through it, as the church sheds members at a record pace. The institution is like a deeply troubled parent obsessed with a rage for order, and is thus in grave danger of permanently harming himself and the members of the family. If this were a real human family, its responsible members would be gathering together to consider the kind of help "Dad needs." And at minimum, wouldn't there be some urgent discussion of a possible intervention before matters get worse?

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It does seem to me that the Vatican, and especially the USCCB, is attempting to remake the Church in the image of the Legion, not that of Jesus Christ.  Obedience is everything, thinking is counterproductive.  But the Vatican and the USCCB aren't the only forces on this planet sending messages to Catholics. So is the Holy Spirit.  Given that,  I'm not surprised that at this very same time another Legion scandal hits the news, so I've also been following discussions on LC/RC blogs about the sudden removal of Fr Thomas Williams, the ever so handsome American face of the Legion.   Some of the posts, apparently coming from people still in the Legion, are disturbing.  One commenter stated when the new Vatican approved constitution comes out, it will include a barely modified version of the Legion vow of absolute obedience to their leadership. For some reason, what disturbed me was not this possibility, but the fact I wasn't surprised this vow is resurfacing in this order. 

The fact I knew on some level this bizarre vow of obedience would resurface made me really think about what this implied about my view the current Church.  It's not a pretty picture.  The rational part of my mind can't believe the Legion still exists in the first place--given the horrifically compromised life of it's founder, but more than that, the rational part of my mind can't accept the fact nothing of any substance is being done to actually reform the Legion.  Cardinal De Paolis still has Maciel's chain of leadership virtually in place and intact, having just shuffled around the same deck of cards.  What is that about?  Well, maybe it's about the Vati leaks documents in which De Paolis tells Benedict all about the Legion's financial status, but not so much about it's spiritual status.  Maybe there has been no reform of leadership because it's these very leaders that still have all those intimate contacts with very wealthy Mexican business leaders like Carlos Slim.  Maybe it's because the Vatican is well on it's way to creating an identical atmosphere of  intimidation and harassment used so successfully by Legion superiors to keep their seminarians and religious in line.  Maybe it's because the Vatican not only sympathizes with the obedience instilled in LC/RC members, but desires to use the same techniques in all seminaries, convents, and religious houses under Vatican or Diocesan auspices.  And finally, if our leadership has decided to reduce Catholicism to a Roman cult, it makes sense to try and keep it a rich Roman cult. The more conservative it gets,  the more revenue it generates from really rich,  really reactionary, really spiritually scared people.  The threat of hell apparently still plays really well in gated communities.

I don't believe for one minute the Legion ever had a legitimate charism, but I do believe the ex LC/RC members do have a legitimate charism, and that charism is to stand as witness to the incredible amount of spiritual and psychological damage that following the blind loyalty/blind obedience path does to sincere Roman Catholics whose desire is to follow Christ. It warps them, disempowers them, and permits their leadership to blithely ignore the rules they teach to others.  Hence we get Fr Williams the sexual philanderer teaching us all how to live Christian sexual morality.  Double standards do seem to be the order of the day in not just in the Legion, but throughout today's Roman Catholicism.  It's the usual hallmark of the 'do as I say, not as I do' style of parenting, and it's usually accompanied by the favorite child, always the enabler, having their own set of rules in comparison to the rest of the siblings.  Apparently the Legion is still one of the Vatican's favorite children, because in spite of a Vatican 'investigation' very little is actually changing with in the Legion.  The LCWR will not be so lucky.


Anyway, here's to the ex LC/RC's and their charism to continue to witness to the real evil in the Legion modus operandi,  because in doing so the rest of us will be able to get a clearer picture of a Church leadership which just can't seem to reform the Legion and what that failure portends for any reform of the Vatican/clerical system itself.