http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/new...-speak-to-press-after-gay-sub-culture-claims/ Cardinal Tobin tells priests not to speak to press after ‘gay sub-culture’ claims by Staff Reporter posted Tuesday, 21 Aug 2018 Cardinal Tobin, Archbishop of Newark in the USA, led a rally in support of Guerrero (FABI/AFP/Getty Images) The cardinal said no one had ever spoken to him of such a subculture Cardinal Tobin has told clergy in his diocese not to speak to the press after a news report detailing allegations of sexual misconduct appeared on Catholic News Agency. Six anonymous priests told CNA that a “gay sub-culture” existed in the Archdiocese of Newark, particularly in the seminary. However, the cardinal said in a letter to priests that no one “including the anonymous ‘sources’ cited in the article” has ever spoken to him about such a sub-culture. One of the allegations reported by CNA regarded Fr Mark O’Malley, who was removed from his position as rector of the diocesan seminary and placed on medical leave in 2014. Sources claimed he was accused of hiding a camera in another priest’s bedroom. Cardinal Tobin said in the letter: “In April 2014, Father Mark O’Malley, who was serving at St. Andrew’s College, experienced a serious personal crisis for which he received a psychological evaluation and subsequent therapy. In April 2015, he was deemed fit for priestly ministry. He hopes to serve as a hospital chaplain.” CNA also reported that Fr James Weiner – who was recently appointed as parish priest at St Andrew’s in Westwood, New Jersey – was under renewed investigation. Fr Weiner was identified as the previously unnamed man referred to in allegations of sexual assault made by Fr Desmond Rossi. Fr Rossi claimed he was sexually assaulted by two transitional deacons in 1988. He received an out-of-court settlement of approximately $35,000 in 2004. Cardinal Tobin said Fr Weiner’s case had been examined by a review board in 2003 “even though it did not involve an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor”. He said he had ordered a new investigation last month due to “new information and out of an abundance of caution in these most difficult times.” The cardinal had been scheduled to install Fr Weiner as parish priest on September 15, but a parish bulletin last weekend said the installation had been delayed indefinitely due to a scheduling conflict. The cardinal closed his letter by expressing his hope that the sources cited by CNA were not really priests in the diocese. CNA responded to confirm they were. He also encouraged priests not to speak to the media, and instead refer all enquiries to archdiocese’s Director of Communications. “I repeat my willingness to meet with any brother who wishes to share his concerns regarding allegations in the press or personal experience in our local Church,” he added.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/...archbishop-mccarrick-and-newark-priests-50523 New allegations surface regarding Archbishop McCarrick and Newark priests By Ed Condon AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Google+Share to WhatsAppShare to PinterestShare to PrintFriendlyShare to More Newark, N.J., Aug 17, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Recent allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick include reports that he made sexual advances toward seminarians during his tenure as Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop of Newark. CNA recently spoke to six priests of the Archdiocese of Newark, and one priest member of a religious order who was a seminarian in New York in the early 1970s, while McCarrick was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York. Citing archdiocesan policy and concerns about ecclesiastical repercussions for their candor, the priests agreed to speak to CNA only under the condition of anonymity. The priests spoke individually to CNA, and their accounts were compared for confirmation. The religious priest who spoke to CNA said when he studied in a seminary in New York, McCarrick, who was then an aide to Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York, would sometimes visit the seminary. The priest said that McCarrick’s reputation was already well established by this time. “The dean of our theology school was a classmate at CUA with McCarrick, and he knew about the rumors,” the priest told CNA, “he spoke about them with the other faculty and theologians very openly.” So well-known was McCarrick’s reputation, the priest said, that when McCarrick would accompany Cooke to visit the seminary there was a standing joke that they had to "hide the handsome ones" before he arrived. The same reputation reportedly followed the archbishop years later, when he served from 1986-2000 as Archbishop of Newark. One priest of the Archdiocese of Newark told CNA it was an uncomfortable experience when McCarrick came to visit the seminary. The priest said that McCarrick would often place his hand on seminarians while talking with them, or on their thighs while seated near them. “It was really unnerving. On the one hand you knew – knew – what was going on but you couldn’t believe it.” Several other priests from Newark spoke to CNA about similar experiences. One priest worked in close proximity to the archbishop in the archdiocesan chancery for a number of years. “There were the ‘nephews,’ for sure,” he said. “He had a type: tall, slim, intelligent - but no smokers.” The priest told CNA that, in addition to trips to a house on the shore, McCarrick would invite young men to stay the night in the cathedral rectory in central Newark. “Priests would tell me ‘he’s sleeping with them’ all the time, but I couldn’t believe it – they seemed like perfectly normal guys,” the priest said. Another priest, a former priest secretary to McCarrick, told CNA that McCarrick frequently ordained classes of priests among the largest in the country, and that the archbishop prided himself on recruiting young men from the diocese to enter the seminary. But many in the archdiocese say that the high numbers of ordinations came at a cost. One priest said that some graduating classes from the middle 1990s have seen nearly half of their members leave ministry, and concerns have been raised about the behavior of some of those who remain in ministry. Fr. Desmond Rossi was a seminarian in Newark in the late 1980s. He has publicly alleged that, in 1988, two transitional deacons sexually abused him. According to Rossi, he told archdiocesan authorities about the assault and went before a review board. He said that his story was “found credible, but nothing happened.” Instead, he claims the archdiocese turned against him for bringing the allegation forward. “They tried to turn it on me," Rossi said. Rossi eventually left the archdiocese and now serves as a priest in the Diocese of Albany. In 2004, the Archdiocese of Newark agreed to an out-of-court settlement of approximately $35,000 with Rossi in response to his accusations. At least one of the alleged abusers is still in active ministry in the Archdiocese of Newark, Rossi said. Rossi’s allegations have resurfaced in the wake of the current scandals and on August 2, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, current Archbishop of Newark, announced that he would reexamine the matter, and that he had referred it to his Office for Canonical Affairs. While the Archdiocese of Newark declined to confirm the name of the accused priest remaining in active ministry, several priests in the archdiocese identified him as Fr. James Weiner, and told CNA that he has a reputation among the clergy, dating back to his time in the seminary, for active homosexuality. In recent years, several priests said, Weiner is known for hosting cocktail parties in his rectory, which other homosexual priests of the archdiocese are known to attend. Three Newark priests independently gave CNA nearly identical accounts of being invited to these parties when they were newly ordained. One recalled that he attended a cocktail party, thinking he had been invited to a simple priests’ dinner. “I was led into the room to a chorus of wolf-whistles,” he said. “It was clear right away I was ‘on display.’” Another priest told CNA that he was also invited to a party hosted by the priest. “They were all carrying big mixed drinks, pink ones, it was like something out of Sex in City.” He recalled that after asking for a beer, he was told by his host, “you need to try something more girly tonight.” All recounted overtly sexual conversation at the cocktail parties. “I was fresh meat and they were trying me out,” one priest said.
All three said they left quickly upon realizing what was going on. “Everyone was getting loaded and getting closer on the couches, I wanted out of there,” a priest told CNA. “Everyone kept calling me a ‘looker’ and saying they had to ‘keep me around’ from now on,” a third Newark priest told CNA. The archdiocese declined to answer questions related to those parties. All three priests told CNA that while the experience was deeply unpleasant, they had seen similar behavior in Newark’s seminary. Seminarians and priests from ordination classes spanning 30 years, during the terms of McCarrick and Myers, reported to CNA that they had observed an active homosexual subculture of priest and seminarians within Newark’s Immaculate Conception Seminary. One priest ordained in the early years of McCarrick’s term in Newark said that “a lot of people lost their innocence in the seminary.” He told CNA that there were two distinct groups of students. “You had the men who were there because they had a deep love of the Lord and a vocation to serve his Church,” he said, adding that those men were the majority of seminarians. “But there was a subculture, with its own group of men, that was openly homosexual and petty and vindictive with everyone else,” he explained. The same priest said that before he entered the seminary he was warned he would “see things that weren’t right.” He said he was counseled by an older priest to “just remember who you are and why you are there.” Several Newark priests told CNA that the same atmosphere existed under Archbishop John Myers, who led the archdiocese from 2001-2016. One priest who studied during that period recalled being told, as a newly arrived seminarian, to lock his bedroom door at night to avoid “visitors.” “I thought they were kidding – they really weren’t,” he said. Another priest told CNA that, as a senior seminarian and transitional deacon, young seminarians would come to him in tears. “They were just so scandalized by what they saw, these upperclassmen flagrantly carrying on with each other in gay relationships.” A third priest says that these seminarians were frequently visited by other priests of the diocese, some of whom he later saw at the rectory cocktail parties. “There was definitely a group of, well I guess we’re calling them ‘uncles’ now. They would come by to visit with the effeminate crowd, bring them stuff and take them out,” he said. One priest told CNA that, in his judgment, many of Newark’s priests felt resigned to that culture, even after McCarrick left. “It is so horrible, so repulsive, no one wants to look straight at it,” one priest said. “You don’t want to see it and at the same time you can’t miss it.” Another told CNA that among diocesan authorities “there is a huge culture of toleration.” “It is generational at this point. In seminary you’re told to mind your own business, keep your head down and not start trouble - they are over there doing whatever and you leave them to it. And then you’re ordained and it is the same story - you don’t win prizes for picking fights.” Nevertheless, some cases still have the power to shock. One Newark priest told CNA that he had direct knowledge that Fr. Mark O’Malley was in 2014 removed as rector of St. Andrew’s Hall, the archdiocesan college seminary, after an allegation that he hid a camera in the bedroom of a young priest at the seminary. Two additional Newark priests independently reported to CNA they had been informed in 2014 that O’Malley had been removed for that reason. Additional sources close to the archdiocese confirmed that they had heard this allegation, with one characterizing it as a kind of open secret among Newark’s priests. The Archdiocese of Newark announced in 2014 that O’Malley was seeking a ”medical leave of absence.” He has since returned to ministry, albeit not in a parish setting. The archdiocese declined to comment on that allegation. All three priests who relayed the story said incidents like that embittered them. “It isn’t that a guy did a bad thing - that happens. It’s that it’s just not acknowledged. Everybody talks about it, everybody knows, but nobody looks right at it,” one of the priests said. All six Newark priests CNA spoke to expressed hope that the sexual abuse scandals now embroiling the Church will lead to change. Several stressed that reforms of the seminary had already begun by the end of Myers’ term in office, and that a recent succession of diocesan vocations directors had imposed newly rigorous standards on prospective seminary candidates. “When I was sent for graduate studies I heard the jokes from guys from other dioceses - ‘what the world disdains, Newark ordains’ they’d say. Those days are over and that’s a real comfort to me,” one priest said. As for the problems with priests already in ministry, the priests agreed it was demoralizing, for priests and lay Catholics alike. One said that priests living unfaithful lives are a scandal playing out “with the mute button on.” “Our people aren’t stupid. They know who their pastors are, for good and bad. They know who drinks too much, they know if their priest is celibate or not. But they see nothing is done about it and they understand that the Church doesn’t mean what it says, or even care.” Another told CNA, “nobody is fooled by the medical leave thing anymore. I’m terrified I might actually get sick, my parishioners would probably think I’d done something terrible.” One priest said that expectations of change were raised during the brief tenure of Archbishop Bernard Hebda, appointed in 2013 to be Myers’ coadjutor archbishop, his successor-in-waiting. Hebda chose to live in a dormitory at Seton Hall University and was a frequent sight around the archdiocesan seminaries. He was also reported to make unannounced visits to parishes, suddenly knocking at the back doors of rectories or sliding in to a back pew at Sunday Mass. In 2015, before Hebda could become Newark’s archbishop, he was asked to serve as apostolic administrator of Minneapolis- St. Paul, in the wake of Archbishop John Nienstedt’s resignation. Hebda was appointed Nienstedt’s permanent replacement in 2016. “He wasn’t kidding around. You could tell he wanted to know everything, who was who and what was what - and who was into what,” one pastor who received a surprise visit from Hebda told CNA. Newark priests told CNA that they are still waiting to see what changes Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who became Archbishop of Newark in 2017, will bring to the archdiocese. Sources in the Newark chancery describe the cardinal as reserved, eager to listen to suggestions and proposals, but unwilling to be drawn into making decisions quickly. Meanwhile, in parishes the priests of Newark wait to see, wondering if the current crises might bring about change. “You hope that at some point the cardinal will act, that there will be nothing left to lose by acting, but we will see.” Update: On Aug. 17, after the publication of this story, a representative of the Archdiocese of Newark provided this statement to Catholic News Agency: “The priest who had worked at St. Andrew’s College was going through a personal crisis and received therapy after the incident at the seminary. Although he is not serving as a pastor, he has been deemed fit for priestly ministry and hopes to serve as a hospital chaplain.” “No one – including the anonymous ‘sources’ cited in the article – has ever spoken to Cardinal Tobin about a “gay sub-culture” in the Archdiocese of Newark.”
Finally someone brings about the case of capital punishment for priests that have sexually abused children. CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE SEX ABUSE CRISIS Many sense that the hierarchy’s rejection of capital punishment and their complacency about clergy sexual abuse are not unconnected. What I want to say on the matter falls under three headings: separation; vengeance; and protection. All of these serve to distinguish justice, which the Church should uphold, from mere “regulatory compliance,” which seems the main thing on offer right now from our bishops. First, separation. There is a fundamental connection between punishment and separation from the community in which one committed a crime. Children who misbehave at table are sent to their rooms. Dishonest lawyers are disbarred. Someone who commits a mortal sin loses friendship with God and must be “reconciled” to return to the communion of the saints. Likewise a criminal, by the very act of committing a capital crime, separates himself decisively from society. The sentences of exile and life imprisonment are public judgments which are understood to confirm that separation. Capital punishment is the extreme instance of separation. It follows that it always remains a possibility that capital punishment be prudentially justified, namely, when society wishes to express and confirm its abhorrence for certain crimes, by the definitive separation of the criminal from society. A clear example would be the execution of the Nuremberg war criminals. These criminals were not merely executed, but also their mortal remains were cremated and the ashes scattered. Why? So that they would in no sense continue to abide as a presence in society. Today many communities reasonably want to separate serial murderers from themselves in the same way. Thus, an attitude which absolutely opposes the death penalty, in all circumstances, must be an attitude which downplays or even rejects the aspect of separation, so fundamental to punishment. From that point of view even imprisonment, as it is a separation, can appear suspect. For instance, Pope Francis, in his 2015 letter to the President of the International Commission against the Death Penalty, writing as pope and not as a private theologian, condemned as “unacceptable” not merely the death penalty but also lengthy prison sentences. Separation, he contended, ought never be definitive, and lengthy prison sentences “may be considered hidden death sentences, because with them the guilty party is not only deprived of his/her freedom, but insidiously deprived of hope.” So then, what happens when a bishop who denies that punishment of itself implies separation, and is grieved by the very thought of definitive separation, is confronted with cases of clergy sexual crimes? In the pages of the Pennsylvania grand jury report, one sees repeated instances of bishops unwilling to separate offending priests from priestly ministry. When Donald Wuerl celebrated the funeral mass of one of the accused men, he remarked to the press, “A priest is a priest. Once he is ordained, he is a priest forever.” This is true, but there seems a structural similarity between the idea that, on account of his priestly dignity, we cannot separate a priest definitively from ministry, and the idea that, on account of his human dignity, we cannot separate the criminal definitively from society. This reluctance to separate offending priests has often been blamed on a “clubbish” mentality and more recently on “clericalism.” But could it in fact stem from a lack of a sense of justice? As a Catholic father, I say without hesitation that a priest who, for instance, goes into the room of a young man in the middle of the night to start stroking the young man’s penis (as described in the Pennsylvania report) should be defrocked. Second, vengeance. As St. Thomas observes—merely summarizing two millennia of human wisdom—vengeance, the habit of soul by which we earnestly wish that offenders receive due punishment, is a virtue, not a vice. No one can genuinely possess the cardinal virtue of justice if he lacks the minor, though essential, virtue of vengeance. But is vengeance contrary to gospel meekness? The good bear with the wicked by enduring patiently, and in due manner, the wrongs they themselves receive from them: but they do not bear with them as to endure the wrongs which the wicked inflict on God and their neighbor. For Chrysostom says: “It is praiseworthy to be patient under our own wrongs, but to overlook God’s wrongs is most wicked.” To apply this to the case at hand: It would be wicked for a bishop to “endure patiently” a priest who goes into a young man’s room at night to stroke his member. Continues here https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/capital-punishment-and-the-sex-abuse-crisis
Let's read between the lines here. What this statement really says is that the gay subculture is so well established, so well known, so well protected, that nobody will do a damn thing to stop it and everyone knows it. That good priests know well not to bring up the issue because they will be persecuted, reassigned, and ostracized if they become insistent. You don't become a Cardinal while not knowing what is happening in the Church. Remarks like this are evasive and legalistic.
Yes; it sounds like any Big Institution; 'The Problem is not the Problem; the Problem is the people who report the Problem. Shut up the people who report the Problem and...Problem solved'. They have been doing this for decdes now. They're still doing it. https://stream.org/cardinal-tobin-is-mirroring-george-soros-talking-points/ Cardinal Tobin is Mirroring George Soros’ Talking Points Flickr/World Economic Forum and Franco Origlia/Getty Images By John Zmirak Published on July 12, 2017 • 23 Comments John Zmirak Two reports appeared of a U.S. cardinal, Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, trash-talking Americans to the foreign press. On the Fourth of July. The Pope Francis-appointee delivered his smack-down in an interview with the French newspaper La Croix. Before the final French elections, that paper featured a love-fest of bishops, priests and nuns. Each endorsed pro-abortion, anti-marriage open-borders socialist Emmanuel Macron. This week it gave Tobin the chance to apologize to Frenchmen. For what? The ignorance and bigotry of Americans who voted for Donald Trump. Christopher Manion wrote in The Wanderer that Tobin condemned what he called “an exaggerated patriotism in the United States,” resonating the tone of Barack Obama’s denunciation of America’s “aggressive nationalism” just two days before. The cardinal used the interview to broadcast his sustained vilification of voters who opposed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. “I think President Trump is appealing to the dark side of Americans,” he insists. In fact, his disdain goes so far that, just after the election, he detoured from his text at Notre Dame pointedly to mock personally the evangelical faith of Vice President Mike Pence, a fallen-away Catholic…. Before Pope Francis, he explains, the backward leaders of the American Church “were very marked by John Paul II,” and as a result “many Americans have moved away from the Catholic Church or do not find the meaning they seek because they perceive it as rigid.” The “Queer Christ” Manion continues: After this curious interpretation of post-Vatican II history, America’s newest cardinal lost no time making it clear just what peripheries he was open to in what his fans at The New York Times cheered as the “shifting church.” In May, he convened a special celebration to welcome “lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Catholics” to his cathedral. As The Stream reported, the mass Tobin sponsored was led by Rev. Francis Gargani, C.Ss.R. That priest gives retreats to a gay activist group that recommends as a spiritual resource the book Queer Christ. It’s okay to call Jesus Christ “queer.” But it’s “dark” and “dangerous” to insist that immigration laws be enforced. Immigration Laws Are “Dangerous” Thomas Williams wrote more at Breitbart about Tobin’s message to the French: “Donald Trump is a businessman. He says he’s always looking to close a deal,” the Cardinal said. “The bishops must beware of him, because he tells them that he will be against abortion, that he won’t force them to pay for contraception, and in return, he asks for silence concerning his disrespectful remarks toward others or on the deportation of migrants. It’s dangerous.” “We, American Catholics, are a Church of migrants. We have always pleaded their cause,” he said. Acts of Grave Depravity So let’s get this straight. It’s okay to call Jesus Christ “queer.” But it’s “dark” and “dangerous” to insist that immigration laws be enforced. That’s funny, because as a Catholic I use the church’s Catechism as the guide to what we believe. And here is what the Catechism teaches about homosexual activity: Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. (2357) And here is what it says about the duties of would-be immigrants: Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens (2241). [Emphasis added.] Tobin’s Links to Soros So Tobin pooh-poohs the fact that President Trump will protect innocent human life and religious liberty. Because in his opinion the president uses “disrespectful” language. And he wants to enforce immigration laws. Which U.S. voters elected him to do. Cardinal Tobin is mirroring George Soros’ favorite talking points. Cardinal Tobin is mirroring George Soros’ favorite talking points. As we revealed here at The Stream, the Latin American leftist group PICO took $650,000 from Soros’ foundations to spin Pope Francis’ U.S. visit as a campaign whistle stop tour for Hillary Clinton. Soros’s pro-choice “Catholic” groups were exposed in the Wikileaks documents as trying to collude with the Clinton campaign. Their goal? To foster a “Catholic spring” to overthrow the “Middle Ages dictatorship” that is the church. Some front groups sponsored by that pro-choice atheist billionaire have worked closely with U.S. bishops. Soros’ pet group PICO co-sponsored the February event in Modesto, California where 24 U.S. bishops (including Tobin) pledged to “disrupt” Trump’s policies. That included a plan to use Catholic church properties to help illegal immigrants evade American law. Tithe to Iraq or Syria Instead Catholics in Tobin’s archdiocese face an ugly dilemma. Their shepherd, the heir of the apostles in their area, is leading souls astray. He prefers radical politics to the teachings of his own Church. If I were a Catholic in Newark, I would express myself in the only way open to me: I would cut off all financial support to the diocese. I’d send the money instead to brave, faithful bishops who choose persecution over apostasy, in places like Iraq and Syria.
Christ have mercy..... this stinks. I am glad some priests have spoken to the press. This needs to get out.
Well said Padraig! The problem is not the problem...ad nauseum...I think cutting off financial support to any papal initiative or USCCB collection is a good place to start.
Yes, I am afraid I must agree, the money will now be used to evil, rather than good. Cut of the life blood to the cancers within.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pope-francis-failed-letter-abuse/ Pope Francis’s Failed Abuse Letter By Rod Dreher • August 20, 2018, 11:07 AM Giulio Napolitano/Shutterstock Pope Francis today released a 2,000-word letter about the abuse scandal, directed . to all Catholics. Read the full text here. If you are new to this story, the letter sounds great. This excerpt, for example, is quite good: In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: “he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite. With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christ’s betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25)” (Ninth Station). If I had not been following this story closely for years, I would be comforted by this epistle. Here’s why you should not be. It’s very late in the game for this or any Pope to think that words alone are credible. Pope John Paul II said similar things when clerical sexual abuse was exposed … but the status quo remained. Pope Benedict XVI was significantly more active in fighting the culture of abuse, but bad bishops remained in place. (The rumor is that when he was presented with a dossier detailing the extent of homosexuality in the Roman Curia, he resigned when he realized that he was powerless to combat it.) And now we have Francis, who releases a torrent of good words, but whose deeds, to this point, do not match them. First, about those words. This brave priest has taken accurate measurement of them: Fr. Dwight Longenecker @dlongenecker1 The Pope's letter to the People of God: 1. Lays most of the emphasis on caring for victims 2. Spreads the blame to "all of us." 3. Glosses over egregious episcopal crimes 4. Never mentions homosexuality. Of course we must do everything we can for the victims of clerical abuse, but the exclusive focus on the victims is a slick PR stunt to shift attention away from the abusers and their enablers. 11:53 AM - Aug 20, 2018
Exactly right. Exactly. Now, to the Pope’s deeds. Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s resignation has been on Pope Francis’s desk for two years. All Catholic bishops formally resign at age 75, but the pope does not have to accept it. The only thing keeping the disgraced Wuerl in office in Washington is the will of Pope Francis. As long as Donald Wuerl presides over the Archdiocese of Washington, you will know that the pope’s words are empty. Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, one of the pope’s inner circle of advisers, and indeed the one tasked with leading curial reform, presides over a massive gay sex scandal in his own diocese. Cardinal Maradiaga has denied that it’s a problem. A Maradiaga auxiliary bishop, the one running the diocese, had to resign after being plausibly accused of having a string of boyfriends — and Maradiaga reportedly defended the corrupt bishop to the hilt during the Vatican’s investigation. And despite losing the gay Bishop Pineda, Cardinal Maradiaga has strengthened his position in the Curia. More: In subsequent comments to LifeSiteNews, Pentin quoted one of the sources as saying that he predicted four consequences of this appointment. First, the Vatican will remove the current nuncio, Tanzanian Archbishop Novatus Rugambwa, who has been a stalwart in strongly resisting the corruption and scandal in the Tegucigalpa archdiocese. “Rodriguez Maradiaga doesn’t like him, as he’s the only one capable of saying the right thing and implementing it,” said the source. A second consequence the source predicted is that Rodriguez Maradiaga, 75, will “secure his reign for another five years.” A third outcome is that once everything has calmed down, “he will bring back Pineda, converting him into the next archbishop of Tegucigalpa.” And finally, the source predicted the cardinal will “maintain the privilege of continuing to appoint bishops of his choice who will always be his slaves.” “Ultimately, the whim of a homosexual (Pineda) determines the choices of an entire church,” the source said. “It makes one vomit. He will do everything that Maradiaga asks him to do.” Meanwhile, over the past two decades, the Catholic population in Honduras has been halved, with masses either leaving the Church for Evangelicalism or Pentecostalism, or leaving the practice of Christianity entirely. The cardinal is on the speaker’s line-up for this weekend’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin: Tenderness my foot. Where is the Pope’s “tenderness” for the 50 or so seminarians in Tegucigalpa who put their futures on the line by writing a letter protesting the gay sex culture in Cardinal Maradiaga’s seminary, and begging the country’s bishops for help? Cardinal Maradiaga is 75, and has presumably submitted his formal resignation to the Pope. The only thing keeping him in power in Honduras (and in Rome) is the will of Pope Francis. As long as Maradiaga — who once blamed Jews for the 2002 clerical sex scandal in the US — remains in power, you will know that the pope’s words are empty. And so on. To be fair, Francis has done some good things on this front, like accepting the resignation of three Chilean bishops implicated by the gay sex abuse scandal rocking that country’s church. But he had to be dragged into acting in that case, after long rebuffing victims. [UPDATE: He also agreed to remove McCarrick from ministry, and to take away his cardinal rank. But if he really cared, he would be moving heaven and earth to uncover how McCarrick got away with his corruption and deceit for so long. Taking away his red hat — so what? — RD] It is nice to have strong words from the Pope, but as Father Longenecker says, pay attention not only to what Francis says, but what he does not say. And, in the end, deeds are the only thing that count at this point. Catholics have heard strong words from popes and bishops for 16 years, and yet, here is the Church in 2018, its moral credibility shattered. Ordinary Catholics — priests and laity alike — surely know that if rescue is going to come, it’s going to have to come from them. Posted in Christianity. Tagged sex abuse, Pope Francis, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga.
'Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past,' Pope Francis "These charges date back decades and decades'. Cardinal Wuerl
This is disgusting. Not to mention bordering on human sex trafficking using the Church as a means to do it.
If Pres. Trump has his way and enforces his executive order against human trafficking I wonder if the Church finds its resources seized. That’s what the EO allows. This gets very dicey.
Some important excerpts: -Church Militant has learned that a clandestine pipeline for homosexual seminarians was established in the 1990s and into the early 2000s where active gay men from Colombia, South America were being secretly funneled to U.S. seminaries. -Church Militant has also confirmed with official sources that various U.S. bishops were aware of this, but turned a blind eye so they could keep their vocation numbers artificially high. -Multiple sources, along with former seminarians — fed up with the cover-ups — led Church Militant to Fr. John Lavers, called in to head up a top-level investigation which then discovered the existence of the seminarian pipeline. -Seminarians who had actually been expelled from various Colombian seminaries for homosexual activity were quietly told that they should find their way to the American "discernment" house if they wanted a ticket to gay-friendly seminaries in the United State. -All they had to do was go to the house, pass a sexual test with one or more American priests and then begin the process to receive a visa to the United States for further seminary training. -In the United States, they were distributed throughout a number of U.S. seminaries along the eastern seaboard, and again, an independent investigation has confirmed various bishops came to know of this and did nothing. more at the link above...
The pus that is oozing out of this cancer is vile. It is shocking what Donahue said and implied. One fears who is now pulling the strings. May God help us.
