I’m just posting this to continue the discussion, not necessarily because I agree with everything here: https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-pennsylvania-truth-john-xxiii-paul.html The Pennsylvania Truth: John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints Another week and another massive scandal in the American Church. The following is an appropriate summary of the final Report of the Grand Jury investigation of the "widespread sexual abuse of children in six dioceses of the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania": The investigation captured widespread sexual abuse and institutional cover up across the entire state. Building on investigations of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and the Philadelphia Archdiocese by previous grand juries, the 40th Statewide Grand Jury’s investigation covered the other Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton, giving a complete picture of pervasive abuse in dioceses across Pennsylvania. The grand jury found: -301 Catholic priests identified as predator priests who sexually abused children while serving in active ministry in the church. -Detailed accounts of over 1,000 children victimized sexually by predator priests, with the grand jury noting it believed the real number of victims was in the “thousands.” -Senior church officials, including bishops, monsignors and others, knew about the abuse committed by priests, but routinely covered it up to avoid scandal, criminal charges against priests, and monetary damages to the dioceses. -Priests committed acts of sexual abuse upon children, and were routinely shuttled to other parishes – while parishioners were left unaware of sexual predators in their midst. The 884-page grand jury report documents scores of sexual assaults and rapes of children by priests, and the institutional cover ups that followed by senior church officials, including: here. *** The greatest part of the horrid episodes documented by the Grand Jury report happened in the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. Some happened before. But as the Church "opened itself to the world", according to the desire of John XXIII, worldly behaviors infiltrated the Church more and more. The horrid episodes represent only what could be found in just six dioceses of one state of one country: the putrefaction runs wide and deep. How could John XXIII and John Paul II have been canonized? Their systematic failures in the naming of bishops were monstrous. How can Francis dare beatify and now canonize Paul VI, one of the worst popes in history, whose nominations throughout the world, and in the United States, managed to make what was bad truly awful? Let us be honest: as administrators, John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II were no saints. They may have been validly included in the list of saints, but their express-rite canonizations are shown, with each passing week, to have been horrible mistakes. A considerable period of time time and long investigations of their grave omissions and of their disgraceful cover-up of perverted or irresponsible bishops should have taken place before any beatification procedure had ever been opened up. The centralization of the administration of the Church went much deeper in their pontificates. They assumed the responsibility for each of these small faithful. They diluted the responsibility of bishops by encouraging and engorging the useless bureaucracies of the bishops' conferences. These little faithful, the children who were abused, were also THEIR failures, the failures of each one of them (and also of preceding and succeeding popes in a lesser degree, but these are either living or have not been beatified or canonized). The time will surely come in the future to reassess these failed pontificates and to do all that is possible to reevaluate these hasty procedures, in which so much pain and so much failure and so much corruption were overlooked.
Being aware of something and being able to stop it and being directly responsible are three different things. Sexual abuse is horrible and ruins lives, robs victims of faith, hope, and charity, and destroys joy. But to make the kind of judgements that the article above does are not wise. It is one thing to rightly call sexual abuse horrible and evil, but another to infer that Pope John Paul II should not have been canonized.
A pope is unable to stop abuse of which he’s been made aware?!? He’s THE POPE. If he knew about it yet did nothing, he’s morally and legally complicit. At least, whether it’s just or not, this is what the world is going to say; that the Church, because of Her beliefs and discipline, is complicit in pedophilia. We’re on the cusp of this charge going viral on a global scale and as a result, the Church will appear to be in eclipse. It’s happening as we speak. We better be ready for the worst of the storm to be upon us soon.
Well, you prefaced your post by saying that you didn’t necessarily agree with everything in it. I thought that was odd. No offense, but you never referred to what it was you disagreed with. Now we know. And I still say it’s like telling an alcoholic to stop drinking. Agreed, he was the Pope, but what would you have had him to do? Remember, it was a different time then, different people. The civil laws would have covered the crimes, yes, but I know from personal experience that people dismiss the severity of the crime. (Personal respect, attachment to sin?) The St Luke Institute was built right next to my high school alma mater. I knew at least one of the clients there, only I did not know it, if that makes any sense. And I do agree with you, the Church is appearing to be in eclipse. I am standing on the Rock, however. hindsight is 20-20 I know I will probably get a backlash from this attitude, but this destruction was prophesied in the Scriptures. It’s a blessing that we have the grace to remain with the remnant Church. The timing of all of this is God’s. And it remains God’s even if those popes were culpable. I wonder if the author of that article had read the criteria upon which the Causes for Canonization were based. I am aware that there will be some articles coming out which are hastily researched.
Regardless of our personal opinions, the world is going to twist this current crisis into a vicious club, with which they’re going to beat ALL the pope’s since JXXIII, without exception, regardless of what the Church says about their sanctity. Gird your loins and get yourself psychologically and spiritually ready for very difficult times ahead.
Up until they changed the process of making saints, I would have agreed with you to the point of shedding blood to defend them. Now? Not so much... I’m not referring to St. JPII. I’ve had dreams after he died were we took long walks together in the wilderness, and wept together over the situation in the world. I have devotion to him as a saint. Yet I still question how all this was allowed to occur during his pontificate.
The politics of the Vatican are huge. Many things can be kept away from the Holy Father. You probably have four layers of bureaucracy before anything even gets to the Pope. Also, every Holy Father is different...some focus on evangelization while the other might focus on teaching and writing. Probably non of them enjoy or even pay attention to human resources. Brian, guys like you hurt the church. You are so focused on the evil...you hurt the church. To blame John Paul the 2nd. Too much in my book. Do we have evil in the church...yes we do. But do we have saints...more then you even know. Brother al
Maybe I wasn’t clear enough, and maybe you aren’t paying attention. I just got finished saying I don’t question the sanctity of St. JPII or his sainthood. I’m trying to warn MOG members that right or wrong, the world is going to hang responsibility for the crimes of these churchmen around the necks of our popes, from JXXIII to the present, and it will quickly go viral and be on a global scale. It will seem a legitimate charge, and even Catholics will take up this refrain. And the Church will suffer persecution as a result, and will appear to be in eclipse. In reality, St. JPII was warned about McCarrick, and he made him a Cardinal any way. This is simple fact. We are now going to have to answer for that. THAT and many acts like it is what has hurt the Church, not my puny little efforts here.
And you are warning us...we will be persecuted. How very profound of you. Of course we will be persecuted. "Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death." It's just that you are so negative ...you seem to want to destroy the church. Almost excited about the sins of the church. MOG has grown dark by your shadow. I still remember (I think it was you) when you tried taking over MOG. You wanted to throw out members that didn't think like you. We lost some very holy men because of your nonsense. MOG has been hurt by your continuous accusations. And YES you did say JP2 was not a saint and then changed your opinion in your next post. I am just tired of your continuous negativity. I see the homosexuality and the pedophilia and it hurts my soul. But you are pushing a dark plague. Who ever reads your posts would not even think your Catholic. I will say it...you are either all in or it's time for you to walk away. And if you are trying to take people with you...then May God forgive you. May Gods Will be Done
Only God knows what JPII and John XXIII knew and how prudent their decisions where based on what they knew (not on what we know now). Really, only God. We are in no place to judge them. Also at that time, this massive pedofile abuses were totally outside what anyone, but specially a saintly priest, could even fathon to imagine - they had no precedent in history. You really need to have a dark imagination to believe that underneath so and so Bishop in so so diocese there is a massive machine of child sex abuse going on. Of course, cases of abuse have always existed in the Church but were very very few, and when they happened, during some periods of the Church, priest were publicly executed. Maybe the Church to be credible again, should really bring back death penalty for priests that abuse and perpetual imprisonement for bishops that cover up. I really think scandalizing children in such a way is worse than murdering someone - their penance has to be their whole life. But horrendous things can happen under many saintly popes and bishops, just like they can happen under deans of schools or CEOs, it does not make the leaders responsible for the crimes of the people that work in their organizations. Otherwise no pope or bishop would have ever ever been a saint.
Thank you Jarg...and this modern technology (internet & 24 hour news) is only about 20 or 25 years old. JP2 and before...were all letters. I bet even Our Holy Father Benedict wasn't very tech Savvy. Our Holy Father Francis might be the first real Pope that has a understanding of the Internet. It's time for us to be real careful about the things we say. I believe the safest spot in this madness is the Catholic Church. And if I die protecting her...may God know I tried following his call. Only God will Judge... not Brian. "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it," (Matt. 16:18). May God Bless Us All
No, I most definitely did NOT say JPII was not a saint. When I posted the article above, I specifically prefaced it by saying, I’m just posting this to continue the discussion, not necessarily because I agree with everything here:However, I wanted to warn MOG that the article is an emerging “consensus” and to be ready for it. It’s @padraig ‘s site. If he agrees with your nonsense, I’ll gladly leave.
Here it comes: https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/08/15/us/pennsylvania-catholic-sex-abuse-vatican/ Critics slam Vatican's 'disturbing' silence on abuse cover-ups (CNN) — The Vatican has declined to respond to an explosive grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and cover-ups by priests and bishops in Pennsylvania, refusing even to say whether church officials in Rome have read the damaging documents. "We have no comment at this time," Paloma Ovejero, deputy director of the Vatican's press office, said Wednesday. But in the United States and elsewhere, pressure is mounting on Pope Francis to address a rapidly escalating crisis that has spread across several continents, from Australia to Latin America. In the United States, both liberal and conservative Catholics displayed a rare unity in pressing the Pope to respond to the Pennsylvania grand jury report. "The silence from the Vatican is disturbing," said Massimo Faggioli, a theology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. "I don't think the Pope necessarily has to say something today. He needs time to understand the situation. But someone from the Vatican should say something."
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/cardinal-mccarrick-sex-abuse-protectors/ a group of Americans — one priest (not Ramsey) and eight prominent laymen — were so concerned about the possibility that McCarrick would be moved to Washington that they traveled at their own expense to Rome to warn the Congregation for Clergy about McCarrick’s abuse. ... At least one priest warned the Vatican against the appointment. The Rev. Boniface Ramsey said that when he was on the faculty at the Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in New Jersey from 1986 to 1996, he was told by seminarians about Archbishop McCarrick’s sexual abuse at the beach house. When Archbishop McCarrick was appointed to Washington, Father Ramsey spoke by phone with the pope’s representative in the nation’s capital, Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, the papal nuncio, and at his encouragement sent a letter to the Vatican about Archbishop McCarrick’s history. We love St. JPII, but it does no one any good to falsely claim he was not aware of abuse. I despise this source, but I know from other sources that these allegations are credible. https://www.ncronline.org/news/acco...l-ii-could-have-intervened-abuse-crisis-didnt Records show that John Paul II could have intervened in abuse crisis - but didn't .... George Weigel claimed there was an information gap between the United States and the Holy See in 2002. This is nonsense. There was no gap then, and there was no gap in 1984, when the abuse issue boiled to the surface of public awareness. I was working at the Vatican embassy in 1984 and have firsthand experience of the transmission of information to the Vatican. The papal nuncio, Laghi, then an archbishop, received a letter in the summer of 1984 from the vicar general of Lafayette, La., telling him that a couple whose little boy had been violated by Gilbert Gauthe was suing Gauthe, the bishop, the diocese, the archbishop of New Orleans, the papal nuncio and the pope. Soon after, the nuncio received the official complaint. From then on, there was a constant flow of information from Lafayette to the nuncio and from another diocese that popped onto center stage for the same reason -- Providence, R.I. I was the conduit for most of the information and prepared daily memos for Archbishop Laghi. The usual procedure would have been to prepare a report for the Holy See, but that didn't happen at this stage. Laghi was on the phone to various officials in the Vatican, including the Secretariat of State, which is as good as going directly to the pope. In our conversations about the problem, and there were many, he frequently made statements such as, "I have talked to my superiors in Rome" or "My superiors in Rome" have said such and so. In late February, I suggested to the archbishop that we ask the Holy Father to appoint a U.S. bishop to go to the Lafayette diocese as a special investigator to both see firsthand what was going on and to try to put some order into what was a rapidly growing chaotic mess. I suggested the late Bishop A.J. Quinn of Cleveland. Although my intentions were good, he was a mistake. Before long, it became obvious that he was part of the problem and not part of the solution. Laghi agreed with my suggestion and asked me to prepare a report that would be attached to the request. The purpose of the report was to explain the situation in Louisiana. I quickly put together a report that was about 35 pages in length. It was detailed and factual, naming names and giving dates. It included the history of the cover-up as we knew it and a fairly graphic description of the harm done to the victims, a description based on some of the first medical reports I had received. The nuncio told me that this was an urgent matter and for that reason, he wanted the report to go directly to the pope and not through one of the Vatican congregations. The late Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia, a close friend of the pope, was leaving for Rome the following Monday. My orders were to get the report, signed by Laghi, to Krol by Sunday night. He had spoken with Laghi and had agreed to put it directly into the pope's hands. The report was sent by courier to Philadelphia. By Tuesday, it was before the pope, and by Thursday night, we had received a telex informing us that the pope had duly deputized Quinn as Laghi had requested. From then on through the spring of 1985, I continued to prepare memos for Laghi, who continued to report to his superiors in the Vatican. There were some written reports sent over, but I don't recall how many. Among the items sent was a copy of the now-infamous report prepared by the late Fr. Michael Peterson, Attorney Ray Mouton, and me. This was the same report that the officials of the bishops' conference said they didn't need because they knew everything that was in it. Fast forward to June, bypassing the famous Collegeville, Minn., meeting at which the bishops spent an entire day in executive session hearing about clergy sexual abuse but apparently learning nothing given the long-range outcome. In mid-June, as I recall, the late Cardinal Silvio Oddi visited the nunciature. At the time, he was prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. Oddi reminded me of the cartoon character "The Little King." He had a cardinalatial ring with a stone as big as a golf ball. He told Laghi that he wanted to hear about the sex abuse crisis. The nuncio told me to meet with the cardinal and brief him. I prepared a "briefing paper." This was June, and a lot had transpired since February. The nuncio had become aware of many more reports of sexual abuse by clergy from a number of different dioceses. I prepared my report and knew enough to be factual and detailed and, in some areas, graphically explicit. Oddi sat for about two hours while I in essence read the report, with occasional diversions to add more detail. Normally very affable, the good cardinal was clearly in a dark mood when I finished. He asked a number of pointed questions about both the abusers and the abused and wanted to know why the accused priests were not subjected to a canonical trial. I will never forget his closing comments. "I will speak of this to the Holy Father. We will have a meeting of the prefects of all the dicasteries [Vatican departments], and we will issue a decree!" Subsequent to his departure, I recall Laghi assuring me that something would be done because Oddi would report to the pope. Whatever happened is anyone's guess. There was no decree, and even if there had been, it would have been useless. This was in 1985, not 2002. It is hard to believe that this pope, who was supposed to be one of the smartest men alive at the time, could not have understood the gravity of significant numbers of priests raping and violating little children. The excuse that he did nothing because of his "purity of thought" is as ridiculous as the excuse that he wanted to preserve the priesthood for which he held such high esteem. A version of this story appeared in the May 9-22, 2014 print issue under the headline: Victims' advocate disputes defense of John Paul . In This Series Advertisement
You are 100% correct, Brian. JoeJerk's plan is to DESTROY the Church. In fact, I believe he is gleeful over this exposure. He knows his time is short. In one sense the exposure helps reality to set in, but the devil probably assumes he is ahead of the curve and can now bring the full weight of the State against the Bride of Christ. The Roman Empire brought it's full weight against the Church in the first three centuries and lost; but, there were tons of martyrdoms. It will be so again. The days are at hand my friends. Are you ready to lay your life down for love of Jesus? The Desolation of Abomination may be closer than we realize. The evil one only needs a spark to ignite persecution worldwide. Could this affair be the spark? Let us remain faithful and bare our hearts for Christ! Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!
