AmericanPapist Comments
Sigh. What is there to say. What a horrible scar this has placed upon the church. I want to think that the Church is going to better for all this scandal and unmasked evil....and most times I believe it.
Why not file? The Church can probably always volunteer a settlement if there is a credible, egregious case. But for this action, the Diocese would be subject to years and years of litigation, expense, and a serious distraction from their primary mission. And ultimately, it's the laity that will pay the bills not some phantom.I hope I'm not sounding cold-hearted. Post bankruptcy there is no bar from claims which arise thereafter. What the public fails to recognize (because the MSM NEVER educates readers) is that charities until the late 1960s and early 1970s were generally immune from civil suit for these types of claims, i.e. charitable immunity. The individual priest would not have been, but the Church would have been. Tom
From what I understand this is all due to a "window" created more or less to sue the Church in California well beyond the usual statues of limitation time. Maybe all the claims are in.
Ironically there are probably about 160 cases of sexual abuse of youths EVERY WEEK in the public school system of San Diego, and not over 50 years as in the case of the diocese.
I suggest try to settle the cases on a individual basis based upon credibility and egergiousness and real damage done. And put some street-wise lay Catholic people in the decision making roles as to who gets what. And definitely try to reconcile the alleged victims to the Church and to the Faith.
Yeah Michael, but school teachers get fired and go to jail, not suffled parish to parish by their bishops. That's a major difference.
That school teachers usually get fired isn't supported by research.
If you're lucky the offender gets his licensed revoked.
A quick google search brought up:
http://www.rd.com/content/
openCo...contentId=31756
http://www.post-gazette.com/
regi...31newabuse1.asp
Hoodlum never let's facts get in the way of Catholic bashing. Tom
Getting your license revoked is basically the death penalty of teaching. While not technically fired, you're unemployable in the field in the post NCLB era.
Well, you can always teach at Catholic schools, which are exempt from NCLB,like I plan to. :)
I am a long time from knowing current practices regarding student-teacher sexual matters, but I can say definitely that in the time frame of the priest abuse thing, 1962-1980 where I lived, the public school system was NOT JOHNNY-ON-THE-SPOT about these things. It moved but for tenured teachers this was not easy. I recall all too well Mr Lambert, my 6th grade teacher; a 29 year old single man teaching elementary school.
Now I would have hoped the bishops would have been better about this than other institutions public and private but it looks like many of them were not during this time frame.
Good news is that the whole priest abuse thing is for the most part dealt with but the problem of intergenerational sex is rampant in our overall society and its institutions.
Michael,
You don't seem to have a clue about what the issue is regarding the "Scandal" in the Catholic Church.
I recommend that you read the grand jury report released last year in Philadelphia about Cardinal Bevilacqua's admission that he knowingly transferred known pedophiles to distant locations. The link is: http://www.catholicsexabuse.com/
...and_Jury_Report
This is only one of scores, if not hundreds, of similar situations around the world.
The public schools have nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As far as I can tell, there is not a single public school in the United States where a Catholic bishop or chancery bureaucrat handles accusations of sex abuse.
Jay:
I read portions of the story about the Philadelphia grand jury with many opinions about this, but the only thing we do know for sure is that NO ONE was ever convicted with anything and NO ONE was even charged to any extent. ZIP! Now I am sure some bad things happened 30 years ago.
And of course no bishop or chancery bureaucrat handles accusations of abuse in public schools, that is not their jurisdiction. I think you are somewhat confused about who is responsible for what. Or maybe you are saying things just to muddy the waters.
What I am writing about here is that the bulk of the problems (not all of course, there is still much of the "Lavender Mafia" to root out) with the Catholic priest scandal is existentially over. Only the litigation by a combination of real, part-time, false, and imaginary largely middle-aged victims remain to keep it in play publically. The real present day horrific existential problem with pediphilia and sexual abuse is in other situations and groups that often use the 30 year old Catholic priest scandal to either divert attention from themselves or to use this as some sort of weapon in the ongoing culture war.
Peace be with you!
Michael,
Be assured, I am not the least bit confused about “who is responsible for what.” I worked five years as editor of a diocesan newspaper and saw the “Scandal” up close. I’ve done a fair amount of investigative reporting the last 15 years on what you call the “Lavender Mafia” for several national publications.
You appear to be dismissing the grievances of the victims who have sued the Church, and you seem to be boasting that in Philadelphia that two cardinals and an army of chancery priests for decades managed to keep pedophiles in action and out of prison. You wrote: “… the only thing we do know for sure is that NO ONE was ever convicted with anything and NO ONE was even charged to any extent. ZIP!”
Michael, THIS IS THE PROBLEM, and this problem lingers today, and this is why so many orthodox Catholics are unwilling to criticize the litigation by those you so cruelly dismiss as “real, part-time, false, and imaginary largely middle-aged” victims.
I suspect you did not read even the first page of the Grand Jury report. If you did, well, geez, I’d say people like you are the main reason the Catholic Church is being sued all over the country. You just don’t get it.
The FIRST PAGE of the Grand Jury report state plainly that:
1) There were “dozens of priests” who should have been charged with crimes. But they did not get charged because the top officials of the Church were engaged in obstruction of justice.
Here’s the pertinent paragraph in the report: “But the biggest crime of all is this: it worked. The abuser priests, by choosing children as targets and trafficking on their trust, were able to prevent or delay reports of their sexual assaults, to the point where applicable statutes of limitations expired. And Archdiocese officials, by burying those reports they did receive and covering up the conduct, similarly managed to outlast any statutes of limitation, As a result, these priests and officials will necessarily escape criminal prosecution. We surely would have charged them if we could have done so.
2) Michael, I really don’t think you read the report. I can’t imagine someone who reads the “American Papist” blog site could be as brain-dead or as unsympathetic to the victims as your comments indicate. The offenses were real, almost beyond belief really, and they were life-changing for the victims. Here’s what the Grand Jury said about the nature of the offenses:
“We should begin by making one thing clear. When we say abuse, we don't just mean “inappropriate touching” (as the Archdiocese often chose to refer to it). We mean rape. Boys who were raped orally, boys who were raped anally, girls who were raped vaginally. But even those victims whose physical abuse did not include actual rape — those who were subjected to fondling, to masturbation, to pornography — suffered psychological abuse that scarred their lives and sapped the faith in which they had been raised.
“These are the kinds of things that Arch
My commentary above was apparently too long for one posting, so here is the rest of it.
=============
“These are the kinds of things that Archdiocese priests did to children:
“A girl, 11 years old, was raped by her priest and became pregnant. The Father took her in for an abortion.
“A 5th-grader was molested by her priest inside the confessional booth.
“A teenage girl was groped by her priest while she lay immobilized in traction in a hospital bed. The priest stopped only when the girl was able to ring for a nurse.
“A boy was repeatedly molested in his own school auditorium, where his priest/teacher bent the boy over and rubbed his genitals against the boy until the priest ejaculated.
“A priest, no longer satisfied with mere pederasty, regularly began forcing sex on two boys at once in his bed.
“A boy woke up intoxicated in a priest's bed to find the Father sucking on his penis while three other priests watched and masturbated themselves,
“A priest offered money to boys in exchange for sadomasochism — directing them to place him in bondage, to “break” him, to make him their “slave,” and to defecate so that he could lick excrement from them.
“A 12-year-old, who was raped and sodomized by his priest, tried to commit suicide, and remains institutionalized in a mental hospital as an adult.
“A priest told a 12-year-old boy that his mother knew of and had agreed to the priest's repeated rape of her son.
“A boy who told his father about the abuse his younger brother was suffering was beaten to the point of unconsciousness. “Priests don't do that,” said the father as he punished his son for what he thought was a vicious lie against the clergy.”
AND FINALLY, Michael, I’ve spoken to victims of priest-rapists, and can say with absolute certainty that the oft-quoted claim that what they want first and foremost is “justice” is quite correct. In 1993 I talked to several victims from Canada, and this was nine years before the Boston story broke. They said they DID NOT WANT any money and had no intention of filing any lawsuits. ALL THEY WANTED was for the bishop to acknowledge the rapes they suffered, and an apology. As of that date – and this was after the film “The Boys of St. Vincent” had been aired in Canada -- the bishop refused to even acknowledge the problem.
The bishops have brought on the lawsuits and the bankruptcy of whole diocese themselves, by their never-ending lies and breath-taking arrogance. No to mention clearly illegal obstruction of justice.
So Michael, one quick question. If you agree, as you write in your first paragraph, “Now I am sure some bad things happened 30 years ago,” don’t you think that the priests and bishops who were involved in the cover-up should all be removed from administrative authority? That would mean about 100 or more bishops right now.
Or, if you don’t agree that these guys should be removed, what do you think should be done, nothing?
-- end of post --
I hope that no one supports bishops or archbishops that have been connected with this scandal. The worst part is, is that we will never really know what was actually happening and will at best only be able to hint that so-so bishop of this place was firmly entrenched in filth and evil. See the Archbishop in Cincinatti. At a sermon last week, our priest asked us to donate to the diocesan fund, despite the Bishop's problems. Unfortunately, the Bishop's problems are indeed great. Jay is right, sadly.
Apherius,
I don't want to be argumentative, but we are talking about an extremely serious issue that is taking the Church to its very foundations. I don't want to see such matters glossed over lightly.
I think you are quite wrong when you say "we will never really know what was actually happening and will at best only be able to hint that so-so bishop of this place was firmly entrenched in filth and evil."
There are piles of court documents and even statements by bishops that they indeed did know that they were moving pedophiles from parish to parish. Some of this is documented at http://www.bishop-accountability.org/. Most of these bishops are still in office many have been promoted since then. I am convinced this is one of the reasons so many victims would prefer to settle for, say $1.5 million than a simple letter of apology.
In Michigan, when I was editor of the archdiocesan newspapers I was personally aware of circumstances involving one of the worst pedophiles in Detroit, Fr. Gerald Shirilla. The year was 1993, and I was horrified to learn that he was known as a CHILD abuser (altar boys in grade school) in 1980, and had even been removed from his post at Sacred Heart Seminary that same year by Bishop Walter Schoenherr. Yet, here it was 1993, and Shirilla was Director of Worship for the Archdiocese of Detroit.
He was removed from ministry in early 1993, but the archdiocese refused to reveal why. It was a big secret. I was editor of the archdiocesan paper and was expected to participate in the cardinal’s cover up. I had a major blowout with Maida when I told him (in a four-page single-space letter, hand delivered by me) that I wasn’t going to participate in any cover-up of Shirilla, and would not publish anything in the paper I personally did not know to be true. By that time I already knew that Shirilla had a lust for boys and one of them had commit suicide, and that Shirilla denied every single bit of evidence.
Finally, the archdiocese had to come clean seven months later, in October 1993, when a lawsuit was filed and the media told the world that the archdiocese had been protecting this cretin all this time. It made the front page of the Detroit News and was in all the major electronic media.
But, fully NINE YEARS LATER, ordinary folks were stunned when the Detroit Free Press revealed that Maida had secretly transferred this known pedophile in 2000 to St. Anne Church in Alpena, (in the adjacent Diocese of Gaylord, where Shirilla’s predecessor was bishop) which had an elementary school. Bishop Cooney of the Diocese of Gaylord told the media Maida agreed to the transfer, but Maida said he was opposed to it. It was a rare case of a bishop calling the other a liar.
Even after that transfer was made public in 2002, Maida did not remove Shirilla from the parish until AFTER the Detroit Free Press published a front-page account of three boys from a prominent family who all had been molested, for years, by Shi
Apherius,
Again my post is rather long. Here is the rest:
=======
Even after that transfer was made public in 2002, Maida did not remove Shirilla from the parish until AFTER the Detroit Free Press published a front-page account of three boys from a prominent family who all had been molested, for years, by Shirilla when they were in grade school.
So, Apherius, we now know that Cardinal Maida and Bishop Cooney SECRETLY moved this known molester to St. Anne Church, even though in 1993 Maida has been boasting that priests like Shirilla who had been removed from ministry by a very secret “review board” would NEVER be able to return to ministry again. He was flat-out lying.
Yet, despite the well-document lies and subterfuge of Bishop Cooney and Maida, both of them are still bishops with dioceses, and still having the ability to assign priests to parishes.
Worst of all, Msgr. Walter Hurley, the monsignor who was in charge of the “review board” that Maida claimed assured that priest-pedophiles would be permanently removed from ministry, claimed that he “disagreed” with the transfer of Shirilla. It took place anyway. What’s the point of a “review board” when the guy who runs it allows beasts like Shirilla to go to a parish with more young boys for him to rape? I seriously doubt Hurley has a conscience.
And guess what. Hurley was named a bishop of Grand Rapids only about two years after his treachery became known.
So, I ask anyone: Why has the Vatican has allowed all three of these men to have any administrative authority whatsoever in the Catholic Church, when their lies and deceit are so well documented IN THEIR OWN WORDS? Indeed, whey does the Vatican keep so many scores of other bishops who have been so deceitful in office? Why?
This is one reason why victims are so eager to sue the Catholic Church.
The saintly Fr. John Hardon, S.J., had much to say about the sex scandals. He went to Rome in 1994 to personally ask that the child-molesting Bishop Daniel Ryan be removed from office in Springfield, Ill., but was rebuffed by the Vatican. The Vatican claimed that Ryan was being supported by too many high-profile bishops in the U.S. and their hands were tied. Bishop Cardinal George actually told a layman (in ’94 or ’95) that if he went public about Bishop Ryan’s misdeeds, the Vatican would be all the more determined NOT to remove him from office. If that doesn’t speak of the most sick, demented corruption at high levels, I can’t think of anything much worse.
After this, Fr. Hardon often said publicly and from the pulpit, that the current hierarchy of the Church was “the most corrupt in history.”
So, take it from Fr. Hardon. Most of our bishops are NOT holy men, and they have lied very easily on the matter of priests raping children. We know who they are, but the Vatican refuses to remove them from authority.
In one sense, Catholics are being forced to use the secular courts to do the work that the Vatican won’t
Jay;
You post too much and you say too little.
Homosexual pederesty is on the verge of becoming mainstreamed in our society. That is the main problem. This is a "what". The issue you try to make is that the problem is not at all a "what" but only a "who". And I agree that there are problems in the priesthood and this is being taken care of, but not as fast as we would like.
People who are abused at a young age tend to think everyone abuses and therefore they think they see a lot that is not there, and so they often spin a psychic hysteria.
I lived through the 60's, 70's, and early 80's and saw and heard the rhetoric that made the scandal problem possible. I have no problem with the fact that the Church is an organism that suffers illness and this takes time and effort and the grace of God to deal with.
But it is oft said "what does not kill me will eventually strengthen me". The scandal will have a positive value in that it will and already has reformed much of the seminary practices and eventually the priesthood overall. Much fewer washouts into seminary training.
I often understand what an ancient saint- that the floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.
And I also know that almost all of the people who where truly egregiously involved with bulk of the problems in the past decades are now gone; gone from the ministry, gone form the Church or gone from this life. And if they ARE NOT GONE, they will be gone before long. So you should not have to worry, should you?
And last but not least I have much reason to believe that many of the most dramatizing critics of the whole scandal problem have their own sexual dysfunctional issues; like somehow this publicity is needed somehow to justify THEIR situation. If you be one of these people I would suggest you could contact Courage at couragerc.org or Narth at narth.com. Be neither a homophobe nor a homophile.
AMDG
Michael,
Wow! You call the reaction of the victims "psychic hysteria"!
Thank God we live in America where the courts and the general population have a very different attitude than you about child molestation.
Maybe "homosexual pederasty is being mainstreamed" in your neighborhood (or parish), but where I live, we consider it a felony.
You admit that there are still some who were "truly egregiously involved with bulk of the problems," but you are happy to leave them in office until they die, which actually could be 10, 15, 20 or 30 more years, depending on the individual. History tells us these people will have more victims.
Sad to say, your ambivalance is quite widespread. This is one reason why the lawsuits go on and so many dioceses are not ordaining priests anymore.
Nobody was ordained last year in my diocese (Lansing). In Windsor, Ontario, they expect no new priests for three more years.
But Michael, somehow you think this meltdown is a good thing, this will make us stronger, right?
But, like so many who are connected to the Church, you still haven't answered my question, at least not directly: Should the bishops who participated in the cover-up be removed?
Jay:
We have few problems with seminarians in my diocese. Priests are being ordained every year. Not enough but they are there and the number of seminarians is up from several years ago. The scandal issue has largely faded from the scene. There are some homosexual or bisexual priests but they seem to be chaste, hardworking, and care for their flock. The seminary is careful about who is admitted, and rightly so. I think that is a good thing. Do You?
I do not know what the problems are in the Lansing diocese.
The factor that many need to understand is that when things like this priest scandal thing often becomes politicalized it attracts a lot of agendas, both religious and secular and takes on a life that has little to do with the original problem.
The "meltdown" as you call it started a long time ago and I think it had little to do directly with the scandals, but the scandals were an effect of other things-not the cause.
You state "you are happy to leave them in office until they die, which actually could be 10, 15, 20 or 30 more years, depending upon the individual. History tells us these people will have more victims."
What the hell are you talking about? Sounds like you mean bishops who are pediphile preditors!! WHO? NAME NAMES? GIVE PROOF? Or do you mean someone who knew someone who knew someone who was a sexual preditor? Would that inply that they participate in some "cover-up"?
Name someone if you've got the guts!
Are you really, really concerned about justice? Justice is important but it should not become an idol, because when it does become a consuming idol a lot more injustice results from that. People go haywire if they let it happen. My father was a school principal for 20 years and he had to deal with teacher pediphiles, often tenured ones. I remember. He did not go nuts but he turned situations around without witch hunts, dramatizations, or mob action.
Justice has to be juggled along with things like faith, hope, and charity.
I believe and I believe in hope.
Michael -
It is hilarious that you'd say:
"Name someone if you've got the guts!"
when Jay already DID name names, and offered court testimony. And your response was to turn away, rejecting based on the heresay of your perceptions.
Last year, my parish - the one in our little town, with the K-8 school that our family uses ('family' being my kids, nephews, and nieces) - had a seminarian caught on child porn and molestation charges. The seminarian's main job was in child and youth ministry. MY parish. MY kids.
You can "believe in hope" all you want. But when your own kids get that close to having their innocence destroyed - and it only takes one time - you'll be much less flippant with tossing around words like "justice".
My brother was a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by a Priest and has received a significant settlement. He has left the Church - his anger was whipped into a frenzy by SNAP and others and he blames the Catholic Church for all his problems - along with people like me who continue to practice our Faith. He is a bitter, miserable man who at this point refuses to forgive. However, there is a reason he was targeted by the Priest who abused him. Our family life was terrible. My father hated my brother (the eldest) and was emotionally, verbally and phisically abusive toward him. His hunger for male affirmation made him a target. Like animals hunting, sexual predators seek out the weak ones and pounce. If my brother had experienced a normal upbringing in a healthy family environment, he would not have been a victim. He would have not had the psychological predispositions which made him "incapable" of resisting what he knew to be wrong. Who is addresing this? It is a heck of a lot easier to lash out at a small minority of fallen Priests than to deal with the wasteland which is Catholic family life today....
Bankruptcy status will allow each of the lawsuits to get something. Without bankruptcy status, the first lawsuits in the lineup could take so much that little or nothing at all would be left for lawsuits later in the lineup.
The bishop has repeatedly stated:
that the diocese will be revealing the names of those who have certainly done wrong;
and that the diocese will reveal the details of what those persons have done.
Despite the bishop’s repeated statement, many persons continue to tell the news media that the bishop is using bankruptcy reorganization to stop the lawsuits completely and to cover up the wrongdoings.
That is not true, and it is not legally possible.
Also, the courts and the lawsuits themselves will publicize the names of the victims-- not the bishop, and not the diocesan lawyers. Despite that fact, the victims, their lawyers, and the media are claiming falsely that the bishop and the diocesan lawyers have tried to have the names of victims publicized. Simply not true.
Personally, I would have preferred to see the Church deal with the guilty priests in the strongest ways that are possible by canon law: a period of excommunication and a complete ban from ever fuctioning as a priest. Bishops and any lay employees who failed to respond justly when they knew of crimes also ought to have been removed from their posts and ought to have received the strongest penalties possible in both canon law and civil law.
I believe civil law ought to deal with guilty priests as with any person who rapes a child.
Unfortunately the California supreme court suspended the statute of limitations for those who want to sue the bishops in California, but the supension was not open for anyone who wanted to sue schools and school districts for the rape of children by school employees.
[Personally, I am against any statute of limitations for any crime at all. When the court suspended that statute, the court shoud have suspended it for everybody.]
All that being said, I return to the point that the lawyers representing the victims are using the media to publicize vehemently certain falsehoods about the bishop.
The victims SHOULD pursue justice. However, they and their lawyers ought to do so in a manner that is thoroughly just and truthful. It is clear that persons in the Church acted in horrendous, unjust, and dishonest ways that perpetrated and compounded the suffering of the victims. However, let strong justice be done in ways that are strongly just and strongly truthful. To publicize falsehoods about the bishop does not help justice or truth to prevail. Falsehood is falsehood, no matter who speaks it.
.
Michael,
You obviously did not read the Philadelphia Grand Jury report, otherwise you would not be asking such a question.
I gave you evidence on three Michigan bishops, from their own statements to the media that they knowlingly transferred a known pedophile to a parish, even after he had been removed from ministry and his rapacious lust for altar boys was widely known from the media. My question for you: Do you not agree that what these bishops did was decietful and that they should be removed from their office as shepherds of any diocese?
The Grand Jury report lays out specific evidence of specific priests that enable the pedophiles to continue their abuse. It also says that the prosecutor would have tried to convict many of the priests but could not because the statute of limitations had run out. This is because of the very cunning efforts of the chancery officials, including two cardinals. My position is that these cardinals and priests (some may have later become bishops) should not be allowed to function as chancery administrators.
Your position, as you have said over and again, is that enough has been done on this matter and that the people who lied to the parents, to the media and even to law officials about priests sex abusers should be untouched. I heartily disagree.
Also, this is your direct quote: "And I also know that almost all of the people who where truly egregiously involved with bulk of the problems in the past decades are now gone; gone from the ministry, gone form the Church or gone from this life. And if they ARE NOT GONE, they will be gone before long. So you should not have to worry, should you?"
In this quote, you admit that some of the worst who "ARE NOT GONE (your emphasis), will be gone before long."
Well, what are you saying, then? I'm saying they should be removed from office now, not when they die eventually.
You still have not answered my question. A simple yes or no would suffice.
Dear Jay -
I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Even if someone were to say "yes, such Bishops should be removed", then what? What is your goal? Do you want to petition the Vatican to see if it will happen? Do you want such men replaced? What outcome are you seeking?
God bless you.
It is regretable that some people get spiritual hardening of the arteries over things like this.
Fr. Stephanos makes a good point about how the system suspended the legal system for selective litigation of diocese/bishops/church and not public institutions. People do not see that this is just a form of statism and state totalitarianism against private groups. Let us remember, most people have to go to public schools but they do not have to go to church.
You refuse to help all out on this: victims, priets, bishops, lay people because you say "everyone is a pediphile or a pediphile enabler" is free to take a hike. I suspect such people have their own sexual convolutions and weaknesses and are just projecting that into this imbroglio.
They can become Anglican; where they think they have solved all such problems.
In answer to the insistant question about what I would do with some complicent bishops, I would have to say I do have a general answer; I would have to see each story. All too many bishops have been managers and not the prophet/priest/king they are suppose to be. I am sure some should be removed for any number of reasons, especially faithlessness, incompetance and failure. I suspect Cardinal Mahoney is one of these, but I am not sure. As far as cover-ups, this depends upon what it means. I suspect that "cover-ups" of such things were common throughout society over 30 years ago in all institutions. So if some aging bishop 30 years ago sent some perp to shrinks and then reassigned him and he again abused I would not be overly aggrevated. However if this was done in the past 10-12 years or so I would definitely be furious. And if today there is any serious concern with an priests and small children this would be a case for dismissal. The cases of homosexual attraction with teens is something that I would insist upon strict self-control and discipline. And I would adhere to Pope Benedict's paper on seminary admissions of such people.
I do not know what Canon law saws, but I have been told that if the bishops had acted on Canon law with common sense in the 60's, 70's and early 80's most of all this would not have happened. They were influenced by the times and the claims of psychiatry and psychology. Canon law did not fail, many bishops failed because the times and society were in turmoil; and this allowed something of a poisoned ecclesia.
Michael -
I appreciate your response.
As I stated above, my own brother was abused - he now considers me a "pedaphile enabler" because I frequent the Sacraments and donate to my Parish. That is how broad and loose he plays with verbiage - and he is an attorney! That is why I asked Jay exactly what it is that he wants. Speaking from knowledge of some victims - and I suspect some who advocate for them - their goal is simply maximum damage, motivated by anger and revenge.
Jay,
I want to be wrong. I want to know the depths of the abyss that created this result. I want to learn. I do not want to gloss over this event. Only by taking this scandal seriously will the Church ever make sure that this never happens again. So, I apologize if my comment seemed flippant. Trust me, I want to know and I want the truth. The Church will be stronger once we have cleansed ourselves. But first we must isolate the cancers that infest the body.
This will be short, and my last post on this thread.
Michael has finally and grudgingly answered my question: He wrote: "I am sure some should be removed for any number of reasons, especially faithlessness, incompetence and failure. …”
So, there we have it. When it is all said and done, Michael agrees with me. I will avoid the ad hominum attack and not claim that Michael has "hardening of the arteries" or has his own "sexual convolutions and weaknesses and [is] just projecting that into this imbroglio."
Once we agree that some should be removed, I’d say the Church should get on with this fairly simple task. From court testimony and their own statement we know who many of them are. The Vatican knows far better who they are than we ever will.
I’ll list my responses to the questions by Anonymous, briefly.
1) What is your goal? To help shine the light of truth on the Church, mainly as a journalist. Media scrutiny has a very positive impact. Archbishop Pilarczyk, Bishop Weakland, and Bishop Daniel Ryan, to name only a few, were removed only AFTER their misdeeds were made public in the media.
2) Do you want to petition the Vatican to see if it will happen? Without intending to be disrespectful of the Church I love dearly, I am LAUGHING OUT LOUD at the question. The Vatican has shown that it is largely incapable of policing the Church, and actually often seems proud of it. The Boston Globe, hundreds of other newspapers and hundreds of county prosecutors have done more to purify the Catholic Church in the United States than all the bishops and the Vatican since 2002.
3) Do you want such men replaced? Yep. So does Michael, I might add.
4) What outcome are you seeking? A healthy Catholic Church that can be a meaningful participant in building up what JPII called “the Culture of Life.”
Finally Anonymous, you said that you think some victims have as their goal “maximum damage, motivated by anger and revenge.” That is DEFINITELY not me.
I come from the Archdiocese of Detroit and was editor of The Michigan Catholic for five years. I saw the Church up close. If you are looking for people seeking to do “maximum damage” you don’t have to look much further than Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, still a bishop in good standing who does confirmation; the MANY priests who were chancery officials at the same time they were/are active with the group Dignity and Call to Action, and many others.
The people who REALLY hate the church, sad to say, are often on the payroll of the Church. I’d like to change that when I can, as a journalist. Middle-aged men who were raped by priests 30 years ago can’t do one iota of the damage a Call to Action priest or bishop can do.
Jay: Well thanks for avoiding the claim that I have "hardening of the arteries" or have my own sexual convolutions and weaknesses and is just projecting this into this imbroglio". But my real "problem" is that this is exactly what I suspect "others" are doing. I have seen too much of this. The term "dialectic" has all too much reality.
I do not trust some "others" and their ilk. The Vatican can not micromanage every priest amd bishop anymore that the president of the United States can micromanage every soldier and officer. For one thing it does not have the backdoor info network like a CIA, and if it did people "some people" would yell "totalitarianism, Inquisition", etc., but of course sometimes an Inquistion is needed. Pat Buchanan once suggested there is some historical model or precident of sending in some kind of hit man or hatchet man to "inquire" and facilitate changes. Can such an approach work in our media-saturated culture? Who knows? "Many" now talk about Pope John Paul II in glowing terms in death but "they" hated him in life. Now "they" malign Benedict XVI.
There is only one thing we both KNOW with a lead pipe cinch certainly. And that is that if there are any seriously complicit bishops still serving they will be gone sooner or later. The chaff falls off the wheat. The mis-fit, homosexual activist Gumbleton should have been removed a long time ago for sure. But guess what? When he turned 75 he thought he was too much of a celebrity to retire from direct active diocese admin because this would look like "persecution". And he has played the abuse scandal like a dialectical harp. The issue is who replaces these guys. I think we need prophets/priests/kings like Bishop Chaput of Denver. He dealt well with the local abuse issues in what I understand was a very agreeable way. But some "others" despise him for this and also because he dramatically smashed the efforts by the statist totalitarianists to pull the same stunt in Colorado as was done in California; selective litigation against the Church for possible things 70 years ago but immunity for the state. Even non-religious libertarians are now concerned about this raw exercise in selective justice by government.
You want the things you wrote about above? If so, Great- praise the Lord. Otherwise people like me are going to be watching people like you about as much as I watch the suspected perps and trash.
I’m going to attempt to post here a hyperlink to a well-written piece in this morning’s San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper, “BANKRUPTCY: It’s Best for the Church and the Victims.”
Click HERE for it.
If that doesn't work, the following is the URL.
http://signonsandiego.printthis....l&
partnerID=616
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