A few American Bishops have made statements about what they knew or didn’t know about former Cardinal McCarrick’s predatory sexual abuse of seminarians.
Their statements appear to show them as either innocent dupes or complicit conspirators.
And they have made those statements delivering their carefully prepared and rehearsed lines in an atmosphere of deference to their Episcopal Office.
Still, a great many questions face a number of Bishops.
Who are they and what do they need to explain?
First, there is Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who of late issued a long statement about the McCarrick affair.
Here is what I would ask him.
Your Eminence, were you not aware the McCarrick’s perverse behavior with seminarians was an open secret among Priests and members of the laity?
Were you not aware that witnesses in Priest-abuse cases, Richard Sipe for one, had long ago publicized what they knew of the behavior of “Uncle Ted” ?
Were you not aware that a concerned group of laity and Clerics pleaded their case against McCarrick in Rome before his elevation to the College of Cardinals?
Were you not aware that Churchmen across the country had another nickname related to his proclivities: “Blanche”?
Your Eminence, you have stated that you did not “personally receive” a letter addressed to you from Father Boniface Ramsey, O.P. in June of 2015, alleging McCarrick’s lewd behavior with seminarians.
But you do not say that you were "not informed" about the letter. You have been asked this question but have chosen not to answer.
So, are we to conclude that no one on your staff discussed the letter and its contents with you?
How could a matter so sensitive and serious be shuffled into oblivion by your staff without your knowledge of its existence?
On the same subject, were you not aware that McCarrick chose to live his retirement on the grounds of a seminary?
Wasn’t that information contained in the letter Father Ramsey personally addressed to you?
Was the only response of your staff to Father Ramsey’s complaints a form letter sent back to him washing your hands and your office’s hands of the situation?
Are we to trust Your Eminence’s judgment and that of your office which allowed such a grave mismanagement to occur?
Next, there is Cardinal Wuerl, to whom I would address the following questions.
Your Eminence, isn’t it true that the Papal Nuncio in Washington, D.C. was informed in 2004 of the legal settlements for claims of sexual abuse against McCarrick?
As McCarrick’s successor in Washington, were you not informed of these settlements?
If you were informed, why did you not consider such when McCarrick requested living in different seminaries that train seminarians for your Archdiocese?
If you weren’t informed about these settlements, did Bishop Joseph Tobin or his predecessors in Newark and did not the Bishop of Metuchen not have a duty to inform you of them, given McCarrick’s living arrangements at seminaries?
Your Eminence, do you have any knowledge of why McCarrick suddenly was asked to leave the seminary at St. Thomas Woodley Park under Father Roderick McKee?
Cardinal Wuerl, are you not a sitting member the Congregation of Bishops in Rome?
Isn’t it true that McCarrick would lobby for certain candidates for elevation in the Church?
Did you ever discuss such appointments with him?
Did McCarrick’s lobbying have influence upon yourself or members of the Congregation in the elevations of Joseph Tobin or Kevin Farrell?
And, if you knew of these settlements, why would you have engaged in such discussion with McCarrick?
Next, I would ask the Bishops of Newark and Metuchen why they did not inform Cardinals O’Malley and Wuerl of the legal settlements their dioceses has agreed to in compensating victims of McCarrick’s sexual abuse of seminarians.
But, these same kinds of questions need to be addressed to and answered by every member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who might have known of McCarrick’s history of sexual predation and said nothing about it.
The sad reality is that the reaction of the Bishops and the Cardinals to this scandal goes a long way in explaining how McCarrick’s career could have flourished in such a milieu of secrecy and deceit.
Saturday, August 4, 2018
Friday, August 3, 2018
THE DEATH PENALTY INADMISSABLE: PAPAL SLEIGHT OF HAND?
Misdirection is a form of deception in which one’s attention is directed toward one thing in order to distract its attention from another.
Managing the attention of one or more persons is the aim of all theater.
It is an absolute requirement in the practice of the art of magic.
There are two basic ways to "misdirect" an audience.
One is to encourage the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that the sleight or move may be accomplished undetected.
The other approach has much to do with re-framing the audience's perception, where the minds of the audience members are distracted into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat, whereas in reality it has no bearing on the effect at all.
Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of audience perception which can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
I can’t help but wonder if Pope Francis’ recent redaction of the Catechism regarding Church teaching on the death penalty is not an example of a kind of Papal misdirection.
Why?
Well, let’s look at the devastating list of scandals which have rocked the Church in recent days: Cardinal Pell on trial for sexually abusing minors, the sexual abuse scandal and crisis of faith in Chile, Archbishop Wilson in Australia found guilty of obstruction of justice in covering up knowledge of sexual abuse (he most recently resigned from the diocese), Cardinal McCarrick outed as a sexual predator of seminarians and a sexual abuser of an altar boy in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve (he resigned from the College of Cardinals as a result), allegations of sexual assault and embezzlement of Church funds by two Chilean Cardinals closely associated with the Pope himself.
To put it mildly, the Church and the Bishops especially have been having some very bad press lately.
And while scandal has multiplied upon scandal involving members of the College of Cardinals and Bishops, Pope Francis has hardly uttered a word, choosing to react to it all by passively accepting the resignations of such ne’er do wells without the slightest word of dismay for their perverse behavior nor a word of comfort or compassion for their victims.
The secular press, in the meantime, has been merciless in providing the public the most intimate details of these sordid affairs, much to the growing frustration of the Catholic faithful who have all but abandoned their faith in anything the Bishops have to say.
Suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, like a magician pulling the proverbial rabbit from the proverbial hat, the Pope decides to alter the clear and consistent teaching of the Church regarding the legitimacy of the death penalty.
Suddenly, the press turns its attention to this theological sleight of hand, and the headlines follow.
Pope Francis may think he pulled a fast one by this misdirection, but he needs to be aware that not everyone is so easily fooled.
The nightmare of the magician is the person in the crowd who watches every move he makes and is not misdirected.
The nightmare for Pope Francis and the Bishops is that the same holds true among those Catholic faithful who will not be distracted from the horrific tales of corruption and perversion among the members of the hierarchy.
A magician’s act doesn’t last forever. Eventually, the show is over and the audience members return to reality perhaps awed by the skill of such talented mis-directors of perception.
I have this nagging and discomforting belief that Pope Francis is being managed by “Curial handlers” who believe that their vane and cynical attempt at misdirection in altering Catholic teaching regarding the death penalty somehow will diminish the impact of the scandals involving Cardinals and Bishops.
They are wrong, of course.
The headlines now giving attention to the Catechism will soon be replete with additional scandals which are just waiting in line to be uncovered.
Misdirection, even when employed by the Papacy, always remains a deception of sorts.
The Holy Spirit cannot nor ever will allow such a deception to succeed within the Church.
Apparently, some within the highest echelons of Church authority have either forgotten or chosen willfully to ignore this fundamental truth.
Managing the attention of one or more persons is the aim of all theater.
It is an absolute requirement in the practice of the art of magic.
There are two basic ways to "misdirect" an audience.
One is to encourage the audience to look away for a fleeting moment, so that the sleight or move may be accomplished undetected.
The other approach has much to do with re-framing the audience's perception, where the minds of the audience members are distracted into thinking that an extraneous factor has much to do with the accomplishment of the feat, whereas in reality it has no bearing on the effect at all.
Misdirection takes advantage of the limits of audience perception which can only concentrate on one thing at a time.
I can’t help but wonder if Pope Francis’ recent redaction of the Catechism regarding Church teaching on the death penalty is not an example of a kind of Papal misdirection.
Why?
Well, let’s look at the devastating list of scandals which have rocked the Church in recent days: Cardinal Pell on trial for sexually abusing minors, the sexual abuse scandal and crisis of faith in Chile, Archbishop Wilson in Australia found guilty of obstruction of justice in covering up knowledge of sexual abuse (he most recently resigned from the diocese), Cardinal McCarrick outed as a sexual predator of seminarians and a sexual abuser of an altar boy in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on Christmas Eve (he resigned from the College of Cardinals as a result), allegations of sexual assault and embezzlement of Church funds by two Chilean Cardinals closely associated with the Pope himself.
To put it mildly, the Church and the Bishops especially have been having some very bad press lately.
And while scandal has multiplied upon scandal involving members of the College of Cardinals and Bishops, Pope Francis has hardly uttered a word, choosing to react to it all by passively accepting the resignations of such ne’er do wells without the slightest word of dismay for their perverse behavior nor a word of comfort or compassion for their victims.
The secular press, in the meantime, has been merciless in providing the public the most intimate details of these sordid affairs, much to the growing frustration of the Catholic faithful who have all but abandoned their faith in anything the Bishops have to say.
Suddenly, out of nowhere it seems, like a magician pulling the proverbial rabbit from the proverbial hat, the Pope decides to alter the clear and consistent teaching of the Church regarding the legitimacy of the death penalty.
Suddenly, the press turns its attention to this theological sleight of hand, and the headlines follow.
Pope Francis may think he pulled a fast one by this misdirection, but he needs to be aware that not everyone is so easily fooled.
The nightmare of the magician is the person in the crowd who watches every move he makes and is not misdirected.
The nightmare for Pope Francis and the Bishops is that the same holds true among those Catholic faithful who will not be distracted from the horrific tales of corruption and perversion among the members of the hierarchy.
A magician’s act doesn’t last forever. Eventually, the show is over and the audience members return to reality perhaps awed by the skill of such talented mis-directors of perception.
I have this nagging and discomforting belief that Pope Francis is being managed by “Curial handlers” who believe that their vane and cynical attempt at misdirection in altering Catholic teaching regarding the death penalty somehow will diminish the impact of the scandals involving Cardinals and Bishops.
They are wrong, of course.
The headlines now giving attention to the Catechism will soon be replete with additional scandals which are just waiting in line to be uncovered.
Misdirection, even when employed by the Papacy, always remains a deception of sorts.
The Holy Spirit cannot nor ever will allow such a deception to succeed within the Church.
Apparently, some within the highest echelons of Church authority have either forgotten or chosen willfully to ignore this fundamental truth.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
POPE FRANCIS: "THE DEATH PENALTY IS INADMISSABLE"
A copyrighted story appearing on the Vatican news website reports that Pope Francis has approved a new revision of Paragraph 2267 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), according to which “a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state,” thus “the death penalty is inadmissible”:
The decision was announced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in a ‘Letter to the Bishops’ dated on August 1st and signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria.
The new text is as follows.
The death penalty
2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide”.
[1] FRANCIS, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017.
According to the previous text of Paragraph 2267, the Church did not exclude recourse to the death penalty in “very rare, if not practically nonexistent” circumstances:
2267. Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
In the Letter to the Bishops Cardinal Ladaria explained that the revision of n. 2267 of the CCC “expresses an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium” and said “these teachings, in fact, can be explained in the light of the primary responsibility of the public authority to protect the common good in a social context in which the penal sanctions were understood differently, and had developed in an environment in which it was more difficult to guarantee that the criminal could not repeat his crime”.
Cardinal Ladaria recalled that John Paul II asked that the teaching on the death penalty be reformulated to better reflect the development of the doctrine that centers on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life affirming that “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.” Ladaria said that in many occasions Pope Saint John Paul II intervened for the elimination of capital punishment describing it as “cruel and unnecessary.
In the letter Cardinal Ladaria also recalled Benedict XVI who appealed for “the attention of society’s leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty” and encouraged “political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order.”
The new revision of number 2267 of CCC approved by Pope Francis, Cardinal Ladaria said, “insituates itself in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine taking into account the new understanding of penal sanctions applied by the modern State”.
Its new revision, he continued, “desires to give energy to a movement towards a decisive commitment to favor a mentality that recognizes the dignity of every human life and, in respectful dialogue with civil authorities, to encourage the creation of conditions that allow for the elimination of the death penalty where it is still in effect”.
The decision was announced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in a ‘Letter to the Bishops’ dated on August 1st and signed by the Prefect, Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria.
The new text is as follows.
The death penalty
2267. Recourse to the death penalty on the part of legitimate authority, following a fair trial, was long considered an appropriate response to the gravity of certain crimes and an acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good.
Today, however, there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes. In addition, a new understanding has emerged of the significance of penal sanctions imposed by the state. Lastly, more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.
Consequently, the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person”,[1] and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide”.
[1] FRANCIS, Address to Participants in the Meeting organized by the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, 11 October 2017: L’Osservatore Romano, 13 October 2017.
According to the previous text of Paragraph 2267, the Church did not exclude recourse to the death penalty in “very rare, if not practically nonexistent” circumstances:
2267. Assuming that the guilty party's identity and responsibility have been fully determined, the traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor.
If, however, non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people's safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.
Today, in fact, as a consequence of the possibilities which the state has for effectively preventing crime, by rendering one who has committed an offense incapable of doing harm - without definitely taking away from him the possibility of redeeming himself - the cases in which the execution of the offender is an absolute necessity "are very rare, if not practically nonexistent."
In the Letter to the Bishops Cardinal Ladaria explained that the revision of n. 2267 of the CCC “expresses an authentic development of doctrine that is not in contradiction with the prior teachings of the Magisterium” and said “these teachings, in fact, can be explained in the light of the primary responsibility of the public authority to protect the common good in a social context in which the penal sanctions were understood differently, and had developed in an environment in which it was more difficult to guarantee that the criminal could not repeat his crime”.
Cardinal Ladaria recalled that John Paul II asked that the teaching on the death penalty be reformulated to better reflect the development of the doctrine that centers on the clearer awareness of the Church for the respect due to every human life affirming that “Not even a murderer loses his personal dignity, and God himself pledges to guarantee this.” Ladaria said that in many occasions Pope Saint John Paul II intervened for the elimination of capital punishment describing it as “cruel and unnecessary.
In the letter Cardinal Ladaria also recalled Benedict XVI who appealed for “the attention of society’s leaders to the need to make every effort to eliminate the death penalty” and encouraged “political and legislative initiatives being promoted in a growing number of countries to eliminate the death penalty and to continue the substantive progress made in conforming penal law both to the human dignity of prisoners and the effective maintenance of public order.”
The new revision of number 2267 of CCC approved by Pope Francis, Cardinal Ladaria said, “insituates itself in continuity with the preceding Magisterium while bringing forth a coherent development of Catholic doctrine taking into account the new understanding of penal sanctions applied by the modern State”.
Its new revision, he continued, “desires to give energy to a movement towards a decisive commitment to favor a mentality that recognizes the dignity of every human life and, in respectful dialogue with civil authorities, to encourage the creation of conditions that allow for the elimination of the death penalty where it is still in effect”.
DIOCESE OF HARRISBURG RELEASES NAMES OF 71 CHILD MOLESTERS
Bishop Ronald Gainer of the Diocese of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, released the names of 71 Priests and other Catholic officials accused of the sexual abuse of a minor(s).
The Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania has announced it plans to follow Harrisburg’s example in the very near future.
Bishop Gainer has stated that the list of names represents only accusations. By announcing them, the Diocese of Harrisburg is not claiming anyone guilty of the allegations.
The list includes 37 Priests, three Deacons, six seminarians, nine Clergy of other dioceses and 16 from other Catholic Religious Orders.
The public disclosure excludes cases the Diocese found unsubstantiated and does not provide an estimated number of abuse victims.
Gainer made the announcement, accompanied by apologies to victims.
The apologies, Gainer said, are for the pain victims suffered and for the lax way church officials, including himself, treated their claims documented in Diocesan files since 1947.
“I apologize to the survivors of child sex abuse, to the Catholic faithful and to the general public for the abuses that took place and for those Church officials who failed to act,” Bishop Gainer said.
Gainer’s announcement came amid a heated court and public relations battle over a massive statewide grand jury report examining decades of child sex abuse claims and cover-ups in six Catholic Dioceses: Allentown, Harrisburg, Scranton, Erie, Greensburg and Pittsburgh. The report, written after a two-year investigation by the state attorney general’s office, is hung up in legal wranglings before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. A redacted version of the report is expected to be released August 14th.
Bishop Gainer likewise waived all confidentiality agreements his diocese imposed on victims in the past as part of legal settlement agreements, allowing them to discuss their experiences if they want.
Bishop Gainer also said the names of accused Priests and Bishops who protected them will be removed from buildings and other locations where they have been honored.
Bishop Gainer plans to issue his own letter to parishioners at weekend Masses. It will be inserted into church bulletins.
“While we seek forgiveness in the name of our diocese, we continue in our sincere request that survivors come forward so that their situations can be addressed,” Gainer said Wednesday. “We take seriously both my and the diocese’s obligation to prevent such abuse from occurring, to foster healing, and to be transparent.”
“The Diocese of Allentown plans to post a list of credibly accused Priests on its website on the day the grand jury report is released,” Diocesan spokesman Matt Kerr said.
Allentown’s list will be posted regardless of whether or not the court publishes a redacted or full version of the grand jury report. The list does not say when or where any of the the alleged abuses occurred — or when the reports were made to church or government authorities.
In April of this year, Bishop Lawrence Persico, of the Erie Diocese, became the first head of the six Dioceses under investigation to release names of Clergy accused of sexual misconduct against minors.
What impact these revelations will have upon the Catholic faithful in Pennsylvania remains to be seen, but the wound inflicted against the credibility and moral authority of the Bishops continues to fester.
The Holy Father must speak to this issue publicly, decry its shamefulness and corruption, and speak words of healing and compassion to Catholic communities throughout the United States which have been stung so brutally by these horrid tales of abuse and obstruction of justice.
The silence, thus far from the Vatican, is deafening!
The Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania has announced it plans to follow Harrisburg’s example in the very near future.
Bishop Gainer has stated that the list of names represents only accusations. By announcing them, the Diocese of Harrisburg is not claiming anyone guilty of the allegations.
The list includes 37 Priests, three Deacons, six seminarians, nine Clergy of other dioceses and 16 from other Catholic Religious Orders.
The public disclosure excludes cases the Diocese found unsubstantiated and does not provide an estimated number of abuse victims.
Gainer made the announcement, accompanied by apologies to victims.
The apologies, Gainer said, are for the pain victims suffered and for the lax way church officials, including himself, treated their claims documented in Diocesan files since 1947.
“I apologize to the survivors of child sex abuse, to the Catholic faithful and to the general public for the abuses that took place and for those Church officials who failed to act,” Bishop Gainer said.
Gainer’s announcement came amid a heated court and public relations battle over a massive statewide grand jury report examining decades of child sex abuse claims and cover-ups in six Catholic Dioceses: Allentown, Harrisburg, Scranton, Erie, Greensburg and Pittsburgh. The report, written after a two-year investigation by the state attorney general’s office, is hung up in legal wranglings before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. A redacted version of the report is expected to be released August 14th.
Bishop Gainer likewise waived all confidentiality agreements his diocese imposed on victims in the past as part of legal settlement agreements, allowing them to discuss their experiences if they want.
Bishop Gainer also said the names of accused Priests and Bishops who protected them will be removed from buildings and other locations where they have been honored.
Bishop Gainer plans to issue his own letter to parishioners at weekend Masses. It will be inserted into church bulletins.
“While we seek forgiveness in the name of our diocese, we continue in our sincere request that survivors come forward so that their situations can be addressed,” Gainer said Wednesday. “We take seriously both my and the diocese’s obligation to prevent such abuse from occurring, to foster healing, and to be transparent.”
“The Diocese of Allentown plans to post a list of credibly accused Priests on its website on the day the grand jury report is released,” Diocesan spokesman Matt Kerr said.
Allentown’s list will be posted regardless of whether or not the court publishes a redacted or full version of the grand jury report. The list does not say when or where any of the the alleged abuses occurred — or when the reports were made to church or government authorities.
In April of this year, Bishop Lawrence Persico, of the Erie Diocese, became the first head of the six Dioceses under investigation to release names of Clergy accused of sexual misconduct against minors.
What impact these revelations will have upon the Catholic faithful in Pennsylvania remains to be seen, but the wound inflicted against the credibility and moral authority of the Bishops continues to fester.
The Holy Father must speak to this issue publicly, decry its shamefulness and corruption, and speak words of healing and compassion to Catholic communities throughout the United States which have been stung so brutally by these horrid tales of abuse and obstruction of justice.
The silence, thus far from the Vatican, is deafening!
SCANT HOPE FOR THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH IN LATIN AMERICA
Stretching from Mexico to Argentina (including the Carribean), CELAM (the Continental Episcopal Conference for Latin America) was established by Pope Pius XII. It met for the first time in Rio de Janeiro in 1955.
CELAM represents more than half the global Catholic population.
In 2007, a plenary meeting of CELAM was called at Aparecida to establish a plan for the evangelization of Latin America. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was the principal author of the conference’s final document. Within one year, he would be elected Pope.
CELAM’s strategy to evangelize Latin America would become the script for Pope Francis to revitalize the mission of the Universal Church.
Within weeks of his election, Pope Francis announced that a Council of Cardinals was to serve as his principal advisory board. Members included Cardinal Errazuriz and Cardinal Maradiaga, who served on the Aparecida drafting committee as well.
The Aparecida strategy was to serve as the model of evangelization for the entire Church.
Pope Francis even enshrined its central message in Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, which called for the Church to redirect its missionary discipleship, serving as a “field hospital” for the spiritually and emotionally wounded of the world.
Now, in the fifth year of his Pontificate, the condition of the Church in Latin America is in a state of catastrophe and crisis.
Scandals have accelerated the decline of Catholicism throughout the Latin American world, but no more dramatically than in Chile.
The share of Chileans expressing confidence in the church has collapsed from 80% in 1996 to 34% in 2017, a decline four times as large as the Latin American average during that period.
And for the first time, Chile ranks first among the dioceses of CELAM in the proportion of respondents indicating that they do not profess any faith at all.
The role of Cardinal Errázuriz brought Pope Francis’s mishandling of Chile into his inner circle.
Meanwhile, media reports of an alleged scandal in Cardinal Maradiaga’s diocese has meant that neither of the Latin Americans on the Council of Cardinals has been a force advancing the Holy Father’s pastoral priorities. To the contrary, they have become a serious and embarrassing distraction.
Recent attempts to liberalize abortion laws in both Chile and Argentina bring to the attention of the Church issues that Pope Francis has repeatedly stated he would prefer the Church “not to be obsessed about.”
Elsewhere, the Church in Latin America is in a state of siege.
Venezuela is the most cruel reality, with the population starved by its own government, but just this year the Bishops in Honduras, Nicaragua and Ecuador have all been seized by the necessity of dealing with political crises.
The Mexican bishops, for their part, are attempting to deal with continuing lethal violence against their Priests, even as they continue to cozy up to successive corrupt governments.
The grand hope that the Aparecida strategy could serve as the model of evangelization for the world has vanished.
The Church represented by CELAM is in a state of total collapse and with it more than half the total population of the Universal Church.
What confronts the Holy Father as he turns his gaze upon his native culture and heritage is a Church beset by scandal, irrelevant on life issues, disrupted by political strife, and unable to provide adequate spiritual and sacramental care for the faithful due to an abismal lack of Priests.
The Aparecida strategy is dead. It appears there is nothing to take its place.
Who could have imagined?
CELAM represents more than half the global Catholic population.
In 2007, a plenary meeting of CELAM was called at Aparecida to establish a plan for the evangelization of Latin America. Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was the principal author of the conference’s final document. Within one year, he would be elected Pope.
CELAM’s strategy to evangelize Latin America would become the script for Pope Francis to revitalize the mission of the Universal Church.
Within weeks of his election, Pope Francis announced that a Council of Cardinals was to serve as his principal advisory board. Members included Cardinal Errazuriz and Cardinal Maradiaga, who served on the Aparecida drafting committee as well.
The Aparecida strategy was to serve as the model of evangelization for the entire Church.
Pope Francis even enshrined its central message in Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, which called for the Church to redirect its missionary discipleship, serving as a “field hospital” for the spiritually and emotionally wounded of the world.
Now, in the fifth year of his Pontificate, the condition of the Church in Latin America is in a state of catastrophe and crisis.
Scandals have accelerated the decline of Catholicism throughout the Latin American world, but no more dramatically than in Chile.
The share of Chileans expressing confidence in the church has collapsed from 80% in 1996 to 34% in 2017, a decline four times as large as the Latin American average during that period.
And for the first time, Chile ranks first among the dioceses of CELAM in the proportion of respondents indicating that they do not profess any faith at all.
The role of Cardinal Errázuriz brought Pope Francis’s mishandling of Chile into his inner circle.
Meanwhile, media reports of an alleged scandal in Cardinal Maradiaga’s diocese has meant that neither of the Latin Americans on the Council of Cardinals has been a force advancing the Holy Father’s pastoral priorities. To the contrary, they have become a serious and embarrassing distraction.
Recent attempts to liberalize abortion laws in both Chile and Argentina bring to the attention of the Church issues that Pope Francis has repeatedly stated he would prefer the Church “not to be obsessed about.”
Elsewhere, the Church in Latin America is in a state of siege.
Venezuela is the most cruel reality, with the population starved by its own government, but just this year the Bishops in Honduras, Nicaragua and Ecuador have all been seized by the necessity of dealing with political crises.
The Mexican bishops, for their part, are attempting to deal with continuing lethal violence against their Priests, even as they continue to cozy up to successive corrupt governments.
The grand hope that the Aparecida strategy could serve as the model of evangelization for the world has vanished.
The Church represented by CELAM is in a state of total collapse and with it more than half the total population of the Universal Church.
What confronts the Holy Father as he turns his gaze upon his native culture and heritage is a Church beset by scandal, irrelevant on life issues, disrupted by political strife, and unable to provide adequate spiritual and sacramental care for the faithful due to an abismal lack of Priests.
The Aparecida strategy is dead. It appears there is nothing to take its place.
Who could have imagined?
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
CARINAL DINARDO'S SYCOPHANTIC PRAISE OF POPE FRANCIS MISSES THE MARK
Saturday Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from the College of Cardinals, and suspended him from the exercise of any public ministry.
Pope Francis accepted Cardinal McCarrick’s resignation from the Princely title July 28 and applied a suspension a divinis, which according to canon 1333 in the Code of Canon Law, prohibits him from acts of the power of order and governance and from the exercise of the rights or functions attached to his office.
The Pope also directed Cardinal McCarrick to observe “a life of prayer and penance in seclusion” until the end of the canonical process against him, stated a July 28 press release from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops(USCCB).
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, President of the USCCB, responded to the Pope’s actions in a Saturday morning statement.
“I thank the Holy Father for his leadership in taking this important step. It reflects the priority the Holy Father places on the need for protection and care for all our people and the way failures in this area affect the life of the Church in the United States,” he said.
Excuse me, but am I missing something here?
Cardinal DiNardo, what exactly did the Holy Father do in taking a leadership step by passively accepting McCarrick’s resignation?
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership had the Holy Father demanded McCarrick’s resignation.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had gone before the microphones and cameras (as he is so apt to do on airplanes) and publicly decried the scandal and suffering McCarrick caused over the course of his Priestly ministry or lack thereof.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had summoned representatives of the USCCB to Rome to castigate them as he did the entire Conference of Bishops of Chile for their lack of responsibility and accountability in responding to allegations of abuse among their ranks.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had called for an investigation of all those who had any knowledge of McCarrick’s misdeeds yet remained silent and watched as he advanced from appointment to appointment, even being elevated to the College of Cardinals.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in pastoral care and concern if the Holy Father had addressed special words of apology and compassion for the victims of McCarrick’s abuse and that which was abetted by those who knew and kept silent.
Rather than seeing anything of leadership or compassion in Pope Francis’ response to the McCarrick scandal, I see reticence, if not cowardice, in not confronting the scandal head on and taking proactive measures to see that will be addressed justly and that victims will be treated fairly and sympathetically.
As I see it, the Pope did not act but reacted and allowed McCarrick the grace (if any) to do the right thing and resign. McCarrick did not deserve that courtesy or respect.
Cardinal DiNardo’s sycophantic praise of the Pope notwithstanding, the Holy Father failed miserably in this sad episode.
Given his enthusiasm in his response to the Chilean scandal, I wonder why.
Pope Francis accepted Cardinal McCarrick’s resignation from the Princely title July 28 and applied a suspension a divinis, which according to canon 1333 in the Code of Canon Law, prohibits him from acts of the power of order and governance and from the exercise of the rights or functions attached to his office.
The Pope also directed Cardinal McCarrick to observe “a life of prayer and penance in seclusion” until the end of the canonical process against him, stated a July 28 press release from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops(USCCB).
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, President of the USCCB, responded to the Pope’s actions in a Saturday morning statement.
“I thank the Holy Father for his leadership in taking this important step. It reflects the priority the Holy Father places on the need for protection and care for all our people and the way failures in this area affect the life of the Church in the United States,” he said.
Excuse me, but am I missing something here?
Cardinal DiNardo, what exactly did the Holy Father do in taking a leadership step by passively accepting McCarrick’s resignation?
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership had the Holy Father demanded McCarrick’s resignation.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had gone before the microphones and cameras (as he is so apt to do on airplanes) and publicly decried the scandal and suffering McCarrick caused over the course of his Priestly ministry or lack thereof.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had summoned representatives of the USCCB to Rome to castigate them as he did the entire Conference of Bishops of Chile for their lack of responsibility and accountability in responding to allegations of abuse among their ranks.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in leadership if the Holy Father had called for an investigation of all those who had any knowledge of McCarrick’s misdeeds yet remained silent and watched as he advanced from appointment to appointment, even being elevated to the College of Cardinals.
Perhaps, it would have been an exercise in pastoral care and concern if the Holy Father had addressed special words of apology and compassion for the victims of McCarrick’s abuse and that which was abetted by those who knew and kept silent.
Rather than seeing anything of leadership or compassion in Pope Francis’ response to the McCarrick scandal, I see reticence, if not cowardice, in not confronting the scandal head on and taking proactive measures to see that will be addressed justly and that victims will be treated fairly and sympathetically.
As I see it, the Pope did not act but reacted and allowed McCarrick the grace (if any) to do the right thing and resign. McCarrick did not deserve that courtesy or respect.
Cardinal DiNardo’s sycophantic praise of the Pope notwithstanding, the Holy Father failed miserably in this sad episode.
Given his enthusiasm in his response to the Chilean scandal, I wonder why.
FALLOUT FROM THE MCCARRICK SCANDAL CONTINUES
In a previous post, I predicted that the scandal related of sexual abuse related to Cardinal McCarrick would make a turning point in the way Bishops have avoided personal accountability for the silence.
Already, it appears that the McCarrick scandal has reached a breaking point for many Catholics.
Lifelong Catholics now wonder whether the Church can withstand such hypocrisy and corruption.
Young Catholics have chosen to abandon a Church where a Cardinal whose perverse predatory actions were silently condoned by so many Church leaders at the highest echelons of authority.
The Bishops have done themselves no favor.
From Cardinal O’Malley’s pitiful and lame excuse that a case of sexual abuse was ignored because a letter from a Priest alleging incidents was “misdirected” in a bureaucratic shuffle, to the USCCB’s hollow response amounting to a trite admission that no one is perfect, the Bishops have lost the respect and moral authority of many of the faithful.
What went wrong?
For too long, Catholics succumbed to the deception that respect for the authority of the Bishop required unquestioning and unconditional obedience.
Bishops were to be regarded as men of superior, even heroic, virtue. Bishops were supposed models of faith and fidelity to Christ’s Gospel. The Bishops were more than happy and eager to foster the misguided impression that “their feet never touched the ground”.
And so, basic standards of moral decency, responsibility and accountability were set aside and Bishops gave themselves a pass when it came to tacitly condoning the sexual predators who served under their supervision.
In the wake of the McCarrick scandal comes the backlash against the Bishops that we are witnessing in the outrage and disgust being voiced by so many.
Things have changed and the Bishops would be wise to take notice.
For decades, Bishops were successful in portraying sexual abuse by the Clergy as sins rather than crimes. The faithful assumed that their Bishops would be diligent in caring for them. Should a problem arise, they trusted that Bishop would do what was right and just.
Now, it has come to light that most Bishops, instead of informing government authority and alerting their local churches, in many cases simply reshuffled clergy implicated in sex crimes to different parishes or made financial settlements to victims on the condition of their silence.
Suffering such a betrayal of trust and sense of abandonment by their Bishops, Catholics turned to the courts for justice and compensation.
No longer do Catholics trust telling their stories to their Bishops, they take their stories to prosecutors and lawyers first.
With the McCarrick scandal, one can sense that Catholics will settle for nothing less than Bishops being held totally accountable for their misdeeds, either personal acts of sexual abuse or covering up such abuse.
The Holy See must likewise take notice and set into law protocols for the investigation of allegations of abuse or cover up against Bishops.
Catholics are no longer content to be treated like children by their Bishops.
The Church has reached a watershed moment in the sad tale of these sordid affairs.
How the Vatican and the Bishops respond will determine the future of the Church for decades, if not centuries, to come.
Already, it appears that the McCarrick scandal has reached a breaking point for many Catholics.
Lifelong Catholics now wonder whether the Church can withstand such hypocrisy and corruption.
Young Catholics have chosen to abandon a Church where a Cardinal whose perverse predatory actions were silently condoned by so many Church leaders at the highest echelons of authority.
The Bishops have done themselves no favor.
From Cardinal O’Malley’s pitiful and lame excuse that a case of sexual abuse was ignored because a letter from a Priest alleging incidents was “misdirected” in a bureaucratic shuffle, to the USCCB’s hollow response amounting to a trite admission that no one is perfect, the Bishops have lost the respect and moral authority of many of the faithful.
What went wrong?
For too long, Catholics succumbed to the deception that respect for the authority of the Bishop required unquestioning and unconditional obedience.
Bishops were to be regarded as men of superior, even heroic, virtue. Bishops were supposed models of faith and fidelity to Christ’s Gospel. The Bishops were more than happy and eager to foster the misguided impression that “their feet never touched the ground”.
And so, basic standards of moral decency, responsibility and accountability were set aside and Bishops gave themselves a pass when it came to tacitly condoning the sexual predators who served under their supervision.
In the wake of the McCarrick scandal comes the backlash against the Bishops that we are witnessing in the outrage and disgust being voiced by so many.
Things have changed and the Bishops would be wise to take notice.
For decades, Bishops were successful in portraying sexual abuse by the Clergy as sins rather than crimes. The faithful assumed that their Bishops would be diligent in caring for them. Should a problem arise, they trusted that Bishop would do what was right and just.
Now, it has come to light that most Bishops, instead of informing government authority and alerting their local churches, in many cases simply reshuffled clergy implicated in sex crimes to different parishes or made financial settlements to victims on the condition of their silence.
Suffering such a betrayal of trust and sense of abandonment by their Bishops, Catholics turned to the courts for justice and compensation.
No longer do Catholics trust telling their stories to their Bishops, they take their stories to prosecutors and lawyers first.
With the McCarrick scandal, one can sense that Catholics will settle for nothing less than Bishops being held totally accountable for their misdeeds, either personal acts of sexual abuse or covering up such abuse.
The Holy See must likewise take notice and set into law protocols for the investigation of allegations of abuse or cover up against Bishops.
Catholics are no longer content to be treated like children by their Bishops.
The Church has reached a watershed moment in the sad tale of these sordid affairs.
How the Vatican and the Bishops respond will determine the future of the Church for decades, if not centuries, to come.
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