The Catholic Hierarchy, Not Gay Marriage, Is "Grotesque"

My Google search agent today turned up many articles in which various members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy ranting against same sex marriage initiatives in both America and the United Kingdom. Illustrative of the anti-gay batshitery is this from the BBC:

Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, said the plans were a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".

He said the idea of redefining marriage, which David Cameron has said he supports, would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world". He said it was wrong to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or father.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Cardinal O'Brien said: "Since all the legal rights of marriage are already available to homosexual couples, it is clear that this proposal is not about rights, but rather is an attempt to redefine marriage for the whole of society at the behest of a small minority of activists.

"Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father."

He added: "Imagine for a moment that the government had decided to legalise slavery but assured us that 'no one will be forced to keep a slave'.

Excuse me, but what is really grotesque is the world wide conspiracy by men like Cardinal O'Brien to enable and cover up for child rapists within the Catholic clergy. Oh, and the good cardinal might want to avoid the topic of slavery entirely since for many hundreds of years the Church supported the institution of slavery.

More details of the grotesque conduct of "princes of the Church" continues to come out in the trial of a Catholic monsignor in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Bombshells include a memo that documents that former Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua ordered the destruction of a memo that identified 35 sexual predators with the archdiocese ranks. Also implicated in the conspiracy to obstruct justice is current bishop of Allentown, Pennsylvania Edward Cullen. The Morning Call has details on the grotesque and twisted morality morally of the Church leadership. Here are highlights:

Nearly two decades ago, Allentown Bishop Edward Cullen was one of two or three high-ranking clergy present when the head of the Philadelphia Archdiocese ordered the shredding of a list of 35 priests suspected of sexually abusing children, according to a recent court filing in Philadelphia.

A copy of that list and a 1994 memo recording Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua's instructions to destroy it has turned up in the case of Monsignor William Lynn, a former archdiocesan official charged with endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy for allegedly enabling priests to molest children.

Lynn's attorneys have claimed the documents are proof of a conspiracy by Bevilacqua; Cullen, who was then the cardinal's top aide; Cullen's then assistant, Monsignor James Molloy; and Lynn's then assistant, the Rev. Joseph Cistone, to hide sexual abuse allegations.

"This startling revelation raises clear issues as to whether Cardinal Bevilacqua, Bishops Cullen and Cistone and Monsignor Molloy obstructed justice in connection with grand jury I," Lynn's lawyers Jeff Lindy and Thomas Bergstrom wrote in a motion to dismiss the case.

Cullen, 78, is likely to land on the witness stand because he and Cistone, who now is bishop of Saginaw, Mich., are the only two living church officials named in the newly disclosed documents. Bevilacqua died in January and Molloy died in 2006.

It proves what a lot of people have been saying all along, that the cardinal and hierarchy of the archdiocese had knowledge that at least 35 of its priests, and probably more, were sexually abusing minors," said Kenneth Millman, a Berks County attorney who represents a victim of one of the priests Lynn allegedly protected.

Lynn's trial threatens to shake the church to its core, said Rocco Palmo, a commentator for the National Catholic Reporter magazine. "Every person who has survived from the senior administration of the Philadelphia diocese is fair game in this one," Palmo said. "It's going to be unlike any trial that the Catholic Church has ever had. We've never been here before and no one really knows what to expect."

The list shows Lynn knew in 1994 that one of his co-defendants, the Rev. Edward Avery, had a record of sexual misconduct, and Lynn still recommended him for positions where he had contact with children, the prosecution's response says.

The sad reality is that a great number of "prices of the Church" ought to be under criminal prosecution for their roles in the sexual molestation of children and youths and active conspiracies to obstruct justice. If I or readers engaged in such behavior, we'd be prosecuted so fast that out heads would spin. It's time for the special rights and deference given to the Church hierarchy to end and to treat many of these men as the criminal co-conspirators that they were/are in fact..