The Vatican Put a Convicted Rapist Back in a Parish

One has to wonder how much it takes before the Vatican and subordinate bishops and cardinals will permanently throw a priest out of the Church and away from children and youths.  Apparently, raping two young girls isn't enough based on the shocking story of Father Joseph Jeyapaul.  Given the Church's virulent homophobia, would it have made a difference if he had raped young boys instead of girls?  The mindset that views children and youth as just disposable refuse is truly shocking and underscores the disingenuousness of apologies for sexual abuse made by Pope Francis and many other high clerics.  Their actions speak volumes even as they engage in crocodile tears.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this shocking story - which I suspect is the norm rather than the exception.  Here are highlights:

Just what is it that the Vatican does not get about predator priests? Apparently a lot.

Father Joseph Jeyapaul is a priest from India who admitted to raping two adolescent girls in Minnesota when he served the Crookston diocese from 2004 to 2005. 

After being charged with the abuse, which included rape and forcing at least one of the girls to perform fellatio on him, he fled home to India, where he was eventually arrested on an Interpol warrant. He was then extradited back to Minnesota, where he admitted his heinous crimes and entered a plea bargain in which, in exchange for a lighter sentence, he copped to molestation of one of the girls. 

Jeyapaul was suspended from the priesthood and served a year and a day in prison in Minnesota, then was deported back to India after his release last July. The Minnesota diocese where he worked also settled a civil lawsuit with the victims in which one accused him of systematic abuse in the confessional of the Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush, Minnesota, where he would then tell the girl it was her fault, that she had made him “impure.”

How much more proof would one need that the man cannot be trusted with minors? 

Apparently, Jeyapaul’s rap sheet is not enough to kick him out of the priesthood for good. In February, the Vatican approved lifting his suspension from the priesthood and agreed that he could be reassigned to a new parish in India. That parish even made him the diocesan head of its commission for education. 

“We are not only disgusted and alarmed, but we realize there is a serious danger,” Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson said during a press conference last week. “Pope Francis has broken a pledge. This priest is a predator who needs to be stopped, and they have chosen not to stop him.”

Anderson, who has been at the forefront of the legal battle for victims of clerical sex abuse in Minnesota, is involved because he represents one of the victims Jeyapaul went to prison for abusing. Megan Peterson, now 26, has stepped forward to tell her story to protect children. She asked Anderson to file a public danger (nuisance) federal lawsuit against the Ootacamund diocese in Tamil Nadu, India. 

"This pope has said that bishops who cover up [sexual abuse] and the offending clerics have no place in the church. I feel like this is a slap in the face."

Peterson is not the only one calling foul. The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says this is the last straw. “It may be the most irresponsible Vatican move we’ve ever seen: Catholic officials in Rome have lifted the suspension of a recently convicted predator priest,” SNAP’s outreach director Barbara Dorris said in a statement. “We are stunned and saddened by such blatant recklessness and callousness.”

[I]t gives one pause to think that the Vatican could turn such a blind eye to a case in which the priest admitted to abusing minors and was sentenced in a secular court. 

Interestingly, I recently learned that one of the few members of my family that had still been attending Catholic Church services has stopped going.  Meanwhile, another family member talked to me about perhaps trying out the Evangelical Lutheran Church.   Each remarked on having seen the movie "Spotlight" and its exposure of the criminality and callousness of the Church hierarchy.  I have long maintained that NOTHING will bring change to the Church until there is a massive exodus of  members and a drying up of the money spigot.  

Pennsylvania Lawmakers Call for Statewide Sex Abuse Probes of Catholic Dioceses

The movie Spotlight won and Academy Award for the portrayal of the Boston Globes exposure of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston.  Meanwhile, Pope Francis' panel established to hold prelates accountable for cover ups seems moribund, and in India, the Church continues to hide sexual abuse crimes and seemingly pretend that they are not happening.  And, as noted before, United States and Ireland have topped the list in sexual abuse cases by Catholic clergy, but the list of countries with sex abuse scandals is lengthy and includes, but is not limited to Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Norway, Poland, US, Tanzania, and Philippines.  Given this track record and the recent explosive grand jury report out of Pennsylvania, some members of the Pennsylvania legislature are calling for investigations of every diocese in that state.  The Church has made it clear that it will not police itself. Such investigations should, in fact, be conducted for EVERY diocese in America.  Here are highlights from The Morning Call on the developments in Pennsylvania:

Breathing deeply to control his anger and shame over his childhood rape, a state lawmaker called on prosecutors and the Legislature to use the power of their offices to safeguard children and punish the Catholic Church and other institutions that protect sex abusers they employ.

For decades, the Catholic Church has shielded predatory priests, said Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, a victim of clergy abuse. The most recent evidence of those "systematic cover-ups," Rozzi said, is outlined in last week's state grand jury report that accuses two bishops overseeing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown of allowing at least 50 priests and other religious leaders to sexually abuse hundreds of children for decades.

It must end now, Rozzi said at a news conference Wednesday in the state Capitol.

Rozzi, along with Rep. Tim Murt, R-Montgomery, called on the state's 67 county district attorneys to conduct grand jury investigations into their local Catholic dioceses and set up phone hotlines to allow victims to step forward.

They want the Legislature to adopt Murt's bill, which would temporarily lift the civil law statute of limitations. The bill would provide a two-year window from the law's enactment for victims to file civil claims, no matter how old the alleged abuse and cover-up.

"For me, as most of you know, this is personal," Rozzi said.  When Rozzi was 13, he was raped by an Allentown Diocese priest, the Rev. Edward Graff.

Murt, also a Catholic, said the Altoona-Johnstown grand jury report is far worse than anything he read in a 2012 Philadelphia grand jury report that found the Philadelphia Archdiocese covered up priest sexual abuse.

The lawmakers' ire was not only directed at the Catholic diocese, however. They also blasted Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who they claim has bottled up Murt's legislation, House Bill 951, since it was introduced in April 2015.

Murt's bill is not the only one that deals with the statute of limitations. In the House, Rep. Michael O'Brien, D-Philadelphia, and former Rep. Louis Bishop, D-Philadelphia, also a child sex-abuse victim, introduced bills. Bills also have been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton; Rob Teplitz, D-Dauphin; Andy Dinniman, D-Chester; and John Rafferty, R-Montgomery.

Note that it is a Republican allegedly bottling up the bill that would protect children and hopefully identify child rapists and predators.  

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Catholicism Comes to a Crossroads

Many of the bitter old men in dresses in bishoprics across the western world refuse to admit that times and people have changed and that the Roman Catholic Church is at a likely crossroads that requires that the Church come out of 13th century beliefs or face growing irrelevance.  It is a reality that man of these less than decent men don't want to accept, the arch-reactionary bishop of Richmond, Virginia (who was installed in office by the less than saintly John Paul II, a protector of child rapists) being a prime example.  Not only is he viciously anti-gay, but he still treats divorced and remarried Catholics as lepers and bars them from positions in Catholic schools.  A piece in the Richmond Times Dispatch looks at the crossroads before the Church:

Today’s rapidly changing social views are demanding some uncharacteristically hasty action from the Vatican. The issues of same-sex marriage and the role of homosexuals in the Catholic Church threaten to create seismic divisions within the church or perhaps even leave it in a position of irrelevance.

Currently, 22 nations have legalized same-sex marriage. Many of those are traditionally Catholic-majority countries. In May, Ireland became the first nation to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote. The predominantly Roman Catholic nation stood tall in its opposition to the church’s position, with 62 percent voting in favor of same-sex marriage.

And what was the Vatican’s response? Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, called the vote “a defeat for humanity.” But the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, had a different take. He bluntly admitted that it was time for the Church to do a reality check and ask itself if it has drifted away from young people.

A little more than one month later, the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was a constitutional right. That same day, June 26, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued this statement: “Today is a tragic day for marriage and our nation. The Supreme Court has dealt a profound injustice to the American people by striking down in part the federal Defense of Marriage Act. The Court got it wrong. The federal government ought to respect the truth that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, even where states fail to do so.”

So, what happens to the Catholic Church? How can the Roman pontiff continue to exercise supreme and full power within the universal church if its flock in the Western nations deliberately flouts Catholic teachings? Does the church remain rigid and unbending even if many of the faithful leave for other churches more welcoming to gay and lesbian family members and friends? How does the Church remain relevant to young men and women who are far, far more accepting of same-sex marriage then their parents?

Catholics in Western nations represent only a small portion of the church and the religion is not growing in Ireland or anywhere else in Europe. (Nor is it growing particularly fast in the U.S.)

Thanks to social media, we have seen the grim images of violence toward gays and lesbians in nations where homosexuality is considered a crime. Compare those to the joyful celebrations that took place across Ireland and the U.S. when gay marriage was legalized.

I wonder: Which of these attitudes has His fingerprints all over it?

Sexual Abuse Victims Want Australia’s Highest Ranking Cardinal to Resign

In Australia we are seeing an instant replay of what has been witnessed across the globe when scrutiny is focused on the Vatican orchestrated cover up of sex crimes against children and youths.  The Church can say all it wants about celibacy not playing a role in the tidal wave of sex abuse, but but for the celibacy rule (i) many psychologically disturbed men would not have sought refuge behind the vows of holy orders and (ii) men with children of their own would never have tolerated the rampant abuse or the systematic top down directive to cover up abuse and shield predators.  Not surprisingly, sex abuse victims are demanding the resignation of Cardinal Pell (pictured above), Australia's highest ranking member of the Australian Church hierarchy, after he admitted that the Church had covered up abuse.  Press TV looks at the story.  Here are highlights:

The victims on Tuesday called for the resignation of George Pell, the top-ranking cardinal in Australia, a day after he appeared before the Parliament of Victoria for an inquiry into the cases of pedophilia by priests in Victoria State.

Pell, an advisor to Pope Francis on Vatican reforms, admitted to the cover-up of a “horrendous widespread mess” regarding the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church.

“I am fully apologetic, and absolutely sorry,” Pell told Victoria lawmakers on the final day of the inquiry.

However, the victims and their supporters have reacted to the issue, saying they were unimpressed with the apology.

Stephen Woods, one of the victims, slammed the remarks and said, “The little care for the victims that he showed, showed that they still don’t get it.”   “He needs to resign. His era is finished,” Woods told reporters.

Last week, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart told the inquiry that the church had been “slow to address the anguish of the victims and dealt with it very imperfectly.”

The Catholic Church has admitted that some 620 children as young as seven have been raped by priests only in Victoria State since the 1930s.

Another special commission of inquiry has also been formed in New South Wales to investigate similar allegations of abuse in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has set up a Royal Commission to probe how churches, government bodies and other organizations have dealt with cases of child sex abuse in the country.  

The victims are right - Pell needs to resign as does almost all of the current Church hierarchy, including Pope Francis.  They all participated in the cover ups or knew of them and did nothing to protect children.   These are horrible men and as I have said before, no one with an ounce of morality in them should give them any deference.  The belong behind bars as accessories to sex crimes against children and youth.  

Catholic Order to Pay $16.5 Million to Sex Abuse Victims

As the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy continues its relentless anti-gay jihad against normal, well adjusted gays, it continues to hemorrhage money in court settlements arising from pedophiles and psycho-sexually stunted priests who abused children and youths.   One would think that at some point the bitter old men in dresses would figure out that their twin obsessions - priestly celibacy and condemnation of all things sexual - is going to end up bankrupting the Church.  The latest blow to the Church's image - no pun intended - arises from the Cristian Brothers order which filed bankruptcy in order to try to stop the financial hemorrhaging.  Here are highlights from the Chicago Tribune:

An order of the Roman Catholic Church has agreed to pay $16.5 million to more than 400 adults who said they were sexually abused as children by religious leaders, the parties announced on Thursday in separate statements.

The victims claimed abuse at schools and child-care facilities belonging to the Christian Brothers and the Christian Brothers of Ireland, Inc, in 17 U.S. states and Canada from the late 1940s or early 1950s until the 1980s, said James Stang, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

The settlement agreement reached in U.S. bankruptcy court also enables the victims to pursue more assets from the Christian Brothers such as real estate or insurance claims, Stang said.

In 2011, the Christian Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in response to the sexual abuse claims.


Both sides noted the agreement establishes safeguards to protect children from future abuse.

Note that it is the terms of the settlement, not a plan advanced by Rome which will help insure that children and youths are protected from abuse in the future.  I ask again, how can anyone truly moral remain a Catholic?  Little or nothing has changed.

Catholic Bishops Threaten to Block Immigration Reform if Gays Included

In my view, those who believed that Pope Francis might usher in a new climate in the Roman Catholic Church are either delusional or simply have their head up their ass.  In terms of the Church hierarchy's anti-gay jihad, nothing has changed.  And other than nice words, nothing has changed on the sexual abuse cover ups either.  It is all business as usual in terms of gay bashing and no punishment for the members of the hierarchy who aided and abetted child rapists.  Consistent with this continued moral bankruptcy, the U. S. Catholic bishops have renewed their opposition to comprehensive immigration reform if bi-national same sex couples are included in the legislation.  Of course, the biggest question the bishops' latest tantrum raises is that of why anyone decent with a shred of morality pays them an attention at all. A piece in AmericaBlog looks at this latest example of Catholic Church anti-gay animus.  Here are highlights:

The Catholic church, in its traditional move when it doesn’t get its way at the ballot box, is taking human shields in order to force its minority religious view on 100% of the American people.  This time the Catholic leaders, infamous for their ongoing aiding and abetting of child-rape in their own church, have taken 11 million undocumented Latinos hostage in yet another of their ongoing efforts to gay-bash.

The Catholic bishops, who have no business telling non-Catholic Christians like myself how to live our lives, let alone the rest of non-Catholic America, sent yet another anti-gay nastygram to President Obama, demanding he exclude gay bi-national couples from any immigration reform package, or they’ll torpedo the legislation.

The Catholic bishops threw a similar hissy fit over immigration reform in February.  Oddly, the bishops have yet to throw a hissy fit about their own colleagues aiding and abetting pedophilia.  It’s only the gays’ presumed-pedophilia that worries the Catholic bishops – the real thing, not so much.

The Catholics elders are known from their human-shield-taking.  They’ve taken children hostage in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, DC as part of their church’s ongoing political vendetta against the gays.  And the lead Catholic bishop in France recently seemed to justify anti-gay hate crimes.  So if they’re willing to harm children, and tolerate a few hate crimes, in order to get their way, they’re certainly willing to take a swipe at Latinos too.  (Perhaps it’s time Latinos learned that the Catholic church is not their friend – and perhaps this latest move will finally prove it.)

As for the Catholic threat to torpedo immigration reform lest the gays be free – let them try.  The only reason immigration reform is moving at all is because the Republican party is terrified that its lost the Latino vote forever, while Latinos are an ever-growing percentage of Americans.  That, along with traditional GOP bashing of gays, women, and African-Americans, among other people and causes, has so turned off young voters that it’s not clear, other than the South and very old white men, just who is willing to vote for a Republican anytime between now and the next century.

So let the Catholic church just try to torpedo the GOP’s big comeback with Latinos.  That should be fun to watch.

I continue to believe that a government investigation of the Catholic Church is needed in America.  It is the only way the truth will ever come out and the only way that the nasty old men in dresses will ever be held accountable for their crimes against children and youths.

Pope Francis Was Often Silent on Sex Abuse Cases

We might have known that another shoe was due to drop in terms of further examination of Pope Francis' past.   Now stories are arising that per likely Vatican orders Francis turned a blind eye on sexual abuse cases while archbishop in Argentina.  It's the same old pattern that this blog has viewed over and over again around the world as bishops and cardinals have opposed gay rights, contraception and women's rights as something horrible while the rape and molestation of children and minors by priests was treated with a "boys will be boys" or "droit du seigneur" attitude and swept under the rug.  An article in the Washington Post looks at the new Pope's less than impressive record in opposing sexual abuse and his disdain for abuse victims.   Here are article highlights:

HURLINGHAM, Argentina — Father Julio Cesar Grassi was a celebrity in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires. The young, dynamic, ­media-savvy priest networked with wealthy Argentines to fund an array of schools, orphanages and job training programs for poor and abandoned youths, winning praise from Argentine politicians and his superior, Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Today, Grassi is a convicted sex offender who remains free on a conditional release after being sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 for molesting a prepubescent boy in his care.

Yet in the years after Grassi’s conviction, Bergoglio — now Pope Francis — has declined to meet with the victim of the priest’s crimes or the victims of other predations by clergy under his leadership. He did not offer personal apologies or financial restitution, even in cases in which the crimes were denounced by other members of the church and the offending priests were sent to jail.

Bergoglio’s handling of pedophilic clergy under his authority offers insight into how he might approach the scandals. 

There is no evidence that Bergoglio played a role in covering up abuse cases.  .  .  .  .   But during most of the 14 years that Bergoglio served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, rights advocates say, he did not take decisive action to protect children or act swiftly when molestation charges surfaced; nor did he extend apologies to the victims of abusive priests after their misconduct came to light.

“He has been totally silent,” said Ernesto Moreau, a member of Argentina’s U.N.-affiliated Permanent Assembly for Human Rights and a lawyer who has represented victims in a clergy sexual-abuse case. Victims asked to meet with Bergoglio but were turned down, Moreau said. “In that regard, Bergoglio was no different from most of the other bishops in Argentina, or the Vatican itself.”

Grassi was not expelled from the priesthood after the guilty verdict. Instead, church officials led by Bergoglio commissioned a lengthy private report arguing that Grassi was innocent.

One of Argentina’s best-known advocates for child-abuse victims, Sister Martha Pelloni, said she was called in several times to consult with psychologists who treated Grassi’s alleged victims. She said the meetings left her with no doubt that the priest was guilty, despite the church-commissioned report attempting to exonerate him. He was eventually convicted on the charges made by one of the boys. “A lot of Catholics have wanted to protect and defend him,” she said. “But the abuses were real.”

The Vatican - aiding by simpering and fawning members of the  media - is working hard to manufacture a positive image of Francis, but it is most likely that he's merely a less aloof version of his immediate predecessors.  One can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.

The Catholic Church Heirarchy Steps Up Its Anti-Gay Jihad

Speaking of liars and hate merchants, Pope Benedict XVI and his sycophants in the Catholic Church hierarchy speak out of one side of their mouths that LGBT individuals should be treated with respect and dignity.  But then we see what they really believe as they seek to defame gays and deprive us of civil legal rights.  What am I talking about?  On the issue of defaming gays, African Cardinal Peter Turkson (pictured above), one of the top contenders for the papacy, has issued statements that seek to blame gays for the Church's worldwide sex abuse crisis.  Never mind the hierarchy's sick obsession with all things sexual and the warped psycho-sexual development of far too many seminarians.  Gay Star News looks at Turkson's anti-gay batshitery.  Here are highlights:

The African cardinal widely tipped to be the next pope has blamed the Catholic Church’s pedophilia on gay priests.  Cardinal Peter Turkson, from Ghana, said the sex abuses would never happen in Africa because the culture is against homosexuality.

Speaking to CNN, the 64-year-old said: ‘African traditional systems kind of protect or have protected its population against the tendency. ‘Because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa homosexuality or for that matter any affair between two sexes of the same kind, are not countenanced in our society.’ ‘So that cultural taboo, that tradition has been there,’ Turkson said. ‘It has served to keep it out.’

Never mind the fact that many experts on the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal expect that  before long a scandal similar to what has been seen all around the world will explode in Africa.  Indeed, the only reason that it hasn't exploded yet is because of the general ignorance and lack of education of most of the victims and their families.  When the sex abuse scandal does explode, I'm sure that once again Tuckson will blame it on the gays.  The real problem as often noted is the Church's bizarre and obsessive approach to all things sexual as symbolized by the image below:

I was raised as a Catholic, so I know all too well the obsession with sex and the evil nature and temptations of women.

Meanwhile the Church hierarchy continues its attack on any form of gay rights in America.  With the recent announcement that the Department of Defense will be extending some spousal benefits to gay service members and their families, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, and the vitriolic anti-gay Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco are throwing hissy fits that would out do the most outrageous drag queen.  The Navy Times looks at their efforts to undermine the goal of affording equal treatment to same sex couple headed military families.  What exposes the actions of these men as disingenuous bullshit is their supposed concern for children.  This from men who are part of the organization that has orchestrated a world wide criminal conspiracy to protect child rapists and obstruct justice.  Excuse me while I go make use of a vomit bag.  Here are excepts from the Navy Times article:

Two Catholic archbishops — one of them the archbishop of the military archdiocese — have expressed concern about the potential effects of the Defense Department’s new policy extending more benefits to same-sex domestic partners, to include negative effects on religious freedom and on children.

Broglio said the new policy could have possible negative effects on religious liberty, and used the example of an attorney in the Judge Advocate General Corps. “Could a JAG officer choose, out of religious or moral convictions, not to give legal advice on marital and family issues to same-sex ‘partners’ without being subject to discipline? Forcing the officer to violate his conscience would not be fair,” he said in the statement.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the bishops’ subcommittee for the promotion and defense of marriage, also expressed concerns about the policy’s potential effects on children.

Cordileone focused on the potential effects on children. “There is no question that all service members should be treated equally, but it is not discrimination to treat different things differently. Only a man and a woman can bring children into the world, and so marriage, as the foundation of the family, by its very nature can only be between a man and a woman,” he said.

Under Cordileone's bizarre manifestation of concern for children, the children of same sex military couples would be deprived of benefits and legal rights and resources.  Sadly, it is not surprising that "princes of the church" such as Broglio and Cordileone - who are part of a criminal conspiracy involving crimes against children - would seek to harm the children of same sex couples one or both of whom is/are in the U.S. military.   And believe me, I know a number of same sex couples locally where one of the spouses is in the military.  Real couples and real children are harmed by the agenda of Broglio and Cordileone - just as real children were and are being harmed by the Vatican orchestrated conspiracy to protect child rapists.

   

Speculation Swirls Around Benedict XVI's Abdication

While my last post made it clear that I will not be shedding any tears over I like many others wonder what may have pushed God's Rottweiler to abdicate.  Andrew Sullivan noted:

[T]he suddenness of this is striking. Are new revelations about the Vatican Bank or the child-rape crisis about to emerge? Is there a more urgent health problem that we are unaware of? Why not wait till after Easter at least? There will doubtless be a lot of speculation and gossip.

 Interestingly enough Slate republished today a 2010 piece by the late Christopher Hitchens that zoomed in on Benedict XVI's personal involvement in the rampant, worldwide sex abuse scandal.   With countless addition secret internal documents to be released by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it doesn't stretch the imagination that something explosive might exist that could be extremely damaging.  Here are highlights from the 2010 piece:

Concerning the most recent revelations about the steady complicity of the Vatican in the ongoing—indeed endless—scandal of child rape, a few days later a spokesman for the Holy See made a concession in the guise of a denial. It was clear, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, that an attempt was being made "to find elements to involve the Holy Father personally in issues of abuse." He stupidly went on to say that "those efforts have failed."

He was wrong twice. In the first place, nobody has had to strive to find such evidence: It has surfaced, as it was bound to do. In the second place, this extension of the awful scandal to the topmost level of the Roman Catholic Church is a process that has only just begun. Yet it became in a sense inevitable when the College of Cardinals elected, as the vicar of Christ on Earth, the man chiefly responsible for the original cover-up. (One of the sanctified voters in that "election" was Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, a man who had already found the jurisdiction of Massachusetts a bit too warm for his liking.)

There are two separate but related matters here: First, the individual responsibility of the pope in one instance of this moral nightmare and, second, his more general and institutional responsibility for the wider lawbreaking and for the shame and disgrace that goes with it. The first story is easily told, and it is not denied by anybody. In 1979, an 11-year-old German boy identified as Wilfried F. was taken on a vacation trip to the mountains by a priest. After that, he was administered alcohol, locked in his bedroom, stripped naked, and forced to suck the penis of his confessor. (Why do we limit ourselves to calling this sort of thing "abuse"?) The offending cleric was transferred from Essen to Munich for "therapy" by a decision of then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, and assurances were given that he would no longer have children in his care. But it took no time for Ratzinger's deputy, Vicar General Gerhard Gruber, to return him to "pastoral" work, where he soon enough resumed his career of sexual assault.

Very much more serious is the role of Joseph Ratzinger, before the church decided to make him supreme leader, in obstructing justice on a global scale. After his promotion to cardinal, he was put in charge of the so-called "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" (formerly known as the Inquisition). In 2001, Pope John Paul II placed this department in charge of the investigation of child rape and torture by Catholic priests. In May of that year, Ratzinger issued a confidential letter to every bishop. In it, he reminded them of the extreme gravity of a certain crime. But that crime was the reporting of the rape and torture. The accusations, intoned Ratzinger, were only treatable within the church's own exclusive jurisdiction. Any sharing of the evidence with legal authorities or the press was utterly forbidden. Charges were to be investigated "in the most secretive way ... restrained by a perpetual silence ... and everyone ... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office … under the penalty of excommunication." (My italics). Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children, but exposing the offense could get you into serious trouble. And this is the church that warns us against moral relativism! (See, for more on this appalling document, two reports in the London Observer of April 24, 2005, by Jamie Doward.)

The next item on this grisly docket will be the revival of the long-standing allegations against the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the ultra-reactionary Legion of Christ, in which sexual assault seems to have been almost part of the liturgy. Senior ex-members of this secretive order found their complaints ignored and overridden by Ratzinger during the 1990s, if only because Father Maciel had been praised by the then-Pope John Paul II as an "efficacious guide to youth." And now behold the harvest of this long campaign of obfuscation. The Roman Catholic Church is headed by a mediocre Bavarian bureaucrat once tasked with the concealment of the foulest iniquity, whose ineptitude in that job now shows him to us as a man personally and professionally responsible for enabling a filthy wave of crime. Ratzinger himself may be banal, but his whole career has the stench of evil—a clinging and systematic evil that is beyond the power of exorcism to dispel. What is needed is not medieval incantation but the application of justice—and speedily at that.

Hitchen's words are as true today as they were back in 2010. Benedict XVI or whatever he will be called after his abdication needs to be criminally prosecuted for his involvement in crimes against children.  The Vatican should not be allowed to try to whitewash his grievous offenses.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God

Mea Maxima Culpa Promo

Tonight HBO premiered a documentary entitled "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" which investigates the secret crimes of Father Lawrence Murphy, a Roman Catholic priest who abused more than 200 deaf children in a school under his control.   Not surprisingly, the trail in the lies and cover ups that took place all the way to the Vatican and documents the involvement of Popes from Pope Paul VI onward, with the current Pope Benedict XVI bearing perhaps the most responsibility given his position as head of the dread Inquisition for over 20 years before his elevation to the papacy.   The picture revealed is hideous and chilling.  In any other context outside of religion and a large religious institution, the perpetrators and accessories would all have faced prosecution and lengthy prison sentences.  Yet, despite their crimes the current Pope and many of the Church's current cardinals and bishop have gone totally unpunished and remain the objects of deference and respect.  It is an indictment of not only the Catholic Church hierarchy but also every Catholic who has remained in the Church and continues to finance the Vatican orchestrated criminal enterprise.  Andrew Sullivan has some lengthy and telling commentary:

Alex Gibney’s new documentary on the child-rape epidemic in the Catholic Church that raged for decades (and maybe centuries), Mea Maxima Culpa, debuted tonight on HBO. I’ve watched it twice. It is both an inspiring testament to faith and truth – as well as a devastating indictment of pride, power, and lies. The former come from four boys who attended St John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee in the 1970s. The latter comes from the Vatican and everyone in its power structure then and ever since. 

The story begins as long ago as 1974 when four boys put fliers on the windshields of the cars in the parking lot of the church run by the man who raped them. They simply said “Wanted” with the priest’s name (the more explicit flyer in the video above came later). Instead of being listened to, the kids were disciplined. Eventually, in Murphy’s psychiatric record, Gibney finds Father Lawrence Murphy confessing to raping over 200 boys over a long period of time. He raped them in their dorm rooms; he raped them in the confessional, using the small window as a glory hole and granting absolution based on rape or masturbation. The detail I cannot quite recover from is that he picked out for abuse those deaf boys who had parents who could not use sign language – so that even if the boys had the courage to say what had happened to them, their parents would not understand. It’s things like that that simply chill you, haunt you, force you to confront the pre-meditated, profound assault on human souls that the Catholic Church, from the Pope on down, enabled, perpetuated, and lied about for so long – and still hasn’t been held fully accountable for.

And what this documentary proves beyond any reasonable doubt (like Gibney’s examination of the Bush-Cheney administration’s decision to torture prisoners in “Taxi To The Dark Side”) is that all of it was known throughout the hierarchy for decades.

It has been a core problem with the “celibate” priesthood in the US for decades, and every single bishop and every single Pope knew it. Fitzgerald personally met with Pope Paul VI to try and get him to act. Yes, the good folks in the church tried to do something as early as the 1950s and were stopped in their tracks … by the Vatican. The number of souls violated by child-rape in the coming decades would not have happened if all the Popes since Paul VI had acted with more moral sense than most maximum security murderers. (Even the worst prisoners regard child-rapists as the lowest of the low. Popes? Not so much). We’re not talking about priests who are drunks, or priests who fall in love, or break their vows in fallible, victimless ways; we’re talking here about priests committing one of the most heinous felonies imaginable: the systematic rape of children using the authority of the Church as cover.

John Paul II emphatically cannot be somehow removed from this picture. He personally protected one of the worst offenders, Marcial Maciel, who was a serial rapist, drug trafficker, bigamist and rapist of his own son.

Joseph Ratzinger, when he was Archbishop of Munich, personally signed off on sending a priest to therapy, after that priest had raped several children, never notified the police, never told the parents of the children at the parish the priest was then assigned to, and because of this negligence, was, in my view, complicit in the rape of several more children before the priest was finally caught, arrested and sent to jail. Let me repeat that: the current Pope enabled and abetted the rape of children  .  .  .  .    More than that, no one else in the church knows more about this long record of child-rape than Ratzinger. From 2001 onwards, all cases of child rape or abuse were ordered to be sent to his personal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. And all of it had to be kept completely hidden from the outside world. In the words of Hans Kung, Ratzinger’s former modernizing ally in the Second Vatican Council,

Ratzinger himself, in a letter on “grave sexual crimes” addressed to all the bishops under the date of 18 May, 2001, warned the bishops, under threat of ecclesiastical punishment, to observe “papal secrecy” in such cases.

He knew everything – and had the goods on every Cardinal, in whose dioceses thousands of complaints had been filed. And one wonders why it was a surprise he was elected Pope.

In the Catholic Church, mass rapists get retirement homes with maids. She confronts the rape victim. She keeps asking him: “Are you a Catholic?” He keeps replying that this has nothing to do with Catholicism and everything to do with rape. She just comes back at him with rapid-fire repetitions of “Are you a Catholic?” “Are you a Catholic?” “Are you a Catholic?“

Where are we now as a church if we vaunt one of the biggest enablers of child-rape, John Paul II, to the status of sainthood without a thorough investigation of these matters?

When will we Catholics insist in the prosecution of this Pope and this hierarchy for what can only be called – given its duration and gravity and sheer scale – a crime against humanity. When will we lose the deference to a clerical elite that has become its own self-perpetuating clique of sexual dysfunction, that has lost even the most basic moral authority, that even now refuses to hold itself to account.

Sadly, Sullivan continues to identify as a Catholic despite all of the known crimes of the Church leadership.  And this is part of the problem that he purports to decry.  Only by all moral people walking away from the Church - and I do not know how anyone moral can remain a Catholic given all that is now known - will the Church lose sufficient support to expose it to the criminal prosecutions that need to be undertaken.  Sadly, both law enforcement officials and politicians will in most cases be afraid to take need measures against the Church as longs as millions of members of the Catholic laity remain members of the Church and de facto accessories to these countless crimes against children.  I walked away from Catholicism over a decade ago.  My children and all but one of my siblings have done likewise.  But too many people out of laziness and a fear of thinking for themselves remain and allow the guilty to remain unpunished.

Retired LA Cardinal Symbolically Stripped of Duties

Apparently, the increasing amount of dirt coming to light in the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles has finally hit the tipping point where even the child rapist protectors at the Vatican believed that some sort of symbolic gesture had to be taken against Cardinal Roger Mahony who has been shown to have deliberately protected molesters and kept information from authorities.  And the volume of dirty is only likely to get worse as more files are released under court order.  While I welcome any kind of action that will humiliate the pompous and arrogant Mahony, the sad reality is that what he did is likely the norm across diocese after diocese around the world.  Protecting children simply did not matter to these horrible men who prance around in dress demanding deference from the gullible.  A piece in the Virginian Pilot looks at this latest development out of Los Angeles.  I don't for a moment believe Archbishop Gomez's feigned disgust - he's only upset the world is seeing the extent of the hierarchy's moral bankruptcy.  Moreover, it is telling that Mahony has not losthis title as cardinal.  Here are story excerpts:

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who retired with a tainted career after dodging criminal charges over how he handled pedophile priests, was stripped of duties by his successor as a judge ordered confidential church personnel files released.

The unprecedented move by Archbishop Jose Gomez came less than two weeks after other long-secret priest personnel records showed how Mahony worked with top aides to protect the Roman Catholic church from the engulfing scandal.

One of those aides, Monsignor Thomas Curry stepped down Thursday as auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles archdiocese's Santa Barbara region. Gomez said Mahony, 76, would no longer have administrative or public duties in the diocese.

"I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," Gomez said in a statement, referring to 12,000 pages of files posted online by the church Thursday night just hours after a judge's order. "The behavior described in these files is terribly sad and evil. There is no excuse, no explaining away what happened to these children."

The fallout was highly unusual and marks a dramatic shift from the days when members of the church hierarchy emerged largely unscathed despite the roles they played in covering up clergy sex abuse.

"It's quite extraordinary. I don't think anything like this has happened before," Reese said. "It's showing that there are consequences now to mismanaging the sex abuse crisis."

Several of the documents released late Thursday echo recurring themes that emerged over the past decade in dioceses nationwide, where church leaders moved problem priests between parishes and didn't call the police.

In one instance, a draft of a plan with Mahony's name on it calls for sending a molester priest to his native Spain for a minimum of seven years, paying him $400 a month and offering health insurance. In return, the cardinal would agree to write the Vatican and ask them to cancel his excommunication.

It was unclear whether the proposed agreement was enacted with the Rev. Jose Ugarte, who had been reported to the archdiocese 20 years earlier by a physician for drugging and raping a boy in a hotel in Ensenada, his file shows.   "He has been sexually involved with three young men in addition to the original allegations," Curry, then Mahony's point person for dealing with suspected priests, wrote in 1993.

In another case, Mahony resisted turning over a list of altar boys to police who were investigating claims against a visiting Mexican priest who was later determined to have molested 26 boys during a 10-month stint in Los Angeles

Prosecutors, who have been stymied for years in their attempts to see the internal church files, have said they will search for new evidence of criminal wrongdoing by church leaders. Most of the material, however, now falls well outside the statute of limitations.

Some church critics said Gomez's actions, particularly against Mahony, amounted to a slap on the wrist as long as he remained a cardinal and a member of the powerful Vatican body that elects the Pope.

The reprimand is a "purely symbolic punishment that they hope will satisfy at least some people in the archdiocese," said Terry McKiernan, founder of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks the release of priest files nationally. "I don't think that many savvy observers of this will be deceived."

Oh, and do check out the letters found here which show that the current Pope was involved in the protection of predator priests as well.  The Church hierarchy continues to be an utter cesspool that ought to shock the conscience of decent moral people.  It deserves no repect and certainly no deference by politicans or anyone else.

How Long Does It Take a Supposed Man of God to Admit Child Rape is Wrong?

Fortunately, the story first launched by the Los Angeles Times about the deliberate, many years long cover up efforts by Cardinal Roger Mahony and Los Angeles archdiocese officials continues to get much play.  As additional records are released relating to another 75 predator priests, one can only expect that the much deserved negative coverage of the Catholic Church will only increase.  Meanwhile a piece in Religion Dispatches raises the question of how a supposed man of God like Mahony could show noting but contempt for child victims while protecting their abusers.  Its a phenomenon which to me demonstrates the utter moral bankruptcy of the Church's leadership all the way up to Benedict XVI.  Here are excerpts from the piece:

Archbishop Roger Mahony of Los Angeles sat on reports of felony-level sexual abuse of children by priests for almost 15 years before he took action, and that the Los Angeles Catholic diocese waited at least 14 years before reporting abuse to law enforcement.

The LA Times report was based on letters written by Mahony in 1986 and 1987 recently entered as evidence in a civil suit. More documents will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

Here at RD, I have argued that it was the feminist movement’s emphasis on bearing witness to sexual abuse that raised consciousness and created critical mass among Catholic laity towards breaking the abuse scandal open.

And it sure doesn’t take a degree in gender studies to see how a hierarchical patriarchal institution will protect its own before it protects children.


Wrote one Los Angeles Times commentator: “If the Catholic Church had allowed women to become priests, would it even be having this ongoing sexual abuse problem? Maybe the Holy Spirit is trying to tell the Magisterium something, but I doubt most of these folks would be listening to her anyway.”

Still.  Fifteen years’ gap between crime and compunction.  Fifteen years.  Fifteen years. First-degree felonies.  Rape.  Committed against the most vulnerable: undocumented, Spanish-speaking children.  As young as twelve.

While preaching from a sacred text that plainly states: “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6).

As Bob Felton at Civil Commotion makes clear, the Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly on sexual predator clergy.   The Southern Baptist Convention may be just as bad in some ways.  But the arrogance and attitude of the Catholic Church hierarchy that it is above the law has few equals.   The moral bankruptcy - not to mention chilling hypocrisy - of the bitter old men in dresses speaks volumes about why the Catholic Church in its present form needs to die.  It is truly something hideous.

Vatican Seeks Alliance Against Gay Rights

While continuing to engage in a criminal conspiracy to coddle and protect child rapists and to avoid paying meaningful compensation to victims of clerical sexual abuse, Pope Benedict XVI - who ought to be behind bars for his protection of predators - has signaled that the Vatican invites a inter-faith alliance to fight the advancement of gay rights and same sex marriage in particular.  The move is symptomatic of the moral bankruptcy and psychosis that plagues the bitter old closeted queens in dresses who make up the highest ranks of the Catholic Church hierarchy.   Personally, I find the situation mind boggling: loving committed relationships of gay couples are deemed evil by the Church, but the sexual abuse of minors and youths under droit du seigneur mentality is perfectly fine unless, of course, the public finds out about the sexual abuse.  Such is the upside down morality of the Church leadership.  Reuters looks at Benedict XVI latest assault on gays and equality under the civil laws.  Here are highlights:

The pope's latest denunciation of gay marriage came in a Christmas address to Vatican officials in which he blended religion, philosophy, anthropology and sociology to illustrate the position of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Vatican has gone on the offensive in response to gains for gay marriage in the United States and Europe, using every possible opportunity to denounce it through papal speeches or editorials in its newspaper or on its radio station.

Throwing the full weight of his office behind a study by France's chief rabbi on the effects the legalization of gay marriage would have on children and society, he said: "There is no denying the crisis that threatens it (the family) to its foundations - especially in the Western world."

Speaking in the frescoed Clementine Hall of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, the 85-year-old pope said the family was being threatened by "a false understanding of freedom" and a repudiation of life-long commitment in heterosexual marriage.  .  .  .  . The "pre-ordained duality of man and woman" had to be respected, he said, if families and children were not to lose their place and dignity.

In some countries, the Catholic Church has already joined forces with Jews, Muslims and members of other religions to oppose the legalization of gay marriage, in some cases presenting arguments based on legal, social and anthropological analyses rather than religious teachings.

Significantly, the pope specifically praised as "profoundly moving" a study by Gilles Bernheim, France's chief rabbi, which has become the subject of heated debate in that country.  Bernheim, also a philosopher, argues that homosexual rights groups "will use gay marriage as a Trojan Horse" in a wider campaign to "deny sexual identity and erase sexual differences" and "undermine the heterosexual fundamentals of our society".

If Benedict wants to cling to a 13th century understanding of mankind and sexuality, then the trade off should be that his medical care should be limited to 13th century medical practices.  That way we'd be rid of the lying hypocrite in no time and he could take up his reserved seat in Hell.

Catholic Order Calls Predator Priest a "Church Treasure"

Outside of perhaps the Christofascist element in the GOP party base and the professional Christian set, there are few people more out of touch with reality and inhabiting an alternate universe than the Catholic Church hierarchy and the leaders of Catholic religious orders.   They have no compassion or empathy with others, especially women and minors, and they are such self-absorbed and self-congratulatory narcissists that  they fail to even recognize what among anyone else would amount to common decency.  How else to explain calling a convicted serial child rapist a Church "treasure"?  That's exactly what a Patrician Brothers newsletter called Patrician Brother Thomas Grealy who had been convicted of molestation and buggery charges in 1997.  Oh, and then there's the fact that Grealy was never expelled from the ranks of the clergy.  These people are truly unbelievable in their obtuseness, insensitivity and moral bankruptcy.  Here are highlights from ABC News on this travesty:

The head of the Patrician Brothers in Australia has apologised after a brother jailed for child sexual abuse was referred to as a "treasure" in a church publication.   Patrician Brother Thomas Grealy was convicted of molestation and buggery charges in 1997.

He spent four years in jail for the rape and indecent assault of two boys when he was principal at the Patrician Brothers' Primary School at Granville in Western Sydney.

During his trial the court heard Brother Augustine, as Grealy was then known, would cover the statue of the Virgin Mary in his office with a coat to hide his shame before abusing the nine and 10-year-old boys in his care.

Not only does he remain a Patrician brother, but in a September newsletter Grealy is pictured standing alongside leaders of the Patricians in Australia and is referred to in the caption as one of three "Patrician treasures".

Lawyer Jason Parkinson represents five men who allege they were abused by Grealy in the 1970s.  "It's had such a detrimental effect on their life that there's been a number of suicide attempts and a number of serious issues in relation to self-harm," he said. 

"[I] just couldn't believe that the order would refer to a child molester as a treasure.  "It just goes beyond belief that they would even be inviting him to remain within their group. He should've been shunned, should've been sent away. Shouldn't be allowed in the order."

Nearly 40 years later, Mr Parkinson said the Patrician Brothers had not taken responsibility for Grealy's behaviour and was squabbling with The Archdiocese of Sydney over responsibility. "It was just terrible that Catholic orders and the Archdiocese and the Catholic Church itself can arrange their affairs in such a way that they can attempt to escape liability and responsibility," Mr Parkinson said.  "There's no other organizations in Australia that can do that."

Remind me again, how does anyone moral remain a member of the Roman Catholic Church?  There are few institutions on the face of the earth that are less suited to lecture anyone else on what's moral and/or seek to inflict their warped and toxic dogma on everyone else.

Catholic Group Demands that Knights of Columbus Cease Anti-Gay Campaign

Perhaps there is still some hope for the Catholic Church laity which typically ignores much of what the Vatican dictates but fails to ever actually speak out against the evil agenda of the Church hierarchy and its water carriers such as the Knights of Columbus.   The Knights raise millions of dollars annually to allegedly assist the poor and needy - the organization's founder wanted it to aid and protect widows and children left destitute when husbands/fathers died back in the bad old days of the Gilded Age yearned for by Republican plutocrats - yet this past election cycle squandered millions of dollars funding the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-gay groups.  As the Boston Globe reports, some Catholics are outraged and want the anti-gay campaign to stop.  Here are highlights:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — A Catholic advocacy group delivered a petition with about 7,500 signatures to the Knights of Columbus on Tuesday, asking the Catholic fraternal organization to stop using its money to oppose same-sex marriage.  Catholics United Education Fund submitted the petition to the Knights’ New Haven headquarters.

The liberal advocacy group, which was founded in 2004 and claims 45,000 members, says the Knights spent more than $600,000 opposing same-sex marriage in the last election cycle. The group says the effort drives younger Catholics away from the faith and the Knights should focus on serving the poor and vulnerable.

‘‘As a young Catholic, I want my church to focus on serving the marginalized, not fighting for far-right political issues,’’ said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United.

Catholics United, citing a report last month from a coalition of Catholics who support gay rights, said the Knights donated more than $600,000 this year for ballot initiatives in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state.

The Knights and its affiliated insurance company have spent more than $6 million since 2005 opposing same-sex marriage, according to the report cited by Catholics United.

If liberal Catholics really want to make change occur in the Church, they need to vote with their feet and/or cease ALL financial support to Church parishes and institutions.  The foul old men in Rome only react to two things: falling membership and falling contributions.  For those Catholics seeking an alternative to a institutional Church that aids and abets child rapists, I highly recommend the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is gay accepting and accepts partnered gay clergy.  As for the Knights, stop all donations of any kind and tell them why your money is being donated elsewhere.

The Vatican's Complete Moral Bankruptcy

I often speak out against the Roman Catholic Church and the utter hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy that now seems to totally permeate the entire Church hierarchy from the lowest bishop to the current throne of St. Peter.  I'm outraged that for the most part that these participants in a world wide criminal conspiracy to protect child rapist have escaped being put behind bars where they belong, often because prosecutors continue to give undeserved deference to religious figures.  In addition, it sickens me to see young people, gay and straight, being harmed psychologically by the bizarre and warped sexual hang ups of bitter men, many of whom are self-loathing closeted gays who seem obsessed with denigrating all things sexual so as to deprive others of the love and normal sexuality that they themselves have at least in theory sworn off.  As Andrew Sullivan - who was also raised Catholic as I was but who has not formally rejected Catholicism as I have - notes, a new documentary, "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God"has been released.  By Andrew's account, it sounds like it should be required that every Catholic who continues to fawn over or even give a shred of respect to the Church hierarchy view this film.  They need to understand the evil they help financially underwrite with every dollar they give to their local parish.  Here are highlights from Andrew's commentary on the Church that is right on target (note the punishment dolled out by the Church to a 17 year old who dared to believe that gays should be equal under the CIVIL laws):

It's about the Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis - and the criminal conspiracy reaching right to the current Pope that will one day surely bring the whole house of cards down, so that the church can be rebuilt amid the ruins created by deeply sick and psychologically crippled men at its core. No one is more implicated in covering up this institutionalization of sexual abuse and secrecy than the man who controlled and oversaw every single case of clerical sex abuse in the world from 2001 onwards: Pope Benedict XVI, who knows more than anyone else on the planet about the horrifying psycho-sexual truth beneath the ermined, bejewelled veneer.

One feature of this last election was the complete failure of the Vatican hierarchs to dictate the vote to the flock. American Catholics voted for Obama over Romney. The docile fools in dresses - from Dolan to Chaput - were ignored as they now routinely are, and should be. They actually think they still have moral authority. But moral authority has to be earned with each generation, and the corruption in the Vatican is so deep and so rotten and so incapable of self-reflection it has effectively created two Catholic churches in America: those few in the pews who still listen to the bishops and those who exist almost in a parallel church

In Minnesota, where a third of the population is Catholic, the hierarchy insisted that the state amend its constitution to keep gay couples out of civil society and civil marriage. The hierarchy failed - as miserably as they failed in their trumped up "war on religion" nonsense. The Amendment didn't pass. You cannot be exposed as an institution that is responsible for covering up the rape and torture of thousands of children and have any moral authority when it comes to the constitutional equality of gay citizens or the contraceptives that 99 percent of Catholic American women use at some point.

And so in Minnesota, a 17-year-old Catholic, Lennon Cihack, who goes to mass weekly, and who was diligently preparing for his confirmation, posted on his Facebook page a picture of himself and a poster opposing the Amendment. His mother is then called into the rectory by the local priest and told that the confirmation cannot occur. Then she is told that the entire family is now barred from communion. She appeals to the bishop. He tells her that if Lennon stands in front of the whole congregation and denounces marriage equality, he can be confirmed.

This is where we are. It feels like the last days of the Soviet Union. And I believe the mother, not the priest. Given what we now know about the hierarchy's corruption, isn't that the default position?

One can only hope that the Cihack family walks away from Catholicism - it is the only truly moral thing to do until the hierarchy is removed in total.  I'd recommend they check out their local ELCA parish.  As for those putting money in the collection plate, they need to remember that under the Church's feudal structure, part of each dollar ends up at the Vatican supporting a man who ought to be behind bars.

Australian Priest: State Must Act Against Catholic Church

It is refreshing to see someone within the Catholic Church clergy admitting that the Church hierarchy has engaged in criminal activity in the cover ups of sexual abuse of children and youths.  I suspect that Jesuit priest Frank Brennan may face repercussions for his honesty and underscoring of the fact that the Church cannot be left to police itself or properly deal with sexual predators because the hierarchy is part of the criminal conspiracy.  Hopefully, Australia will act against the Church contrary to what has occurred in the USA where no high clerics have been prosecuted.  Here are highlights from The Age:

THE Catholic Church will need state intervention to resolve the crisis surrounding sexual abuse of children by priests, according to noted jurist and Jesuit priest Frank Brennan.

''Where there is a social organisation within the democracy with a proven and self-admitted case of ongoing criminal activity, and it's related to very vulnerable children, the state should intervene,'' he said.

Delivering the annual Law and Justice Oration in Sydney's Parliament House on Wednesday night, Professor Brennan said: ''Clearly, the church itself cannot be left alone to get its house in order. That would be a wrongful invocation of freedom of religion in a pluralist, democratic society.''

His comments echo those made by RMIT professor and former priest Des Cahill to the state inquiry into the church handling of clergy sex abuse.

 

Professor Brennan said that as politicians decided how to proceed, they needed the help of ''lawyers committed to justice, not lawyers acting primarily to protect the church or to condemn it''.

Professor Brennan said in his oration that any problems in the Catholic Church needed to be identified for the good of all citizens, not just Catholics.

''At the moment, there is little more that any Catholic priest can credibly say on this issue in the public square. I make this plea to all lawyers having a commitment to justice. While putting aside any religious prejudice, please contribute fearlessly to the debate.''

 Would that we would see a single bishop or cardinal in America call out the Church for the criminal organization it is in fact.  No, instead they focus their efforts on depriving LGBT citizens of civil rights while coddling and protecting child rapists.

Newwark Archbishop Compares Gay Marriage to Incest and Attacks Pro-Gay Catholics

I've asked this question many times before: why does anyone who has not had a lobotomy or who has an IQ over a trainable retarded individual listen to anything the members of the child rapist protecting Catholic Church hierarchy?  The sex abuse scandal continues to flame around the globe and literally EVERY DAY new stories of molestations by Catholic clergy emerge and the Church continues to fight tooth and claw to deprive victims of meaningful compensation for the trauma and emotional damage they suffered.  So what do the foul princes of the Church do?  Unleash renewed and vile attacks on LGBT individuals and, now, pro-gay Catholics as well.  The latest nasty attack comes from John Myers, the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey (who like his buddy Timothy Dolan in New York looks like he's never missed a meal and is living high on the hog).  Myers issued a 16 page tirade against gays and their allies within the Catholic Church and in the process cited discredited anti-gay "research."  Myers' full letter can be found here.  As I've said before, it is far past time that the IRS revoke the tax-exempt status of every Catholic diocese that has involved itself in influencing anti-gay legislation and/or supporting anti-gay political candidates. Here's an overview and a sampling from Meyers' diatribe via The New Civil Rights Movement:  

John Myers, the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, has written a 16-page fear-mongering letter, called a “pastoral statement,” that compares gay marriage to incest, and suggests to his one million followers that marriage equality could lead to laws outlawing religious free speech or even imprisoning priests for preaching “God’s natural laws.” Myers also quotes the discredited anti-gay parenting “study” by Mark Regnerus as so-called proof “that the best possible environment for the healthy development of children is the presence and participation of the two biological parents in an intact family.”

“Newark Archbishop John J. Myers said the statement on gay marriage was not timed to coincide with the November election, now little more than a month away, and that he was not calling on Catholics to vote for a particular candidate,” The Record/North Jersey.com reports. “But he said they should examine the ‘full spectrum’ of each candidate, including how they stand on abortion and ‘a proper backing of marriage’.”

Most Churches are subject to IRS regulations prohibiting them from endorsing or otherwise supporting — or opposing any political candidate, or risk their tax-exempt status, a benefit that costs the American taxpayers $71 billion annually.

Parishioners in churches across the archdiocese, which covers Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union counties, will be handed letters at church this weekend telling them about the statement and directing them to where it can be read.”    Coincidentially, one week from this Sunday, on October 7, is the Alliance Defense Fund’s annual “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” which radical right wing “pro-family” and religious groups flout the regulations by endorsing or opposing political candidates from the pulpit, and dare the IRS to investigate them or try to revoke their tax-eempt status.

“Myers acknowledged that a large number of Catholics seem to be at odds with church teaching, and that he wanted to reach out to them with his statement . . . .

The statement appeared to compare gay marriage to incest. “Even those who propose radically altering the definition of marriage would not advocate allowing two brothers or sisters or an uncle and his nephew to marry (say, for the tax benefits, or for hospital visiting privileges),” he wrote.

Myers also claims gay marriage will lead to the imprisonment of priests for anti-gay “religious” speech:  If our society enshrines in law a “civil” right to “marry” someone of one’s own sex, then any persons or groups that believe otherwise will be seriously disadvantaged in law and in fact..  .  .  .  How long would the state permit churches, schools or parents to teach their children that homosexual activity is contrary to the natural law if homosexual marriage were a civil right? Already in Canada and other democratic nations “hate speech” laws have been used to harass or even arrest clerics who preach the Biblical message about marriage.

As for pro-gay allies, Myers had this to say: It is my duty as your Archbishop to remind you that Catholics who do not accept the teaching of the Church on marriage and family (especially those who teach or act in private or public life contrary to the Church’s received tradition on marriage and family) by their own choice seriously harm their communion with Christ and His Church. I urge those not in communion with the Church regarding her teaching on marriage and family (or any other grave matter of faith) sincerely to re-examine their consciences, asking God for the grace of the Holy Spirit which “guide [us] to all truth” (John 16:13). If they continue to be unable to assent to or live the Church’s teaching in these matters, they must in all honesty and humility refrain from receiving Holy Communion until they can do so with integrity; to continue to receive Holy Communion while so dissenting would be objectively dishonest. 

I guess excommunication will be the next step in the Church's attacks on Catholics who support gay equality under the civil laws.  With those under 30 already leaving the Church in droves one can only hope that Myers' foul message will accelerate the exodus.