Catholic Church Perpetuates Sex Abuse Crisis Through Its Own Policies

I have followed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal closely since it first exploded in Boston in 2002. Indeed, I have a Google Search agent that sends me daily up to a dozen stories from across the globe on the still roiling scandal that has begun to claim high Church clerics who participated in the abuse or aided and abetted it. The Church hierarchy and right wing Catholic extremists (e.g., the site Church Militant) have made a concerted effort to blame the abuse epidemic on gay priests and homosexuality rather than the western rite celibacy requirement and the Church's utterly bizarre stances on sex and sexuality - the true cause in the minds of a number of mental health experts and the Australian Royal Commission investigating the scandal in Australia.  Now, a piece by a long time journalist for La Croix International, an online Catholic paper republished in the Washington Post belatedly throws responsibility back on the Vatican and its perverse and bizarre policies.  While the author addresses some of the root problems in Church, he overstates the role of homosexuality.  Most experts classify the predator priests and pedophiles and/or psycho-sexually maladjusted, not gays in the common sense.  Nonetheless, it is refreshing to see someone correctly pointing the finger at the Vatican and its unsound polices and dogma.  Here are excerpts:

The Catholic Church is being rocked — again — by high-level sexual abuse scandals, with allegations in recent weeks surfacing in Chile, Honduras and the District [of Columbia], home to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a once-super-popular cleric who is facing accusations by five males of harassment or abuse.

And again, people say they are shocked and outraged, which shows how Catholics still refuse to see that there is an underlying issue to these cases. It is the fact that almost all of them concern males — whether they are adolescents, post-pubescent teens or young men.

And while no adult who is of sound psychosexual health habitually preys on those who are vulnerable, there is no denying that homosexuality is a key component to the clergy sex abuse (and now sexual harassment) crisis.

But let me be very clear: psychologically healthy gay men do not rape boys or force themselves on other men over whom they wield some measure of power or authority.

However, we are not talking about men who are psychosexually mature. And yet the bishops and officials at the Vatican refuse to acknowledge this. Rather, they are perpetuating the problem, and even making it worse, with policies that actually punish seminarians and priests who seek to deal openly, honestly and healthily with their sexual orientation.

Our problem in the Church is of the abuse of power, an abuse that happens as a result of homophobia that keeps gay men in the closet, bars them from growing up and results in distorted sexuality for many gay priests. We need to address this elephant in the rectory parlor. They are products of a clerical caste and a priestly formation system that discourages and, in some places, even forbids them from being honest about their homosexual orientation.

Sadly, many of these men are or have become self-loathing and homophobic. Some of them emerge as public moralizers and denouncers of homosexuality, especially of the evil perpetrated on society by the so-called gay lobby.

As recently as 2005, just a few months after the election of Benedict XVI, the Vatican issued a document that reinforced the “stay in the closet” policy by saying men who identified as gay should not be admitted to seminaries.

In fact, one of the prime authors of that document — Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a priest-psychotherapist from Paris — was recently stripped of his priestly faculties after being credibly accused of abusing seminarians and other young men in his care.

[A]ll gay people, indeed the entire Church — would benefit greatly if these healthy gay priests could openly share their stories. But their bishops or religious superiors have forbidden them from writing or speaking publicly about this part of their lives.

This, too, only encourages more dishonesty and perpetuates a deeply flawed system that will continue to produce unhealthy priests. 

 Having been raised Catholic, I am all too aware of how badly Catholicism's approach to human sexuality can screw one up.  I was in therapy for a couple of years to undo the damage.  Trapped in seminary high schools and colleges, then seminary, where sex - and women - were viewed as sinful in almost every respect, it is little wonder so many priest were psycho-sexually damaged.  

Diocese of Los Angeles Ordered to Turn Over Secret Sex Abuse Files

Coat of Arms of Los Angeles Diocese

Americans may be about to learn more about the total moral bankruptcy of some in the Catholic hierarchy who knowingly and deliberately the aid sexual predator priests and then sought to cover up their crimes thereby allowing them prey on more innocent victims.  It's a pattern seen world wide from Ireland to Australia and all across America in at least 2/3's of American dioceses.   What was disclosed in Philadelphia is likely the norm for how the bishops and cardinals - with the full knowledge and direction - engaged in criminal conspiracies to obstruct law enforcement and obstruct justice.   The Los Angeles diocese may have paid out a huge settlement sum roughly five years ago, but the true filth within the hierarchy was never fully brought to light.  And until this filth is fully disclosed, the malignancy within the institutional Church will not be excised.  A story here looks at the effort to hold the hierarchy accountable.  Here are highlights:

 

A judge on Monday ordered the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to turn over to the court the top-secret files it has kept for decades on dozens of priests accused of sex abuse, bringing the documents closer to public scrutiny.

The order by Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias came five years after more than 550 alleged victims reached a record-breaking, $660 million settlement with the archdiocese that also called for the public unsealing of the confidential files.

Individual priests have been fighting to keep the records closed, but the California Supreme Court declined to intervene earlier this year after a lower court decision in a related case cleared the way for the release of the documents.

Elias gave the archdiocese until Dec. 27 to give her the files on 69 priests to review and then set a hearing for early January to consider arguments from priests who want to keep their files private.
The judge will also hear objections to a previous order that allows the archdiocese to black out the names of some clerics and the church officials who handled the priests. The Los Angeles Times has filed court papers objecting to the order and had an attorney in court Monday.

Boucher estimates the archdiocese has files on 80 more priests that it is not turning over to the judge. He also said documents on priests who belonged to Roman Catholic religious orders are also missing.  The church says it has no records on another 105 priests who were included in the 2007 global settlement.  The settlement covered more than 245 priests and 550 plaintiffs.

Some plaintiffs' attorneys believe the full contents of the files could expose some top church leaders to criminal charges, although many documents related to the most notorious abusive priests have already been disclosed through civil litigation and earlier criminal prosecutions.

Holding those officials, including the recently retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, accountable is critical, Ray Boucher, lead plaintiff's attorney, said outside court. He has reviewed the files under seal and called some of the never-before seen documents "explosive."

For far too long church denominations and their clergy have been allowed to literally act as if they are above the law.   All the foul crimes need to be exposed to public view and the deference given to Christianity and conservative Christians in general needs to end.

Cardinal Dolan Approved Pay Offs to Predator Priests

UPDATED:  Irish Central has yet more details on the unbelievable sleaziness of Cardinal Timothy "Porky Pig" Dolan.  It seems the minutes discovered in the bankruptcy filing papers revealed these additional tidbits:

During the meeting, Dolan and Milwaukee auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba discussed using the Church’s funds to pay off known pedophiles with $20,000 to leave the priesthood, setting up “restorative justice” to prevent victims receiving compensation, and moving millions of dollars from the archdiocese into a new “trust” before the Archdiocese declared bankruptcy.

The man truly ought to be facing criminal prosecution and possible perjury charges.

Cardinal Dolan of New York has been outspoken in parading around the myth that "religious liberty" is under attack particularly by the advancement of gay rights and the Obama administration.  I've long believed that in addition to demanding special rights for the Catholic Church (much as is going on in Canada at present) Dolan has been motivated by a desire to shift the topic of conversation from the cesspool nature of the Church hierarchy and the worldwide sex abuse scandal that shows no likelihood of abating any time soon.  Now, as the New York Times is reporting, information is coming out that while he was Archbishop of Milwaukee, Dolan approved monetary pay offs to predator priests after it became untenable to continue protecting them and covering up their crimes against children and youth.  Note how Dolan lied about these payments in the past.  Dolan is a loud mouthed hypocrite and hopefully more on his moral bankruptcy will continue to be revealed.  Here are highlights from the New York Times:

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.
 

Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.” 

But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.  A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. 

Cardinal Dolan, who is president of the national bishops’ conference and fast becoming the nation’s most high-profile Roman Catholic cleric, did not respond to several requests for comment. 

A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?” 

Experts in the Catholic Church’s response to sexual abuse say that payouts to dismissed priests are not uncommon. When a man becomes a priest, the church is expected to care for his needs for a lifetime.

The newly revealed document is the minutes of a meeting of the finance council of the Milwaukee archdiocese from March 7, 2003, which Cardinal Dolan attended. 

The minutes say that those at the meeting discussed a proposal to “offer $20,000 for laicization ($10,000 at the start and $10,000 at the completion the process).” Instead of salary, they would receive a $1,250 monthly pension benefit, and, until they found another job, health insurance. 

The first known payment in Milwaukee was to Franklyn Becker, a former priest with many victims.  .  .  .  .  According to church documents, Mr. Becker was accused of abusing at least 10 minors, and given a diagnosis of pedophilia in 1983.

Note that Becker was diagnosed as a pedophile in 1983 but it was 20 years later that he was finally being removed from the priesthood.  Yet again I ask, why does anyone listen to a word that comes out of Dolan's mouth?  The man is a sleaze bag at best.

The Blindness of "Liberal" Catholics

I often comment on the many huge failings of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church and urge Catholics disgusted with the moral cesspool in the leadership to vote with their feet.  Throughout history the ONLY way the Church has experienced major lasting change is when membership plummets and the flow of money to the Vatican is diminished.  Catholics who refuse to accept this harsh reality and who continue to support their local parishes are in fact enablers of the hierarchy.  Yes, it's hard for many to see this reality, but a portion of every single dollar received at the parish level goes to support the local diocese and still another portion goes to Rome.  E.J. Dionne who writes for the Washington Post is one such Catholic who refuses to see his own culpability.  In a column where he tries to justify his continued membership in the Church he cites the Church's social ministry and he cites Pope John XXIII.  My response is that (i) if the Church cleaned house within the hierarchy and cleaned up the sex abuse disaster, there's be more funds for social ministry.  As for Pope John XXIII, yes in ways he was a breath of fresh air.  But Dionne misses one huge blight on his papacy:  John XXIII authorized a 1962 Vatican directive that validated the Church's covering up for and enabling predator priests.  Here's a sampling of Dionne's effort to deny his own culpability:

Recently, a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post cast as an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics.” Its headline commanded: “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”

The ad included the usual criticism of Catholicism, but I was most struck by this paragraph: “If you think you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. You are an enabler. And it’s got to stop.”

Catholic liberals get used to these kinds of things. Secularists, who never liked Catholicism in the first place, want us to leave the church, but so do Catholic conservatives who want the church all to themselves.
I’m sorry to inform the FFRF that I am declining its invitation to quit. It may not see the Gospel as a liberating document, but I do, and I can’t ignore the good done in the name of Christ by the sisters, priests, brothers and lay people who have devoted their lives to the poor and the marginalized.

I’d like the FFRF to learn more about the good Pope John, but I wish our current bishops would think more about him, too. I wonder if the bishops realize how some in their ranks have strengthened the hands of the church’s adversaries (and disheartened many of the faithful) with public statements — including that odious comparison of President Obama to Hitler by a Peoria prelate last month — that threaten to shrink the church into a narrow, conservative sect.

Do the bishops notice how often those of us who regularly defend the church turn to the work of nuns on behalf of charity and justice to prove Catholicism’s detractors wrong? Why in the world would the Vatican, apparently pushed by right-wing American bishops, think it was a good idea to condemn the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main organization of nuns in the United States?

Too many bishops seem in the grip of dark suspicions that our culture is moving at breakneck speed toward a demonic end. Pope John XXIII, by contrast, was more optimistic about the signs of the times.  .   .   .   .   The church best answers its critics when it remembers that its mission is to preach hope, not fear.

Dionne misses the point that the bishops and Vatican will not change voluntarily.  And as long as "liberal" Catholics like Dionne keep putting their checks in the collection plate and donating to Catholic institutions, there's no reason to change.  They money flow is continuing proving that the bishops and Nazi Pope can continue doing whatever they want with impunity.  Dionne needs to get his head out of the sand - or somewhere else.

Irish Priests Vow Not to Break Seal of Confession to Report Sex Abuse

Even as the horrors of sexual abuse continue to unfold in Philadelphia, priests in Ireland are vowing to defy a new law that requires the reporting of knowledge of sex abuse.  They say they will not break the secrecy of the confessional box and that sexual abuse disclosed in confession will not be reported.  Frankly, it sounds like a convenient set up for the priests: they confess to one another and no one gets reported.  Indeed, things can continue as they have for many decades or longer in Ireland with children and youths deemed as sexual play things for the foul clergy.  And the Vatican wonders why the Catholic Church in Ireland is in free fall?  The Irish Independent looks at the confrontation between the civil government and the would be protectors of predators.  Here are highlights:

CATHOLIC priests will defy a new law that requires them to report sexual abuse disclosed to them in the confession box -- despite the threat of 10-year jail sentences.  It came after Justice Minister Alan Shatter confirmed the mandatory reporting requirement would apply to priests hearing confession.

Fr Sean McDonagh of the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents 800 clergymen, warned last night: "I certainly wouldn't be willing to break the seal of confession for anyone -- Alan Shatter particularly."  And Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Raymond Field said: "The seal of the confessional is inviolable as far as I am concerned, and that's the end of the matter."  It puts the clergy on a direct collision course with Mr Shatter because new laws oblige every person to report suspected sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to gardai.

Mr Shatter said last night: "I would expect that if there was someone going to confession who was a serial sex abuser, I don't know how anyone could live with their conscience if they didn't refer that to the gardai."

 

It is the latest flashpoint between the Government and the Catholic Church, following the highly publicised row over Taoiseach Enda Kenny's criticism of the Vatican for failing to co-operate with clerical sexual abuse inquiries last year.  He declared that canon law would not be allowed to supersede state law. The Irish Embassy to the Vatican was subsequently closed "for budgetary reasons".

Philadelphia Sex Abuse Trial Continues to Spotlight Catholic Church Moral Bankruptcy

The sex abuse trial against Msgr. William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, and accused predator priests that is ongoing in Philadelphia continues to give the gift of making it painfully obvious to all but the most delusional that the Church hierarchy is morally bankrupt and that the leadership did not give a damn about the welfare of children and youths.  It was all about protecting those in the clergy.  The number of young lives damaged or destroyed never, ever mattered to these horrible bitter men.  That two cardinals played active roles in allowing the sex abuse to continue for years speaks volumes.  I truly do not know how a moral person can remain a Roman Catholic under the current hierarchy, many of whom, in my opinion, ought to be serving long prison terms.  Here are highlights from the New York Times on the latest horrors to be revealed:

Two men testified Wednesday of abuse they suffered as youths at the hands of a now defrocked Philadelphia priest. The two victims of Edward Avery, a former priest who has pleaded guilty to sexual assault charges, appeared during the landmark trial of Msgr. William Lynn, the former secretary for clergy at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, who is charged with child endangerment. Monsignor Lynn is suspected of allowing priests accused of abuse to remain in positions where they could continue to abuse children. 

One victim, now 23, told the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas how Mr. Avery abused him in the sacristy of St. Jerome’s Catholic Church in Northeast Philadelphia in 1998, when he was 10 years old.   The man said that he had already been abused by the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, another priest who is charged with abuse, and that Mr. Avery said he intended to do the same thing with him. “He said he heard about my sessions with Father Engelhardt and that ours were going to begin soon,” said the man, who was an altar boy. 

 

The witness said the priest turned on music and forced the boy to do a striptease until he was naked. He then sat the boy on his lap, and forced him to perform oral sex and masturbation, and told him that he was doing God’s will. “ ‘This is what God wants,’ ” the witness said Mr. Avery told him. 

The other victim, now 49, struggled to keep his composure at times as he recalled being abused at Mr. Avery’s residence when he was 15 and again on a ski trip to Vermont when he was 18.   Last month, Mr. Avery pleaded guilty to rape and conspiracy and was sentenced to two and a half to five years in prison. 

Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican can crack down on American nuns for not being sufficiently anti-gay and for focusing on social ministry, yet those who protected and enabled sexual predators remain untouched.  It is beyond sickening.

Former Altar Boy Details Sexual Abuse in Philadelphia Priests' Trial

Even as the Catholic bishops continue their war on women and gays - even going so far as to cut off funding for small, local, and critical non-profit organizations that help minorities and the poor, if they demonstrate support for gay marriage, or any other issue the Catholic Church deems offensive (see The New Civil Rights Movement) - the true cesspool nature of the Church hierarchy continues to unfold in the ongoing trial of Monsignor Lynn and predator priests in Philadelphia. Personally, I don't understand how anyone can listen to the disingenuous and falsely pious statements from the bishops, a number of whom ought to be behind bars for their rolls in protecting sexual predators. Here are highlights from the Philadelphia Inquirer on the latest trial developments:

During three hours of emotional and sometimes contentious testimony, a former Bucks County altar boy Wednesday described how a priest in the landmark child-sex abuse and conspiracy trial molested him during an overnight visit when he was 14.

The man, now 30, broke down several times recounting the alleged 1996 assault by the Rev. James J. Brennan that he said plunged him into a spiral of drugs and crime and still haunts him.

He said Brennan, his onetime parish priest and a longtime family friend, showed him online sex-chat rooms, proposed they masturbate, then ordered him into a bed where, clad in plaid boxer shorts, the cleric pulled him close and pressed his private parts against the boy.

The developments were the most dramatic - and likely the most significant - since the trial began last week for Brennan and Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

A nearly packed courtroom listened as the man outlined the details of an alleged assault that he said pushed him to the brink of suicide, and then watched as the lawyers parsed his words, drew anatomical sketches for jurors, and quibbled over the definition of spooning in bed.

The jury had already heard from four other alleged abuse victims, but each had described being molested decades ago by priests who have been defrocked, died or are not charged in the case. Unlike those claims, the Bucks County man's allegation fell within a newly amended criminal statute of limitations for child-sex crimes and became a cornerstone of the February 2011 grand jury report that led to the trial against Lynn and Brennan.

Prosecutors say Lynn, as the official who recommended archdiocesan priests' assignments and investigated their misconduct, enabled or covered up abuse by failing to act against priests suspected or known to abuse children. One such priest, they say, was Brennan, who has been on restricted ministry since the accusation emerged in 2006.

The Catholic Bishops’ Incomplete Report

The Providence Journal (Rhode Island) has a timely editorial that looks at the failings of the report written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that basically tried to blame the Church's world wide sex abuse scandal on the "permissiveness" 1960's and 1970's. Left out, of course were details of how the Vatican coordinated a world wide plan to obstruct justice to "protect the Church" even as the lives of thousands and thousands of children and youths were written off as expendable. Likewise, the report ignores the huge number of abuse cases that occurred BEFORE the 1960's and 1970's. As I noted before, the only true positive aspect of the report was that it showed that as the number of gay priests increased, the instances of abuse decreased and thereby cut anti-gay blowhards like William Donohue off at the knees. Here are some column highlights:
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The report written by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops about sexual abuse by priests has left many people mystified. The report attributed an apparent increase in abuse (or at least in reported abuse) of young people, primarily males, to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s.
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It basically skirted the complex roles of priestly celibacy and sexual identity. And the report didn’t delve into the transfer, to try to evade public scandal, that some bishops engineered for priests suspected and/or accused of serial sexual abuse.
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Indeed, the document writers seemed to go out of their way to protect bishops anxious to get this public-relations nightmare off their backs.
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[L]et’s face it, this was a serious management problem. Some bishops were just not supervising and disciplining their people properly and some were in effect abetting serious violations of criminal law.

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There are some interesting data in this report, but we’ll need to await a more impartial one than this to fully understand what led to the church’s disastrous sex scandals.

New Sex Abuse Scandal Continues to Explode in Philadelphia Archdiocese

Despite the disingenuous propaganda of the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and the Vatican that sexual predators had been removed from ministry and access to children and youths, the still expanding meltdown in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia tells a very different story. Indeed, little or nothing has really changed and the same old pattern of protecting child rapists and utter disregard for the safety of children and youths still is the norm. But this time someone in the hierarchy of the archdiocese has finally been arrested: Monsignor William Lynn, former secretary of the clergy and a top official in the archdiocese from 1992 to 2004. Lynn's crime? "Purposely" shielding dozens of abusive priests and endangering children in the late 1990s. The Roman Catholic Church can spend millions of dollars backing anti-gay legislative initiatives, but it can't clean its own cesspool like ranks. Here are highlights from the Philadelphia Inquirer:
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With his arrest Feb. 10, Lynn became the first Roman Catholic Church supervisor nationwide to be charged with covering up the sexual abuse of minors, authorities said. According to a scathing grand jury report, Lynn, as secretary of clergy for the archdiocese, concealed the crimes of accused priests and put them in positions in which they could harm more children.
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Victim advocates who rallied during the weekend said they were relieved by the charges against Lynn and cautious in their hope that more church leaders who had hidden abusers would be punished. I hope that this ripples across the country," said David Lorenz, director of the Maryland chapter of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. Lorenz said church leaders had allowed the priest who abused him, a counselor at his Catholic high school, to keep his post despite 50 previous abuse reports.
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Lynn, 60, has not been seen at the parish since his arrest on two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, which accuse him of ignoring complaints about three priests and a parochial schoolteacher who allegedly raped two altar boys in 1996 and 1998 at St. Jerome's Church in Northeast Philadelphia. The four were arrested with Lynn.
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It was the second time in less than six years that a grand jury castigated the archdiocese for its mishandling of sexual-abuse cases. The new grand jury report flatly stated that the current leadership under Rigali has not lived up to its promise to protect children by weeding out predatory clergy, keeping as many as 41 priests "in ministry despite solid, credible allegations of abuse."
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As the Washington Post noted:
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The rapist priests we accuse were well-known to the secretary of clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again," the [grand jury] report said.

Catholic Church Freefall in Europe

Even as the bitter old queens in dresses at the Vatican and bishoprics around the USA continue their anti-gay jihad and work to deprive LGBT citizens of civil legal rights, the Church is spiraling downward in Europe where more and more details of the toxic cesspool which is today's institutional Church come to light. The irony is that Benedict XVI supposedly had a goal of reviving Catholicism in Europe whereas in fact the lies, cover ups, and enabling of predator priests in which he played such a considerable part may well be the death knell for the Church in Europe - and deservedly so. The New York Times and Rueters both have coverage that shows the extent of the moral decay in the Church's leadership and just how vast the sexual abuse of children and youths was and is by corps of pedophiles who found refuge within the ranks of the priesthood. First, details from the New York Times on a new shocking (well, shocking to some, but what I expected) report from The Netherlands:
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The Roman Catholic Church, battered by sexual abuse scandals from the United States to Belgium, is facing a new set of damaging allegations in the Netherlands. Figures released Thursday by an investigative commission showed that almost 2,000 people had made complaints of sexual or physical abuse against the church, in a country with only four million Catholics.
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Asked in March on television about the hundreds of complaints already surfacing, one of the church’s most senior figures, Cardinal Adrianus Simonis, shocked the nation by replying not in Dutch but in German. “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” — We knew nothing — he said, using a phrase associated with Nazi excuses after World War II.
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[A] commission headed by Wim Deetman, a Protestant and former education minister, said it had received roughly 1,975 reports of sexual or physical abuse, some directly but others through a body set up for victims, called Hulp en Recht, or Help and Justice. One central accusation in the Netherlands is that, as in other countries, known abusers were simply transferred to new parishes.
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But the rot, moral bankruptcy and pattern of cover ups and utter disregard for the weebeing of children and youth extends well beyond the boundaries of The Netherlands. Here are higlights from Rueters:
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Here are some details of the major developments in the Roman Catholic Church scandals in Europe this year.
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* AUSTRIA:*
-- Aug 10 - A record 100,000 Austrians expected to leave the Catholic Church in 2010 because of sexual abuse scandals rocking the Church in Europe, a newspaper reports.
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-- June 28 - Pope Benedict rebukes Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn for accusing a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, of covering up sexual abuse cases.
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BELGIUM:
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-- Sept 10 - Widespread child sexual abuse in Belgian Church drove at least 13 victims to suicide, a Church commission reports. Of the 475 cases it recorded, two-thirds of the victims were male, with boys aged about 12 most vulnerable.
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-- April 23 - Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe resigns and goes into hiding after admitting he had sexually abused his own nephew for years.
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* BRITAIN:
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-- April 22 - Bishops in England and Wales apologize for abuse cases worldwide, saying "terrible crimes" had been committed and Church response has been mostly inadequate. The local Church had a series of scandals about a decade ago but introduced reforms since then.
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* GERMANY:
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-- Dec 3 - Munich archdiocese inquiry reports that at least 159 priests were involved in or suspected of sexual abuse cases from 1945 to 2009 and 26 had been tried and found guilty. It says there were probably more cases that had been hushed up or whose files had been destroyed.
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-- June 24 - Former Augsburg Bishop Walter Mixa gives up his fight to be reinstated after resigning in April amid allegations of physical abuse of minors, homosexual advances to seminarians and misusing Church funds. Mixa accuses fellow bishops of tricking the Vatican into accepting his initial resignation.
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-- May 27 - Jesuit investigation cites 205 allegations of sexual abuse against priests at Jesuit schools in Germany, revealing decades of systematic abuse and cover-ups by the order.
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* IRELAND:
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-- Pope Benedict holds crisis talks with 24 Irish bishops at the Vatican after two government-commissioned reports in 2009 exposed widespread physical and sexual abuse of minors in Church-run institutions and systematic cover-ups by the local hierarchy of abuse by priests.
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* ITALY:
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-- Italy has had dozens of cases of clerical sexual abuse involving about 80 priests over the past decade, a priest who runs an anti-pedophilia organization tells Vatican Radio
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* SWITZERLAND:
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-- Swiss bishops say they received reports between January and May of 72 perpetrators abusing 104 victims, up from 14 perpetrators and 15 victims in 2009.
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Indeed, sexual abuse and cover ups prove to be a systemic pattern all across Europe - and indeed the world. Why does anyone continue to give an ounce of deference to the morally bankrupt monsters who comprise the Church's leadership?

What the Pope Knew - CNN Special Report

Unfortunately, I missed this CNN special that aired over the weekend due to social obligations and prepping for a medical procedure this morning (which went well, BTW other than the anesthesia knocking me on my butt for most of the day - I did today's earlier posts yesterday afternoon and set them to publish today). CNN's affiliated blog has some of the details and I am thrilled that a network has had the balls to air the Catholic Church's dirty linen in such a public way and punch holes in all of the damage control bullshit that has emanated from the Vatican and Catholic Church apologists. Not surprisingly, some of that latter group are having conniption fits that his less than holiness properly got the spotlight focused on his misdeeds and malfeasance. Here are highlights from CNN's Belief Blog:
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Matt McCormick was in the seventh grade when Father Alvin Campbell gave him a ride home from a baseball game. As they were driving along country roads, Campbell put his hand on McCormick’s thigh and “just left it there.” It was the first time the priest had touched him. During the next three years, McCormick says, the abuse would go much further.
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That was 25 years ago. Just three months ago, he learned that Pope Benedict XVI played a role in keeping his abuser in the church when CNN told him about a letter signed by the pontiff – then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – refusing to defrock the pedophile priest. Walking around the 1,000-person Illinois farming town where he grew up, McCormick pointed out where he was molested: inside the church school, inside the rectory, and inside the church itself
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"He [Fr. Campbell] used the cloak of Christianity in his role as a priest to embed himself with children of parishioners and he would molest them,” said Fred Nessler, an attorney who has represented hundreds of church sex abuse victims, including 10 who named Campbell as their abuser. “They groom children. First, luring them with the idea that they’re going to be around a priest and their parents usually think that’s a fine idea."
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When he was 16, McCormick tried to kill himself with a knife and with an overdose of pills. His father had to break down the door to his room to save his life.

“I felt like a victim and I felt ashamed,” McCormick said. “So [it was] denial, denial, denial until I got to the point that I could move away and not have to deny anymore because people wouldn’t ask.” As a teenager he also drank heavily and used marijuana.
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The priest was convicted in 1985 on multiple charges of sexual assault and sentenced to a 14-year prison sentence. But Campbell’s bishop, Daniel Ryan, was bothered by a disturbing fact: Despite his criminal conviction and prison sentence, Campbell was still a priest – and refused to quit.
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[Bishop] Ryan brought the case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who today is Pope Benedict XVI. Ryan asked Benedict to forcibly remove Campbell from the priesthood.
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In a personally signed letter, Ratzinger, citing Canon law, said he couldn’t defrock Campbell without Campbell’s permission – and instead suggested a local church trial, which would have taken years. It would be three more years before Bishop Ryan could persuade Campbell to request his own defrocking
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McCormick was speechless when he read the letter that kept his abuser an ordained priest. “I think common sense should supersede Canon law,” McCormick said.
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Common sense and minimal public decency - if not the felony conviction - should have moved Ratzinger to act. However, as continues to be the case even today, from the Pope on down far too many in the hierarchy continue to put the safety of (and much belated justice for) children and youths far below the need to protect priests and the foul and rotten institutional Church. If I sound angry, it's because I am angry. I was an altar boy for 10 years in a parish probably not much different that McCormack's and fully comprehend the ease with which a predator priest could have abused me and other altar boys, all of whom were good friends. Fortunately, we were lucky and to my knowledge no predator served at our parish. Tens of thousands were not as lucky. And Benedict XVI STILL doesn't get the magnitude of HIS sins of commission and omission. Oh, and how are the apologists - who are the ones actually ignoring "inconvenient evidence" and refusing to admit that the corruption and moral bankruptcy emanates from the Vatican - reacting? Here's a sample of the ass kissing hysteria via Catholic Culture:
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This weekend the CNN television network will air a special report, “What the Pope Knew.” The goal of the show, apparently, is to persuade viewers the Pope Benedict XVI bears much of the blame for the sex-abuse scandal. If that requires massaging the facts and covering up inconvenient evidence, CNN is prepared to take those steps.
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In addition to the Murphy case, CNN has also unearthed the similar case of an Illinois priest who was convicted of sexual abuse. CNN contacted one of the priest’s victims, and “told him about a letter signed by the pontiff—then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—refusing to defrock the pedophile priest.”

Top Cardinal Calls Gay Marriage Work of Satan

Sometimes the hubris and hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church is so stunning that it makes one gasp. Here's an institution that has been documented to have systematically enabled and covered up the rape of hundreds of thousands of children and youths worldwide, yet the top Catholic cleric in Argentina, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, has the nerve to condemn gays and same sex marriage as "a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God." Frankly, if anyone is in the business of confusing and deceiving the children of God, it would appear to be the good cardinal and his fellow liars and hypocrites in the Catholic Church hierarchy. I suggest that Cardinal Bergoglio take a long look at himself in the mirror if he wants to see the face of the "Father of Lies." Life Site News has coverage of the deceitful and himself morally changed verbal diarrhea. Here are some highlights:
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Argentina's number one Catholic prelate, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, is calling upon the priests of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires to bring their flocks to an upcoming protest against homosexual "marriage," which is currently under consideration by the nation's senate.

"*Let's not be naive, we're not talking about a simple political battle; it is a destructive pretension against the plan of God," writes Bergoglio in a letter sent to the monasteries of Buenos Aires, where he is archbishop. "We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God."
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To the clergy of the parishes, Bergoglio requests that all of them read from the pulpits a declaration defending the true definition and understanding of marriage.
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"The Argentinean people will have to confront, in the coming weeks, a situation whose result could gravely injure the family. We are speaking of a bill regarding marriage between people of the same sex," a bill that calls into question "the identity, and the survival of the family: father, mother, and children." The latter, warns Bergoglio, might also be threatened by homosexual adoption, which would be a true form of discrimination.
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The country now needs "the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, to place the light of truth in the middle of the darkness of error, to defend us against the enchantment of so many sophistries with which they seek to justify this bill," he writes.
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Again, if anything is a threat to children, it would seem to be the Catholic Church and its morally bankrupt clergy, not a loving same sex couple being afforded civil law rights. Why does anyone continue to listen to the Church and its child predator clerics?

Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused 200 Boys

OMG!! It's getting impossible to not write about the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal - and the involvement of the current Pope in it - only once a day or less frequently. The bombshell's just keep on coming and the rot, moral bankruptcy and callousness of these narcissistic "men of God" is truly beyond belief. And amazingly, these same foul individuals have the nerve to condemn normal gays and condemn committed, loving same sex relationships? Now the New York Times has yet another story that traces abuse and cover up right to Pope Benedict XVI's feet and demonstrates where the Church's reputation was more important than the lives of 200 boys molested by a predator priest. While it is true other religious denominations have their own abuse problems, it is difficult to believe that any but the Roman Catholic Church made the policy of cover up such a highly sanctioned policy. For me, as a former Catholic, the hypocrisy of the hierarchy is mind numbing. These nasty old men scared young children into thinking that they would go to Hell for eating meat on Friday and tiny infractions, while this bullshit of molestations and cover ups was going on for decades. Documents related to the story can be found here. It utterly disgusts me. Here are some highlights:
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Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.
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The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.
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The documents emerge as Pope Benedict is facing other accusations that he and direct subordinates often did not alert civilian authorities or discipline priests involved in sexual abuse when he served as an archbishop in Germany and as the Vatican’s chief doctrinal enforcer.
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The Wisconsin case involved an American priest, the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who worked at a renowned school for deaf children from 1950 to 1974. But it is only one of thousands of cases forwarded over decades by bishops to the Vatican office called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led from 1981 to 2005 by Cardinal Ratzinger.
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The New York Times obtained the documents, which the church fought to keep secret, from Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, the lawyers for five men who have brought four lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The documents include letters between bishops and the Vatican, victims’ affidavits, the handwritten notes of an expert on sexual disorders who interviewed Father Murphy and minutes of a final meeting on the case at the Vatican.
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Father Lombardi emphasized that neither the Code of Canon Law nor the Vatican norms issued in 1962, which instruct bishops to conduct canonical investigations and trials in secret, prohibited church officials from reporting child abuse to civil authorities. He did not address why that had never happened in this case.
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He [Fr. Murphy] was promoted to run the school in 1963 even though students had disclosed to church officials in the 1950s that he was a predator. Victims give similar accounts of Father Murphy’s pulling down their pants and touching them in his office, his car, his mother’s country house, on class excursions and fund-raising trips and in their dormitory beds at night. Arthur Budzinski said he was first molested when he went to Father Murphy for confession when he was about 12, in 1960.
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Obviously, with this new disclosure - and more may well be coming - Benedict XVI needs to resign. As for rank and file Catholics, they need to admit to themselves that for most of their lives they have been duped into following the directives of very sick and evil men. Trying to assure themselves that other institutions have similar problems or that "the media is out to get the Church" is only more self-delusion. It does not and cannot change the reality of the institutional Church's utter moral degeneracy.

More than 500 Abuse Claims Filed Against Jesuits

As the Roman Catholic Church continues to meddle in secular politics and strip LGBT Americans of civil legal rights, the rot at the heart of the institutional Church continues to show itself in ongoing sexual abuse claims ranging from Ireland to the USA to Australia. It is indeed a worldwide phenomenon that helps further prove that the policy of lies, obstruction of justice and callousness towards victims was in deed systemic. Why any politicians listen to the whining of Church hierarchy is dumbfounding. Instead they ought to be seeking criminal prosecutions against bishops and cardinals - and yes the current Pope. Perhaps it is a bit of divine justice that focus seems to be turning a bit back to the Church's despicable conduct. The false "men of God"truly need to be exposed for what they really are: arrogant, corrupt, amoral monsters who put money and having their wide asses kissed ahead of all else. Here are some highlights from a new Washington Post story:
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SPOKANE, Wash. -- More than 500 people in the Northwest filed claims against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus in advance of a November deadline, alleging members of the Catholic order sexually abused them as children. The Spokesman-Review in Spokane reports the claims against the Jesuits span decades and range from Native Alaskan children to students at Spokane's Gonzaga Preparatory School.

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The Spokesman-Review has these further details:
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The Jesuits already have settled 200 additional sex-abuse claims. Among them were claims by 110 Alaska Natives, who settled for $50 million last year. About $45 million of that was paid by insurers. The Jesuits claim to have so far spent about $25 million – depleting the treasury of the province. In bankruptcy documents the Jesuits claim to have $4.8 million in assets and liabilities of $61.8 million.
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Yet many of the 500 alleged victims left to seek payouts in Bankruptcy Court assert the province remains a wealthy organization that misstated its financial standing in Bankruptcy Court records. They contend the Jesuits control and own Gonzaga University, Gonzaga Preparatory School, Seattle University and other schools and properties.
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The university steadfastly denies any liability for the actions of Jesuits who sexually abused children, including former university president John P. Leary, who sexually abused boys until Spokane police gave him a 24-hour ultimatum in 1969 to leave town or face arrest. Leary fled, and the Jesuit hierarchy relocated him.
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Again, why does anyone listen to these pillars of deceit and corruption? Politicians ought to respond to the Church's whining by repeatedly bringing up the sex abuse scandal. Or better yet, launching a federal investigation into the Church in the USA.

Clergy Abuse Victims Criticize Rhode Island Bishop

As is sadly the norm, members of the Roman Catholic hierarchy are much more interested in harrassing Catholics who fail to toe the line on the Church's mandated Midieval dogma than they are in cleaning their own festering house or atoning for the massive sexual abuse scandal. Hypocrisy, dishonesty and pompousness seem to be the leading prerequisites nowadays for appointment as a bishop or Cardinal under Pope Palpatine. A case in point is Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin who has the time to harass Congressman Patrick Kennedy but not enough time - or concern it would seem - to deal with abuse victims. I continue to ask myself why anybody who has not had a lobotomy continues to listen to the morally bankrupt Church hierarchy. Here are some story highlights from the Washington Post:

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters said Tuesday that Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop is not doing enough to protect children from pedophile priests even as he's taken on Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy for his stance on abortion rights.
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A small group of protesters gathered outside Bishop Thomas Tobin's office in Providence two days after news broke that the bishop had asked Kennedy in 2007 not to take Holy Communion because he supports abortion rights.
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"He claims that it's important that we protect the unborn. But it's equally as important to protect those who have been born and those young children who have been raped and sodomized by clerics and priests. But yet he seems to protect those clerics," said Ruth Moore, of Hull, Mass.
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The group called on Tobin to publish the names of priests from the diocese who have been convicted of or admitted molesting children, or if a thorough investigation has turned up credible evidence of child molestation, even if no conviction resulted.
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Such a list could help parents keep their children away from molesters and help employers screen potential hires, the protesters said. Skip Shea, from Uxbridge, Mass., who was abused by a priest as a child, told of seeing his abuser working next to the children's section in a bookstore as he awaited trial for abusing children.

Bill Nash of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests called on Tobin to use his authority as a spiritual figurehead to protect children. "There are a lot of moral issues that he has to take leadership in, and the protection of children is a very important and critical area of moral leadership that he should be taking a more proactive stand with," Nash said.

An Argument Against John Paul II's Canonization

I have intimated before that I do not see Pope John Paul II as worthy of canonization and suspect that only the far right, Kool-Aid drinker crowd fully support such a move. Yes, he played a role in the fall of the Soviet Union, but he also played a huge role in the sex abuse scandal that continues to rock the Roman Catholic Church. He callously closed his eyes to the sexual abuse of children and tried to steer the Church back to a Medieval mindset and treated gay Catholics as less than human - hardly saintly conduct. Surprisingly, now even some ultra-conservatives - e.g., writers at Renew America - are now arguing that John Paul II is unworthy of canonization albeit from not precisely the same perspective as my own. Yes I know that it is a bit frightening that I agree with anything disseminated by Renew America, especially since the organization fully support the denigration and marginalization of gays. However, they are on the mark when they correctly focus on John Paul II's unconscionable enabling and cover up of the crimes of sexual predator priests. Here are a few highlights:

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Once again, the Catholic world has been rocked by yet more allegations of sexual impropriety by Legionnaires of Christ founder, the late Fr. Marcial Maciel. It seems the now-disgraced founder-cum-pervert fathered more children than previously suspected; the latest claimants to his paternity purport to have evidence that the late Pope John Paul II knew of Maciel's sexual dalliances, and turned a blind eye to them.

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The allegations highlight what for all too many Catholics is the elephant-in-the-room when discussing the ills which beset the modern Church: the extent to which the late Pope John Paul II was an enabler of these perversions, from sexual and liturgical abuse to theological dissent . . . his Pontificate, by all accounts, was a glorious failure. Yes, he aided in the fall of Eastern European Communism, but the Pope of Rome is not primarily a mover and shaker of state politics, but a Christian pastor . . .

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Though Catholics and others are loathe to admit it of an otherwise beloved Pope, John Paul II oversaw a church which deteriorated in both its inner and outer life. His callous indifference toward the victims of priestly sexual abuse in refusing to meet personally with a single one of them, and his stubborn refusal to compel the resignation from office of any of the bishops who aided, abetted, and covered-up the abuse, are testamentary to his utter failure: not as a Catholic or a theologian, but as a Pope.And this is precisely why he should not be canonized.

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The canonization of Pope John Paul II is an issue which concerns not only Catholics, but all traditionalist conservatives. For better or for worse (depending on one's religious outlook), the Catholic Church is the largest religious institution on the planet, and historically regarded as a fairly conservative one.

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When civil society regains its conservative bearings, history will not be kind to what any unbiased observer must regard as the gross pastoral negligence of the 21st century's first Pope; if Catholics want to come out of the present cultural quagmire with their intellectual integrity intact, they must fearlessly shed the light of truth on that Pontiff's pastorship, and be sure to end up on the right side of history's verdict.

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Again, I believe that John Paul II does not deserve canonization even if not for all the reasons cited by ultra-conservatives. His failings in addressing - if indeed not enabling - the sex abuse scandal alone renders him unworthy.