Portrait of a high-ranking pederast:
Pope John Paul II's confidante, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado
Dear John,
I see Bill Donahue oiling up The Minimization Machine.
To contextualize Archbishop Dennis Hart's comments concerning the relationship between priestly pederasty and suicide -- http://www.cam.org.
To "bring these matters home," please consider Wikipedia's article on priestly abuse in my own ancestral Ireland - http://en.wikipedia.org/
I would like to supply you with information concerning priestly pederasty in ancestral Italy but "it is difficult to ascertain the actual statistics for clerical sexual abuse in Italy because the Italian Government has a treaty with the Vatican that guarantees areas of immunity to Vatican officials, including bishops and priests." http://en.wikipedia.
As you know, I marvel that The Catholic Press systematically ignored priestly pederasty, putting institutional fidelity ahead of children's integrity and the cause of Truth.
"I am the way, the truth and the life."
If, as a 17 year old in 1964, I was already aware of institutionalized sex abuse within the church, surely The Catholic Press knew of the abomination from the 1800s.
Imagine...
The secular press obliged the Catholic church to accept (some measure) of responsibility for the sexual abuse of children - abuse that had long been "normalized," ignored and covered up within the church, and at every level.
Not surprisingly, the Vatican takes advantage of its exculpatory legal relationship with Italy in order to maintain secrecy.
Whatever the "practical" "advantages" of secrecy (such as enabling the Vatican to refrain from penitential amends) the essential problem with priestly pederasty has always been secrecy itself, a kind of "self-enclosure" grounded in the patriarchal belief that "Father knows best."
Think about it.
Why doesn't the Vatican -- the administrative and mageisterial nexus of a church that has always promoted "confession and penance" -- reveal its own findings about pederasty in Italy (assuming it has bothered to undertake an investigation)?
That said, my acculturationas an Irish American Catholic makes me well aware of the supposition that "ignorance is bliss."
"If you don't have something nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all." (Our Bishop, Michael Burbidge, epitomizes this mistaken dictum -
In a word, why doesn't the Vatican "open?" (Truth be told, Italian bishops did issue a limited, voluntary report in 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10164997)
Alcoholics Anonymous -- and the Twelve Step Program on which AA is based -- holds that "Your sickness is as deep as the secret you keep."
Similarly, John Sanford -- an Episcopalian priest and clinical psychologist -- observes that "Isolation is the breeding ground of evil."
Imagine the isolation of being the only man in the world who can speak infallibly.
Devout Catholic scholar, Lord Acton (who edited Cambridge's first "History of the World") was rightly suspicious of "papal infallibility" when proposed at the First Vatican Council:
"In 1870 came the great crisis in Catholicism over the First Vatican Council's promulgation of the doctrine of papal infallibility. Lord Acton, who was in complete sympathy on this subject with Döllinger, went to Rome in order to throw all his influence against it, but the step he so much dreaded was not to be averted. The Old Catholic separation followed, but Acton did not personally join the seceders, and the authorities prudently refrained from forcing the hand of so competent and influential an English layman. It was in this context that, in a letter he wrote to scholar and ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:
But if we might discuss this point until we found that we nearly agreed, and if we do agree thoroughly about the impropriety of Carlylese denunciations and Pharisaism in history, I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III. ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greatest names coupled with the greatest crimes; you would spare those criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice, still more, still higher for the sake of historical science."[4]
... from Acton's Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/
***
To get our sexual house in order, it would be useful if Rome "looked to the East" where 22 Eastern Catholic Churches - "in communion with Rome" - have always validated celibate priests on the one hand and married priests on the other.
I recommend Wikipedia's entry on the Eastern Catholic Churches, a branch of Catholic Christianity that the Vatican has always given short shrift. http://en.wikipedia.
Note that the theology, tradition and practice of the Eastern Churches have theology, tradition and practice can "spring us" from the corner into which Rome has painted the church.
All we need is a smidgen of humility.
Don't hold your breath.
Clerical celibacy
Eastern and Western Christian churches have different traditions concerning clerical celibacy and the resulting controversies have played a role in the relationship between the two groups in some Western countries.
Most Eastern Churches distinguish between "monastic" and "non-monastic" clergy. Monasticsdo not necessarily live as monks or in monasteries, but have spent at least part of their period of training in such a context. Their monastic vows include a vow of celibate chastity.
Bishops are normally selected from the monastic clergy, and in most Eastern Catholic Churches a large percentage of priests and deacons also are celibate, while a portion of the clergy (typically, parish priests) may be married. If someone preparing for the diaconate or priesthood wishes to marry, this must happen before ordination.
In countries where Eastern traditions prevail, a married clergy caused little controversy; but it aroused opposition in other countries to which Eastern Catholics migrated; this was particularly so in the United States. In response to requests from the Latin bishops of those countries, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith set out rules in a letter of 2 May 1890 to François-Marie-Benjamin Richard, the Archbishop of Paris,[70] which the Congregation applied on 1 May 1897 to the United States,[71] stating that only celibates or widowed priests coming without their children should be permitted in the United States. This rule was restated with special reference to Catholics of Ruthenian Rite by the 1 March 1929 decree Cum data fuerit, which was renewed for a further ten years in 1939. Dissatisfaction by many Ruthenian Catholics in the United States gave rise to the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese. This rule was abolished with the promulgation of the Decree on the Catholic churches of the Eastern Rite; since then, married men have been ordained to the priesthood in the United States, and numerous married priests have come from eastern countries to serve parishes in the Americas.[72]
Three Eastern Catholic Churches have decided to adopt mandatory clerical celibacy, as in the Latin Church: the India-based Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, and the Ethiopian Catholic Church, which has a long widespread tradition of monasticism.
***
The Eastern Catholic approach to Holy Orders is more prudent -- and more workable -- than Rome's self-shackling obligation that all priests be celibate.
Pax on both houses
Alan
Give suicide report to Coroner, says Archbishop Hart
Published: April 15, 2012
Further to Friday's report in The Age, Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart has released the following statement to the media, reports the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne website.
I was deeply saddened today to read reports in the media of the suicides of at least 40 people linked to sexual abuse and I extend my heart-felt sympathy to the relatives of those who have died.
It appears that a confidential police report has been given to the media. I think that Victoria Police should give the report to the Coroner. There needs to be a proper investigation of any suicides.
I want to respond to comments in the media today about the Church’s relationship with Victoria Police. I believe that we have a good working relationship with Victoria Police. In establishing the Melbourne Response in 1996, we had extensive discussions with the police which continue at a senior level.
He went on to say that his expectation is that those matters are reported to police at the first available opportunity. He said he fully supported the Archdiocese’s ongoing relationship with the Sexual Crimes Squad.Most recently, there was a meeting with Graham Ashton in September last year. After that meeting, Mr Ashton wrote acknowledging that the reporting and recording of any crime committed by a member of my staff is a matter for us to manage in accordance with the law and natural justice.
I want to make it clear that I emphatically agree that the investigation of crimes is a matter for the police.
FULL STORY Archbishop says suicide report should be given to the Coroner (CAM)
RELATED COVERAGE
No comments:
Post a Comment