Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa delivers the Good Friday homily during a service celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Friday.
Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy with hands together at St. John's School for the deaf, Wisconisn, 1960- He was accused of abusing over 200 deaf children- The community thought he was a saint- The local Bishop & possibly the Vatican kept it secret for fear of tarnishing their image-It seems the Catholic Church is more concerned about its image than about the children who were being abused. Some of the children may be among the sexually abused."As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials did not punish or even hold a trial within the Catholic church for a Wisconsin priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to The New York Times." quote from:Pope Sexual Abuse Scandal: Benedict Implicated In Cover-Up Of Wisconsin Abuse Case Huffington Post / AP First Posted: 03-24-10
Catholic apologist Bill Donohue On CNN Defending the Vatican which he believes is being attacked by the media over the sex scandals of pries molesting children -he somehow according to his own private logic or language has come to the conclusion that the problem is not to do with pedophile priest but homosexual priest so somehow it is not the Catholic Church's problem and is not blameworthy- ???
"...Despite the common parlance, "the church" is not simply the hierarchy -- the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes -- but the men, women and children in the pews, particularly those who are poor or suffering in any way.
Thus the primary and greatest suffering in the Catholic Church in past decades has been among the victims of the crimes of sexual abuse, which destroys lives and entire families. It is a scourging for them, as surely as Jesus was scourged at the pillar. These are the victims; these are the crucified ones; these are the Christ-figures in our midst. " Rev. James Martin April 3, 2010 at Huff Post.
Meanwhile Pope Benedict is mum on sexual abuse scandal while those around him characterize the scandal as an attack on the Catholic Church -referring to sexual abuses as mere "Gossip" or "Idle Chatter":
Pope says Church in 'times of difficulty' By Francoise Kadri (AFP), April 5, 2010But Benedict again kept mum on the abuse scandals, which have reached the pope himself with claims that he helped shield predator priests when head of the Vatican department charged with disciplining them and as archbishop of Munich.
Large-scale paedophile scandals have rocked the Irish, Austrian, Swiss, German and US churches in recent days.
The Vatican has largely adopted a strategy of blaming the media for playing up the paedophile revelations.
Top prelates closed ranks around the pope on Easter Sunday, with the dean of the Vatican's College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, saying in an unusual gesture that "the people of God are with you" and would ignore "idle chatter".
On Friday the pope's personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, evoked a parallel between attacks on the pope and anti-Semitism -- remarks for which he later apologised after condemnation by Jewish groups and abuse victims.
Experts said however that the Vatican's approach was a sign of weakness, and added that the Church needed to take responsibility for the scandal and to adopt urgent reform.
The pope and the Church must "leave their bunker and their siege mentality" to "resolve the questions posed by this grave crisis", Giancarlo Zizola, a Vatican commentator at Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, told AFP.
Instead of blaming the media and forces presumed hostile to the Church, as Cardinal Sodano did on Sunday, "the Church should instead recognise its role", he said.
This week in crazy: The pope As a sex abuse scandal continues to threaten the Catholic Church, the pontiff just keeps digging his own grave by mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon .com April 3, 2010
...And so, as Catholics around the world began the Holy Week sprint toward Easter, the 82-year-old pontiff was sounding a tad defensive. In his Palm Sunday sermon, he took a moment to speak about "the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion." Hey, pope, not to tell you how to do your job or anything, but really, when your business is looking at thousands of sex crimes -- not a good moment to trot out the word "gossip."
Things got more heated as the week wore on, when the Vatican's Cardinal William J. Levada issued a testy official statement dissing the Times for its "attack mode" saying that "in rushing to a guilty verdict, [the Times] lacks fairness in its coverage of Pope Benedict."
Then, during a Good Friday service conducted by the pope's official preacher, the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, the pontiff sat quietly while the priest quoted a letter he said came from a Jewish friend. "I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole word," he said. "The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism."
Bill Donohue uses the sex scandals of Priests sexually abusing children and young adults to attack homosexuals. But what is his point. That homosexuals shouldn't be permitted to be priest and that would solve the problem? According to his twisted non-sequitur specious logic that somehow because these priests are homosexual this means it is not a problem for the church? I can't follow his logic or line of reasoning at all.
Donohue is just trying to deflect the criticisms of the Catholic church by attacking one of his favorite targets Gays and his other target the liberal anti-Catholic media.
No matter why these priests molest young children or primarily young boys or men is still a matter of sexual abuse and the abuse of their position of authority over their victims.
This would still not absolve the church for any wrong doing on the part of their Priests who were trained in Catholic seminaries and were ordained by the Catholic Church.
Does Donohue just make stuff up from his paranoid fevered over-active imagination ?
For instance:
GLAAD urged the media to ignore Donohue's anti-gay attacks.
Said Rashad Robinson, Senior Director of Media Programs at GLAAD: “It’s telling that when media start taking a closer look at the recent revelations in the abuse crisis, Donohue instantly tries to change the subject by blaming the media and casting gay people as sexual predators. But Americans are getting sick of this ugly, vicious scapegoating. Donohue is feeding a hostile climate that gay people continue to face in this country. It’s wrong, it’s unacceptable, and no credible media outlet should be providing a platform for these kinds of attacks.”
the funny thing is Bill Donohue is a frequent guest on CNN and Fox news and treated as some sort of expert for commentary on various issues such as sex education, birth control, aids , abortion and sexual abuse of children by Catholic Priests-yet they never seem to investigate him or his pseudo organization to see if he's legit and represents a large proportion of Catholics in America.
Catholic defender and professional apologist for the Pope and the Vatican accuses the media of unfairly targeting the Catholic Church, the Pope and the Vatican. In order to do so Donohue President of the Catholic League is to attack the media and to rebrand these incidences not as pedophilia but as problem with homosexual priest. By this means Donohue tries take control and reshape the narrative into bashing homosexuals and the so-called Gay agenda. Even if he was partly right how does he explain the abuses that took place in Catholic orphanages,and schools forty or fifty or more years ago at a time when homosexuality was still illegal and very much frowned upon by society. Is he saying that Gays have deliberately infiltrated the Catholic Church as part of 'the Gay Agenda ' right-wing conspiracy Theory . He just appears to grasping at straws and trying to deflect attention away from the main issues which have to do with the Church protecting these child abusers
By going after Gays Donohue believes he can find common ground with America's conservative movement , the secular right and the radical Christian right.
Bill Donohue: Catholic Sex Abuse Scandal Is Not A Pedophilia Crisis But A Homosexual Crisis by Nicholas Graham at Huffington Post, March 31, 2010
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, has emerged as one of the most vigorous defenders of Pope Benedict XVI, formerly Cardinal Ratzinger, as the Catholic Church reels from revelations that Ratzinger was made aware of a priest who molested more than 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin, and yet declined to punish him.
Donohue's method has been to attack the source of the story, the New York Times, accusing the paper of waging a concerted campaign to discredit the Vatican's authority.
Perhaps Donohue's most controversial claim is that this is not a pedophilia crisis but a homosexual crisis; since most victims of molestation were "post-pubescent"," that means the priests were not child molesters but some kind of gay predators. Donohue wrote in a full page ad in the New York Times:
The Times continues to editorialize about the "pedophilia crisis,: when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.
It's unclear where Donohue is getting his statistics, but this is sure to increase the belief among critics that the church is more interested in protecting its own interests and reputation than innocent children. In a heart-wrenching Times follow-up story, it was revealed that the deaf boys tried for decades to report the sexually abusive priest, but no one would listen.
also see at Media Matters: Donohue: Like the Irish and alcoholism, "there's a connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse of minors"Adds: "They can't keep their hands off the boys. Don't you get it?" March 31, 2010
and discussing the issue of Christians being unfairly attacked in the media with Lou Dobbs on his radio program Bill Donohue exposes himself as a bit of a nutter who presents his unproved conspiracy theory of the Faux Issue of Christians in America as victims of prejudice and bigotry more often than other groups:
On Dobbs, Donohue claims attacks on Jews, blacks, gays, Hispanics don't compare to intensity of anti-Christian attacks November 05, 2009
also see on Donohue at Media Matters exposes Donohues attacks on Non-Catholics and the Jews whom he claims control Hollywood: Who is Catholic League president William Donohue? December 20, 2004
and : Donohue refers to the "gay death style"
Catholic League's Donohue on Scarborough Country: "The gay community has yet to apologize to straight people for all the damage that they have done"
Andy Towle argues that Bill Donohue is wrong to claim that the New York Times didn't properly investigate these cases of Priests sexually abusing children. Next Bill Donohue goes after these priests claiming the problem is that they are gay. But there is no corelation between being Gay and being pedophile. But Donohue like other radical conservatives never allow facts to interfer with their opinion on an issue. Fox News loves him it appears.
Catholic League's Bill Donohue Takes Out NYT Ad Defending Pope, Claims Most Priests Who Did Molesting Were Gay at Towleroad.com
In recent weeks the paper has published well-researched articles documenting the abuse, including, 200 deaf boys at a school in Wisconsin, hundreds of cases in the German church (so many that the Vatican can't handle the workload), the abuse of altar boys on video by Brazilian priests.
And just today, some new allegations out of Miami regarding a Cuban priest. The Vatican tried to cover up this case as well.
Donohue attempts to deflect blame on the church by, among other things, once again bringing up the disproven canard that it's somehow the fault of gays.
Donohue writes: "The Times continues to editorialize about the 'pedophilia crisis,' when all along it's been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay."
Sorry Bill, pedophilia has nothing to do with homosexuality, and the Catholic church should be ashamed of its ongoing efforts to cover up the epidemic of abuse that has been inflicted upon innocent children.
Vatican Declined to Defrock U.S. Priest Who Abused Boys by Laurie Goodstein at The New York Times March 25, 2010
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.
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.
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. It is still the office that decides whether accused priests should be given full canonical trials and defrocked.
In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee’s archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy’s dismissal.
But Cardinal Bertone halted the process after Father Murphy personally wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger protesting that he should not be put on trial because he had already repented and was in poor health and that the case was beyond the church’s own statute of limitations.
Father Murphy not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims. Three successive archbishops in Wisconsin were told that Father Murphy was sexually abusing children, the documents show, but never reported it to criminal or civil authorities.
Instead of being disciplined, Father Murphy was quietly moved by Archbishop William E. Cousins of Milwaukee to the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin in 1974, where he spent his last 24 years working freely with children in parishes, schools and, as one lawsuit charges, a juvenile detention center. He died in 1998, still a priest.
Even as the pope himself in a recent letter to Irish Catholics has emphasized the need to cooperate with civil justice in abuse cases, the correspondence seems to indicate that the Vatican’s insistence on secrecy has often impeded such cooperation. At the same time, the officials’ reluctance to defrock a sex abuser shows that on a doctrinal level, the Vatican has tended to view the matter in terms of sin and repentance more than crime and punishment.
...In 1993, with complaints about Father Murphy landing on his desk, Archbishop Weakland hired a social worker specializing in treating sexual offenders to evaluate him. After four days of interviews, the social worker said that Father Murphy had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse.
However, it was not until 1996 that Archbishop Weakland tried to have Father Murphy defrocked. The reason, he wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger, was to defuse the anger among the deaf and restore their trust in the church. He wrote that since he had become aware that “solicitation in the confessional might be part of the situation,” the case belonged at the doctrinal office.
as for the Vatican spokesperson comparing anti-semitism to the current exposing of very real sex abuser to the lies told about the Jews is a somewhat different kettle of fish. But once he opens that door as my lawyer would say then it is permissible for critics to go there as well.
It further exposes the less than serious attempts on the part of the Vatican to apologize for its in action against the Nazis and their oppression and murderous attempt to wipe out all European Jews. The Vatican I contend does not accept that it played a major role for some 1600 years promulgating the most vile and hate-filled anti-Semitism. Maybe the Vatican still sees the Jews as their enemy and that the Nazis did what was necessary or what God wanted them to ? Their apology as such to the Jewish people may have been just an astute political move on the part of the Vatican .
and see: Vatican's anti-Semitism analogy sparks outrage
AFP - Comparing criticism of the pope in the child sex scandals engulfing the Catholic Church to anti-Semitism is insulting and impertinent, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany said Saturday.
"It is impertinent and an insult to the victims of sexual abuse as well as victims of the Holocaust," Stephan Kramer told AFP.
The parallel was made in a Good Friday service by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, the pope's personal preacher, who said he received a letter from a Jewish friend criticising the attacks against the pope and Catholic Church over the response to predator priests.
"The stereotyping, the transfer of personal responsibility and blame to a collective blame reminds me of the most shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," the friend wrote, according to Cantalamessa.
The remarks have triggered a chorus of criticism from Jewish groups and those representing victims of abuse by Catholic priests.
and see: Pope’s priest: Abuse flak like anti-Semitism
Personal preacher says accusations similar to ‘collective violence’ on Jews April 3, 2010
But anti-Semitism was embedded in Christianity from the time of the writings of the Gospels til very recently. The Church that is the Catholic Church and the Protestant churches from the time of Martin Luther were constantly promulgating anti-semitism blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus to trying through stealth to control all of the nations to making up stories about Jews abusing the Host .Eucharist to the accusation of kidnapping young Christian children to use their blood in secret Jewish rituals or accusing Jews of poisoning wells blaming the Jews for the various plagues and disasters
Pope & Vatican argue the pedophile priest scandal is just another of the ongoing attacks against the Catholic Church-does he not care about the children who have been abused or are being abused this very moment by some Catholic priest or does it matter in this fallen Satanic ruled world. Children who complain about abuse are just whiners who need to grow up because its not that big of a deal besides being abused by the local Holy Man or Witch Doctor or Priest is what an honor.
But I am not surprised this is the same Church that has preached a vile virulent vicious anti-Semitism which caused the deaths of the Church's avowed enemy The Jews who were ghettoized for over a thousand years , killed in pogroms in the Crusades in the Inquisition and finally at Auschwitz and the Shoah/Holocaust. Will there ever be a Pope who is more spiritual than hard headed businessman who wants to expand the power, the influence and wealth of the Church & maintaining its existence as being more important than the lives of millions killed on its behalf.
see more at page on this blog:
The Church & Anti-Semitism
There is some evidence that the Pope may have been part of a massive cover up .
The companion question to this is whether or not his defense is that he was blissfully unaware that there were many reports coming into the Vatican about Priest sexually abusing children ?
Does that resolve the issue of his involvement?
Was the pope therefore derelict in his duties as the Pope or even before becoming pope as part of the Vatican bureaucracy ?
Did the Pope have a duty to speak out? And what about all the other people in the Vatican and the Bishops Archbishops and various Vatican bureaucrats, accountants and lawyers what was their duty? To the Church , to the Pope , to the accountants the bean counters or to society to the victims of such abuse , word and spirit of the teachings of Jesus or is that last on their list?
Is the Vatican merely a broken down or ossified dysfunctional organization as in becoming too cult like in which all questions all substantial disagreements are taken as apostasy , heretical, and blasphemy.( Auto manufacturers in the US for instance have been accused of similar behavior since the 1970s and therefore have created on going problems and yet unable to change the way things are done)
Any human organization can become dysfunctional when there is little or no change by which things are done or there is a lack of real communication or when members of the institution's perceptions of the world and of itself fails to coincide with reality.
In a dysfunctional institution there is no room for serious self-examination or dealing honestly with internal and external criticisms.
We have seen a number of examples of this dealing with private institutions in the United States of Wall Street , the Military ,for example some corporations which sees themselves as invulnerable.
( For instance A comparison can be made concerning the former Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Regime which was deaf to valid internal and external criticisms. Given such a mindset reality and theory become divorced from one another and there is no incentive to make changes and learn from past mistakes so the errors in judgement just kept piling up .)
"More Evidence Emerges That Pope Benedict Helped Shield Pedophiles Before He Became Pope" by MATT SEDENSKY at Huffinton Post 04/ 3/10
The abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.
Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that as a Vatican cardinal, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.
In another Tucson case, that of Msgr. Robert Trupia, the bishop wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005. Bishop Manuel Moreno called Trupia "a major risk factor to the children, adolescents and adults that he many have contact with." There is no indication in the case files that Ratzinger responded.
..."There's no doubt that Ratzinger delayed the defrocking process of dangerous priests who were deemed 'satanic' by their own bishop," Lynne Cadigan, an attorney who represented two of Teta's victims, said Friday.
The tribunal referred Teta's case, which included allegations that he abused boys in a confessional, to Ratzinger. The church considers cases of abuse in confessionals more serious than other molestations because they also defile the sacrament of penance.
It took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.
..."The tragedy is that the bishops have only two choices: Follow the Vatican's code of secrecy and delay, or leave the church," Cadigan, the victims' lawyer, said Friday. "It's unfortunate that their faith demands that they sacrifice children to follow the Vatican's directions."
Pope Sexual Abuse Scandal: Benedict Implicated In Cover-Up Of Wisconsin Abuse Case at Huffington Post/ AP, March 24, 2010
--As a cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI and other Vatican officials did not punish or even hold a trial within the Catholic church for a Wisconsin priest who may have molested as many as 200 deaf boys, according to The New York Times.
The Times reports that despite warnings from "several" bishops to then-Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Lawrence Murphy, a priest at the St. John's School For The Deaf in St. Francis, WI, the Vatican chose not to act and ultimately allowed Murphy to go unpunished before his death in 1998. The Times reports:
In 1996, Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to two letters about the case from Rembert G. Weakland, Milwaukee's archbishop at the time. After eight months, the second in command at the doctrinal office, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican's secretary of state, instructed the Wisconsin bishops to begin a secret canonical trial that could lead to Father Murphy's dismissal.
also for a different perspective in which Rev. James Martin sees these scandals as an opportunity for Church renewal and change to catch up to the 21st century. For instance be more open in dealing with sexual abuse of children by Priests and reconsidering for instance allowing Priests to marry etc.
The Church's Easter: What Needs to Die in the Catholic Church so That it May Live by Rev. James Martin at Huffington PostApril 3,2010
...Despite the common parlance, "the church" is not simply the hierarchy -- the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and popes -- but the men, women and children in the pews, particularly those who are poor or suffering in any way.
Thus the primary and greatest suffering in the Catholic Church in past decades has been among the victims of the crimes of sexual abuse, which destroys lives and entire families. It is a scourging for them, as surely as Jesus was scourged at the pillar. These are the victims; these are the crucified ones; these are the Christ-figures in our midst.
Moreover, like the nails pounded into Christ's hands and feet, and the lance that pierced his side, the wounds of sexual abuse permanently scar the victims. When Christ presents himself to the disciples following the Resurrection, he bears on his body the wounds of his torture; they remain. (This is how St. Thomas, "Doubting Thomas" is able to recognize Jesus after the resurrection.) The victims of abuse and their families will always carry those wounds.
So the church itself suffers: that is, the People of God suffer. For abuse victims, Good Friday has lasted many years, sometimes decades.
This Easter more than ever, the passion, death and resurrection of Christ invites the Catholic Church to ponder what must die--so that it may live anew.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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