Overexposure Taints The Church Hierarchy

Brothers and sisters:
Indeed the word of God is living and effective,
sharper than any two-edged sword,
penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow,   
and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.
No creature is concealed from him,
but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him
to whom we must render an account.

As a person in the pew, and a loyal Catholic, I have to confess that I am hurt and outraged by the way our Church has been governed.  It appears to me that there is a lack of justice and fair-play among those that wear the red hats.  I have written in the past as an amateur apologist for the Church, the hierarchy, and the papacy.  I remain loyal to the magisterium but have to say that I am losing confidence in the current crop of leaders and this includes a growing lack of confidence in Pope Francis. Mind you, I still believe in papal infallibility when he teaches from the Chair of Peter, but his problem is that he never seems to want to take charge and it is especially evident in this current situation. 

Cardinal McCarrick resigned in from the College of Cardinals and his resignation was accepted and the 88-year-old was removed from the college and instructed to retire to a life of prayer and penance because of his depraved abuse of minors and adult seminarians that happened over the years. Pope Francis also removed the pervert from all public ministry and he will eventually undergo a regular canonical trial.  McCarrick, as far as I know, is the first cardinal in the college of cardinals to resign because of sexual misbehavior.  McCarrick was removed from public ministry on June 20th, 2018 when a panel found him guilty of abusing a teenage altar boy 47 years ago as a priest in New York.  He claims to be innocent of this charge in spite of the fact that the church panel found the charge credible so it appears there is no remorse in his heart for this crime. 

The target for McCarrick's perversion was not really children or adolescent boys, although as stated above he did abuse one young boy early in his career.  He went for young men, seminarians to be exact and he invited his potential victims to his summer home along with other seminarians.  When they arrived it would be discovered that there was one bed less than the number of people who were at the house.  McCarrick would invite the object of his desire to share a bed with him. This would lead to unwanted touching by the Cardinal of a sexual nature. 

McCarrick was smart.  He groomed the one he lusted after by telling him that he was amazed at how intelligent he thought the man was and how he, McCarrick, would help him by sending him to Rome to be educated in the schools that the elite went to and thus securing the victim's career in the church.  This was heady stuff for a young seminarian who would be impressed that such a great man would take such a lively interest in him. The church knew for decades of the abuse that was McCarrick's stock in trade and they ignored it.  If all they did was to ignore it, that would have been bad enough.  But over the years he rose in rank among the cardinals even taking a prominent role in the church's zero-tolerance policy against abuse of children.  What an irony! 

Around 1986, McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Newark, a city with a million Catholics.  This was an important post and it showed Pope John Paul II (Now Saint John Paul II) had confidence in the man. The promotion did not diminish McCarrick's sexual appetite.  McCarrick groomed and took a young seminarian to a small apartment he kept and after having the seminarian change into a sailor suit and shorts embraced the young man ardently and taking him to bed wrapped his legs between the seminarian's legs.  This same seminarian also stated that he was present as McCarrick was having sex with a young priest at a fishing camp and invited the man "to be next."   He was known to the seminarians he craved as, "Uncle Ted."

To shorten this a bit, let us say that in spite of all of the known perversion, this man rose quickly and steadily in the ranks of the Church.  Victims started complaining and the Church started paying.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars went to victims and still, the prelate was permitted to engage in ministry, still had the ear of the pope and was allowed to ply his trade in the sexual world while others looked the other way.  

Our Church is in crisis. If a priest is accused of a sexual sin the process of removal is swift and sure once the allegation is deemed credible. I do not complain about this for the victims are entitled to swift justice.  In the case of a deacon or priest, the wheels turn swiftly and they normally find themselves outside and looking in very quickly.  If you are a bishop or cardinal, the wheels seem to lose their round shape and take on a square shape for they hardly move at all.  The Church was aware of McCarrick's for over thirty years and yet no one in charge did anything to stop the tarnished star from rising.

The pope has ordered an investigation of all of the documents.  This makes for a good sound bite but there should be an official investigation and those that are guilty of malfeasance should bear the consequences of their actions. 

As a member of a couple of ministries at my home church, every year I have to fill out paperwork and have a background check to make sure that I am safe to be around children and the elderly and anyone else considered vulnerable to abuse.  This background check is an invasion of my privacy that I do not complain about because my ministries are important to me.  I just would pray that the care the Church takes in protecting the vulnerable from me would have been taken to protect children and seminarians from the likes of McCarrick with the same enthusiasm. 

Please pray that the Holy Father starts acting like Peter and that this scandal can be laid to rest with the culprits removed from power wherever they are found, no matter how high in the food chain and that the victims receive justice for what they have suffered.  Come on Pope Francis we need you to step up and fill the shoes of Peter and to lead as Peter would have led.  Do not delay any further, we are in agony here in the pews and cannot understand your inaction.