Sunday Edition - The Synod and Cardinal Pell

SUNDAY EDITION IS PUBLISHED WHEN I FEEL LIKE PUBLISHING IT.
IT EXPRESSES MY OPINIONS ABOUT THE GOINGS ON IN THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH.  PLEASE FEEL FREE TO AGREE OR DISAGREE BUT DO SO IN A RESPECTFUL MANNER.

Texts from the third day of the Vatican summit on child protection emphasized transparency, including:

-- The church must be transparent and open in facing the sexual abuse crisis, and the first step in true transparency is to admit wrongdoing and how it was dealt with, says Sister Veronica Openibo, congregational leader of the Holy Name Sisters.

Sister Veronica hits the bullseye with what she says. For too long the management of the Church has lost sight of what their job is.  Their job is not to "protect the church or her reputation" for that job is the job of the Holy Spirit.  However, words are just words and I should know because I am a wordsmith and can manipulate words to emphasize any point of view.  The words our bishops and cardinals speak now have to be followed up with action.  This action must be taken without regard to the rank of the perpetrator.  If they thought so little of their vows that they abused another vulnerable human being, well, then they must be rendered harmless and they must never be allowed into a position of trust in the Church again.  We do not see much action right now, hopefully, the hand wringing and rhetoric will now stop and the scandal can be addressed with action.  What do you say, Pope Francis?

-- German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising says counteracting sinful behavior requires traceability and transparency within the church.

Really Eminence?  I can see why you are in the position that you are.  You have a great grasp of the obvious.  Could you do me a favor and perhaps mention this to the Holy Father when you see him next?  He does not seem to have a clue at how to move on this issue. 

-- If bishops are really serious about fighting clerical sex abuse, they must join forces with journalists, says Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki.

This would be a good idea but for one fact.  The journalists from all media have a bias against the Catholic Church.  Sexual abuse, as bad as it is in the Church is only the tip of the iceberg.  Sexual abuse is a symptom of the miasma we find ourselves in.  Little bit by little bit over the years our respect for life and for one another has sunk to new lows.  We do not see ourselves as children of God but just as interchangeable pawns in the game of life.  This is exacerbated by the press, TV, and all other forms of news sources who no longer just report the news but wordsmith the news to point to a value that they want to push.  The point they want to push is usually the one that sells more papers or gains more viewers and generally, these are positions that are opposite of what the Church teaches and that is what makes it popular.  In America beating up the Catholic Church is second only to baseball as a national pastime. 

-- "Too often we have kept quiet, looked the other way, avoided conflicts" and been "too smug" to confront the "dark sides of our church," Archbishop Philip Naameh of Tamale, Ghana, tells fellow bishops.

Let the confronting begin!  When a person has cancer develop in their body, in order for them to regain their health the cancer must be, in some way, be removed.  The process of removing cancer can be painful and can cause scars but in the end, the person who has been cured lives a longer life and actually has more appreciation for the act of breathing in and breathing out while walking, talking and thinking.  

For our Church, the time for surgery has arrived and we must excise the corrupted parts of our Church and we must cut deep and cut true.  We have to be fair, we have to make sure that there is credible evidence against a malefactor but once it is proven the process should proceed immediately and the perpetrator should be laicized without delay so that the harm that this person has done is cut off and healing can thus begin. 

PELL DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE ACCORDING TO THE JURY AND BILOCATES 

• Twenty Alibi Witnesses showing that reported abuse was impossible ignored by the jury.
• Anti-Catholic bias suspected major factor in conviction because of Pell refusing communion to gay activists, also he was a major supporter of Right to Life - both offenses angered non-christian people. 

EDITORIAL

What is the Church? One answer might be that it is the Pope and the Cardinals, the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, Nuns, Sisters, Brothers and the people in the pews. This answer is not satisfactory.  The Church consists of all of these people but all of these people form the People of God.  No matter what title that they might have, no matter how much power they think they have, no matter whose ear they have, none of us are any greater than God.  The Church is His.  It does not belong to the clergy or even the pew-dwellers. it is His. 

Today we are facing (again) a scandal that will not go away.  Common ordinary Catholics are starting to look outside the Catholic Church and running away to receive their spiritual nourishment.  Without a doubt, each of them will be welcomed with open arms by any Protestant denomination that they fall victim to.  There they will receive the word that the Church, the Bride of Christ is nothing more than the Whore of Babylon.  It is a sad fact that some will actually believe this and turn away from the True Church and accept something less than they are entitled to.  They will become Christians of the Book and begin to believe in strange doctrines such as sola scriptura - where if it is not in the Bible, it has no place in your faith life.  Sadly Sola Scriptura is not found in the Bible.  They might be taught that once they accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior that they cannot lose that salvation. They will also be taught that works are not needed in spite of the fact that in the Gospel of Mark we are told that the goats who did nothing went to one place and the sheep that took care of their brothers went another.  They will also be taught that the letter of James doesn't really mean what it says.  Four times a year they will participate in a memorial of the last supper, crackers and grape juice will be distributed and the remnants will be fed to the birds because after all, they are just crackers. 

Pray for those who are suffering because of the small percentage of renegade clergy that has sullied the name of the Roman Catholic Church.  Remember as well that our Church enjoys the fullness of the Treasury of Faith and that includes the greatest gift we have ever received, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

 

Scandal and the Catholic Church

During the last few years there has been much talk about Roman Catholic clergy abusing their trust as religious and commiting sins against children under their care.  The scandal became world news as more people claimed to have been abused by Catholic clergy.  The situation as bad as it was was made worse when some of the higher clergy decided to try and cover it up or to transfer the offender to another place.  Both of these actions were wrong and the people that did them should have known this.

The Catholic Church is what they used to call in World War II an LST - Large Stationary Target.  It also percieved as having deep pockets filled with gold.  It is my belief that many of the stories told by victoms are the result of greed and the American passtime of suing one another.  One concrete example was the accusations against the late Cardinal Bernadine of Chicago.  His accusser said all manner of evil things about this saintly man only to recant them later.

HOWEVER

If even one child was hurt, molested, or abused in some way or if one incident was covered up by clergy that was one too many.  A child deserves our love, our guidance and should be able to trust their clergy or for that matter any of the authority figures in their life.  This goes without saying.  The Church has dismissed priests found guilty of this tragic dereliction of duty and conduct unbecomming a man of the cloth.  These people have been turned over to the authorities so that justice can be done for the victims. This is as it should be and the Church is only doing what is right in this case.  I also admit that the Church has been slightly less agressive against the clergy that made it possible for these faux priests to practice their shenanigans longer than need be.

The Church has taken it on the chin, and somewhat rightly so for these embarassments.  They also have taken steps that tilt the scale of justice one hundred and eighty degrees to the west in that it is now the accussed priest that is considered guilty until proven innocent.  This is harsh treatment indeed for some of these men who may be in fact innocent.  Father John Corapi, a very devout former Catholic priest was forced to resign from the priesthood due to the unproved accusations that he had an affair with a parisoner, not a child but with an adult woman.

The Church also has been deeply hurt by the example these men have shown the world.  While it is a very small percentage of Catholic clergy that was involved with scandal, the whole Church comes away with a black eye.  The scandal has provided much ammunition to those that are biggoted against the Catholic Church. If you read any news article say on Yahoo where the Pope or the Church is mentioned and then look at the comments people post about the story you will that these bigots, very often taught to hate the Church from early age, keep the scandal alive and well by constantly condemning the WHOLE Church for the actions of a few.  Painting with such broad strokes paints the good and the bad alike and this is a miscarriage of justice.  These comments contain a certain "holier than thou" attitude that is not very Christlike.

If these smug Protestants were to troll the internet using as the search term "Protestant Sexual Abuse" their eyes would be be opened when they see all of the abuse committed on children by Protestant clergy.  The difference between the scandals is that the Catholic Church is centralized and easier to pick apart than say a First Baptist Church or Church of the Nazarene.  Besides, in America the bias against the Church is the last "respectable" bias.

The point I am making here is simply that the scandal of the moment is not only the problem of Catholics.  It is the problem of Protestans, Jews, Hindu's, Muslims, and Atheists.  Our stand should be a united one, we should stamp out abuse of our children wherever we find it.  Also, we should take the time to display Christlike love for one another, Catholics for Protestants and Protestants for Catholics.  The differences between our faiths our real and in some cases profound.  But we should practice what Jesus taught us when He said "Love one another as I have loved you."  Before He died for us on the Cross of Ultimate Love on Calvary that first Good Friday, the night before at the Last Supper he washed the feet of ALL the disciples, even the feet of Judas who betrayed Him.  If our master could do that,can we do any less than Him?