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Post by hibernicus on Sept 18, 2020 20:42:15 GMT
What is really striking about this is the double standard - the speed with which Fr Altman is being threatened with ecclesiastical discipline, whereas priests engaging in various types of heterodoxy and heteropraxis are given almost infinite toleration in many dioceses. (I can think of some bishops who in the 80s and 90s ignored repeated complaints about the misdeeds of certain priests, while moving fast as lightning against any celebration of the EF Mass.) To be fair, I think Fr Altman was imprudent. I can think of certain circumstances under which it might be legitimate for someone to vote for a Democrat (e.g. for the diminishing number of pro-life Dem office-holders, the most prominent at present being the Governor of Louisiana, or where both candidates are pro-abort and the Dem is preferable on other grounds) - but the speed with which his bishop moved to public rebuke and threats is shocking.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 16, 2020 21:45:00 GMT
Two unpleasant experiences today: (1) I was talking to a non-Catholic friend and remarked that in 2012 Joe Biden hosted a St Patrick's Day dinner for Enda Kenny at which the blessing was given by none other than Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. To my mortification, I discovered that my friend had not heard of the scandal surrounding Cardinal McCarrick and was obliged to explain the whole vile story. (2) I saw an online picture of a round-faced elderly bishop in red vestments and wearing a mitre, and thought for an instant that it was a picture of St John Paul II. Then I realised it was McCarrick. Another nasty thought - McCarrick apparently liked to ingratiate himself by a combination of being the professional Irish charmer and being a successful fundraiser. Given that he was born in 1930 and ordained in 1958, I strongly suspect he modelled this image on the fictional Fr O'Malley as played by Bing Crosby in GOING MY WAY (1944) and THE BELLS OF ST MARY'S (1945). The author of the piece linked below spells out the implications of McCarrick's crimes and impunity so much more clearly than I can: www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/11/vows-broken
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 12, 2020 4:07:46 GMT
I didn't post on the current imbroglio involving Fr George Rutler for the following reasons: (1) I've been very busy lately - trying to wind up all sorts of odds and ends in preparation for Christmas. (2) I am reluctant to post in cases where the facts are disputed and the legal position is still unresolved - partly because I'm afraid of my own capacity for wishful thinking, partly because my media consumption skews right and I may be getting an unbalanced picture. This, for example, is why I tried to be circumspect about Cardinal Pell's legal ordeal - although it now seems clear he is innocent of the charge, and the longer the trials went on the more dubious the accusations against him seemed. I might add that Fr Rutler is not really my cup of tea. His book on the Cure D'Ars struck me as mannered pastiche (he was imitating Chesterton's style but what was Chesterton's natural mode of expression comes across as forced in his case) so I prefer to follow other writers. I actually attended a Mass celebrated by him at his old midtown parish when I visited New York 13 years ago - it was a beautiful church with magnificent icons, which unfortunately were removed by the next parish priest - and I was struck by his Anglified accent (though he came across overall as reverent and sincere). I find American religious Anglophiles irritating, though that's a matter of taste. That being the case, since Fr Rutler has now been raised in the shoutbox I am posting Rod Dreher's column on the case for your information. Please remember that the case is still sub judice and avoid speculation. (The essentials are: a female security guard claims she caught him watching homosexual pornography in his office and he then assaulted her. Fr Rutler has denied that he assaulted her and is making no further comment on legal advice. EWTN is not broadcasting his shows until the situation becomes clearer.) Prayers for all concerned are in order, and remember that our faith is in Jesus and not in Fr Rutler or any individual churchman. It took me a long time to learn this: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/father-george-rutler-scandal-gay-porn-catholic/ Once more, we only know that there are accusations - their truth is yet to be tested, and it's too easy to assume that having read something online you know more about it than you actually do.
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2020 2:07:09 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 8, 2021 21:25:55 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 28, 2021 21:12:48 GMT
I am sorry to say that Dr Joseph Shaw's article defending the Church's record against attacks over the mother and baby homes strikes me as severely flawed, and that Catholics need to come to terms with what was genuinely wrong with these institutions rather than trying to defend them en bloc: www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-catholic-run-mother-and-baby-homes-in-ireland-have-become-the-focus-of-irrational-rage Let's start with a few points that Dr Shaw gets correct. He is right to say that much of the coverage of these and other church-related abuse scandals has as a not-so-hidden subtext the message that Christian sexual ethics are unachievable and hypocritical, that they were sustained only by fear and the inducement of irrational shame and guilt, and that future generations should be encouraged to reject such restraints along with shame and guilt and behave like the characters in NORMAL PEOPLE. There is also a concerted effort to paint the Church as entirely evil so that nobody might consider taking it seriously. That said, Dr Shaw glosses over the darker aspects of the homes and the sisters' behaviour. These include: (1) The high mortality rates in certain homes, which at times appears little better than the Victorian practice of baby-farming. We have known, for example, about the deaths of many babies in the Bessborough home in the 1940s and 1950s through the neglect of basic hygienic precautions, in a manner which strongly suggests the sisters involved thought the babies in question possessed little or no value and were better off dead. (This was encouraged by such folk-beliefs as the idea that those born out of wedlock had "bad blood" which meant they would be of bad moral character or physically frail.) The doctor who exposed the Bessborough epidemic and brought it to an end, and who recorded it in a memoir published in the 80s, Dr James Deeny, was a devout Catholic who later was appointed to the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences. Anyone with any respect for life should be trying to see what can be learned from Dr Deeny's example rather than whitewashing the nuns. (2) Dr Shaw glosses over, if he has noticed at all, the well-attested reports of self-righteous pharisaic cruelty in these homes, with inmates being subjected to systematic humiliation, threatened with going to Hell, told at every opportunity how wicked they were and how they should offer up pain and discomfort for forgiveness, and so forth. This is going beyond penance for sin, and amounts to "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like these sinners." (3) Similarly it is quite clear that the homes were used in some instances to cover up cases of rape and incest, with the victim being blamed and the perpetrator getting off scot free. I personally have heard of instances where a victim of statutory rape was denounced off the altar in the most ferocious terms while the "respectable" perpetrator got off scot free and remained a regular communicant. OK, Dr Shaw is right that we should not acquiesce in the demonisation of the Church and of Christian sexual ethics, but we do need to understand how these were distorted and misused in the past, and having understood, to repent and make what reparation we can. He's throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
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Post by hibernicus on Mar 8, 2021 1:29:58 GMT
Another dark stain on the record of the Irish Church. The late Fr Joseph Marmion SJ, grand-nephew of Bl. Columba Marmion, is exposed as a serial abuser who was removed from Belvedere in the late 1970s for that reason - and later given other assignments! Our thoughts and prayers must be with the victims, whose suffering is as always the darkest feature of all. www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0302/1200420-jesuit-teacher/
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 7, 2021 17:15:26 GMT
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Post by assisi on Apr 12, 2021 20:43:06 GMT
I am sorry to say that Dr Joseph Shaw's article defending the Church's record against attacks over the mother and baby homes strikes me as severely flawed, and that Catholics need to come to terms with what was genuinely wrong with these institutions rather than trying to defend them en bloc: www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/the-catholic-run-mother-and-baby-homes-in-ireland-have-become-the-focus-of-irrational-rage Let's start with a few points that Dr Shaw gets correct. He is right to say that much of the coverage of these and other church-related abuse scandals has as a not-so-hidden subtext the message that Christian sexual ethics are unachievable and hypocritical, that they were sustained only by fear and the inducement of irrational shame and guilt, and that future generations should be encouraged to reject such restraints along with shame and guilt and behave like the characters in NORMAL PEOPLE. There is also a concerted effort to paint the Church as entirely evil so that nobody might consider taking it seriously. That said, Dr Shaw glosses over the darker aspects of the homes and the sisters' behaviour. These include: (1) The high mortality rates in certain homes, which at times appears little better than the Victorian practice of baby-farming. We have known, for example, about the deaths of many babies in the Bessborough home in the 1940s and 1950s through the neglect of basic hygienic precautions, in a manner which strongly suggests the sisters involved thought the babies in question possessed little or no value and were better off dead. (This was encouraged by such folk-beliefs as the idea that those born out of wedlock had "bad blood" which meant they would be of bad moral character or physically frail.) The doctor who exposed the Bessborough epidemic and brought it to an end, and who recorded it in a memoir published in the 80s, Dr James Deeny, was a devout Catholic who later was appointed to the Pontifical Academy for the Sciences. Anyone with any respect for life should be trying to see what can be learned from Dr Deeny's example rather than whitewashing the nuns. (2) Dr Shaw glosses over, if he has noticed at all, the well-attested reports of self-righteous pharisaic cruelty in these homes, with inmates being subjected to systematic humiliation, threatened with going to Hell, told at every opportunity how wicked they were and how they should offer up pain and discomfort for forgiveness, and so forth. This is going beyond penance for sin, and amounts to "I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not like these sinners." (3) Similarly it is quite clear that the homes were used in some instances to cover up cases of rape and incest, with the victim being blamed and the perpetrator getting off scot free. I personally have heard of instances where a victim of statutory rape was denounced off the altar in the most ferocious terms while the "respectable" perpetrator got off scot free and remained a regular communicant. OK, Dr Shaw is right that we should not acquiesce in the demonisation of the Church and of Christian sexual ethics, but we do need to understand how these were distorted and misused in the past, and having understood, to repent and make what reparation we can. He's throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I haven't read the article by Dr Shaw nor read the report so I stand to be corrected if some of the assertions I am making are covered in the report. I would take the view that the Church should go on the offensive. It has apologised enough and has a duty to defend itself as well as critique itself into oblivion at the behest of secular bodies. Here are some of the reasons why I think this: 1. The Irish Government, Media and Academia has been virulently anti-Catholic for the last decade and more. There is no way that they will treat the Church in a fair and impartial manner. 2. The Irish Government has already killed over 6000 babies through abortion and have celebrated in the streets the abortion referendum. How can any entity that kills and celebrates the killing have the right to ever pass comment on historical institutions, many of whom may have at least tried and did keep children alive. Surely the hypocrisy is incredible to behold and therefore diminished the integrity of these types of reports. 3. Did the report ever look to publicise those who tried their best to help in these homes and institutions? Was there good staff who became demoralised with time? Did many of the sisters ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, lack of money and resources during periods of Irish wars, world wars, world recessions, rationing and many other factors, no antibiotics until after WWII? Was any analysis of this done? After all we have seen the current medical profession get massive outpourings of sympathy during Covid, to the point where a whole country is in lockdown to allow them not to be overwhelmed. Was even a small fraction of that type of action or sympathy available to historic institutions? 4. Did the report do comparisons with other countries to see if Ireland was any better or worse than elsewhere? For example would Orphanages or similar homes to those in Ireland been any better in Soviet Russia, muslim countries like Turkey or Iraq? Perhaps something worse may have happened the mother or baby before they ever got to a home, if any. Sweden, that oft quoted secular example, for over 40 years between 1934 and 1976 sterilised 63,000 people - 90 per cent of them women - with state approval to improve Swedish "racial purity" as part of a policy of "ethnic hygiene", some as young as 15 and for reasons as insignificant as shortsightedness. Other countries who had significant numbers affected by eugenics include Canada, the U.S. , Denmark, Norway and Nazi Germany of course. Those in Britain who supported the Eugenics programmes the most were from the political left and from liberalism. I would hazard a guess that such homes and institutions in S. America, China, Africa or Asia, if they indeed existed would not have passed muster to say the least. Lets be honest here. If everything is judged by today's left liberal utopian paradise viewpoint then all history fails (and the present too). Is this not more about progressives trying to feel better about themselves by their usual method of criticising the past and killing God so that their own corrupt consciences can be salved and their amoral political globalist experiment can progress full steam ahead (towards the precipice). Hence why I believe it is important to fight back rather than cower. That doesn't mean that we don't learn from the past. We do learn from the past in that we see that cruelty and indifference existed (in all walks of life) and we try to remedy that as much as humanely possible, knowing that realistically however much we try there will always be bad people. But we must also learn that constantly self flagellating before a tyrannical power will not stop their propaganda and their advance. Better to stand up to them at the earliest stage.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 15, 2021 21:06:29 GMT
I agree with you to some extent, Assisi. First of all, it is absolutely clear that the media and certain groups are using this to advance a particular agenda -it was noteworthy that the Tuam mother and baby home scandal was regularly used during the run-up to the 2018 abortion referendum to support the view that the church was hypocritical in opposing abortion; in other words, to support the view that inconvenient babies ought to be killed as soon as possible and disposed of as medical waste. Sounds familiar? Second, I am not advocating perpetual cowering and defensiveness - I am saying that a necessary precondition for counteroffensive is to understand ourselves what happened and what it signified. Sheer denial gets nowhere. The realisation that there was a deep corruption in Irish society on this matter going back into the C19 is extremely painful, but recognising this helps us to understand how the horrors we have seen in recent decades came to be, whereas an assumption that we were all angels until 1958/1967/1990/whenever and then suddenly turned into demons is a recipe for fruitless nostalgia and paranoia. We need more than ever to understand what was good about the past that we have lost, but in order to do this we must understand what was bad and why the loss came about. Third - we don't have to be left liberal utopians to be shocked by these revelations - we just have to have a sense of what it is to be personally consecrated to Jesus by the apostolic vows, and to appreciate the difference between taking on Jesus and taking on Pharisaism. That applies to us in many ways and to the present as well as the past. We won't recuperate the harm done by winning a popularity contest, but by being transformed and bearing witness in our lives. Perhaps the popularity contest will follow, but that's not the main purpose.
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Post by hibernicus on May 18, 2021 0:11:58 GMT
A characteristically hard-hitting piece by Leon Podles, based on a book on aspects of the French scandal not yet available in English. Basically, it involves a number of "new religious movements" in the 50s where a combination of distorted bridal mysticism (i.e. the well-established analogy between the mutual love of God and the seeker and that of bridegroom and bride), exaggerated notions of religious obedience (kadavergehorsam, or the subject as stick in the hands of the director) and a response to the marginalisation of the official Church within society by enabling charismatic leaders who teach the faith through personal example but who also bypass the safeguards built (at least in theory) into official church structures. Some very prominent people were linked to this milieu - Jacques and Raissa Maritain had contact with some of the Dominicans involved in the corruption of Jean Vanier (though there is no suggestion that the Maritains were in any way complicit in this) and Podles thinks there are serious questions over the links between Marthe Robin of the Foyers de Charite and one of these pseudo-mystics. (I have heard of Marthe Robin but don't know enough about her to be able to assess this). www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/05/16/corruptio-optimi/EXTRACT The erotic mysticism which the abusive founders used to seduce victims permeates Western Christianity, as I have discussed in my books on masculinity. But it would not have resulted in sexual abuse without the precondition of spiritual abuse. This, as Hoyeau discusses, is not recognized as a crime in canon law, but was a tactic of the founders. Briefly, it is an emphasis on obedience such that the person under obedience is infantilized and loses all ability to develop independent judgment. The member is but a puppet to be manipulated by the founder, who claims to have a direct line to God, either though mystical or charismatic experiences. The founders demanded such obedience of their organization’s members, but they did their best to escape from supervision by bishops and the Vatican. The secularization of France in the first part of the twentieth century made Catholics realize that the mass of people would not listen to someone because he held an office in the church but might be open to hearing the gospel if the life and personality of the proclaimer were attractive. This led first to the unsuccessful experiment of the worker priests. The collapse of the priesthood, seminaries, and religious orders in the aftermath of the Vatican Council made the French bishops desperate for signs of hope, and they thought they saw them in the new movements. The bishops were therefore willing to overlook problems or dismiss them as growing pains while the bishops sought to find a place in the structure of the church for these apparent movements of the Holy Spirit. The new movements exploited the division in the church between traditionalists and progressives. Progressives criticized the movements as too conservative, although the movements ignored all the safeguards that the Church had developed over two millennia of experience with a stubbornly fallen human nature. The movements were encouraged by Pope John Paul II, who saw in them a springtime of the Church. He, a former actor, knew the power of a charismatic personality; he became a celebrity, a rock star, so people would listen to him when he proclaimed the Gospel. He thought that the founders of the new movements were doing the same thing, and he therefore chose not to listen to evidence of abuse. The most egregious case was that of Marciel Maciel—drug addict, pervert, incestuous pedophile—whom John Paul II proclaimed, even after both rumors and evidence had reached him, to be “an infallible guide to youth.” John Paul II chose to be blind to the evil because the fruits, the orthodoxy, the vocations, the work with the poor, were so good. And not only the pope. Everyone was dumbfounded by the revelations about Vanier. How could Vanier awaken such love and care for the handicapped while he himself seduced and abused women? And that is a mystery. How could the founders accomplish such good things while doing such evil things? We want everything to be black and white, but the world and human organizations and people and ourselves are a mix of good and evil: we are fallen. As psychiatrists explained to Hoyeau: we all have psychopathic tendencies, but they may become active depending on the conditions we are in. Some abusive founders were full-blown psychopaths: they wanted to manipulate people to hurt them. Maciel exemplifies this. Others were merely narcissists, like the actor Fenoy, and the adulation went to his head. The combination of their good work and their abuse created an uncertainty in their followers in which the only point of reference was the will of the abuser: classic Stockholm Syndrome. END OF EXTRACT
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Post by hibernicus on May 31, 2021 22:10:48 GMT
An interesting article which argues that an unduly idealised view of the way in which the priest becomes "one with Christ", going back to the Counter-Reformation era, helped to create the conditions for the clerical abuse and cover-up scandals. This is one for discussion, and I should note that disavowing such idealisation does NOT as certain self-proclaimed liberal Catholics proclaim, require abandoning core Catholic teaching on the priesthood: www.crisismagazine.com/2021/examining-the-deep-roots-of-the-abuse-crisis
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Post by Beinidict Ó Niaidh on Jun 2, 2021 21:16:28 GMT
I think that this article is pertinent. The Council of Trent faced an attack on the priesthood. It articulated the teaching on the priesthood, and as a side effect, the priesthood was glorified. I think the clergy had an interesting relationship with the laity's elevation of the priesthood; they could simultaneously despise it and use it. But it was certainly the sort of thing that drew the wrong type of person into the priesthood. I recall a priest, now under canonical sanction, named Fr John (Dominic Savio) Boland OFM Cap. The man cultivated the air of sanctity, and I remember him preaching on the value of virginity and of the place of the priesthood. He was later convicted of sexual offences against minors. He clearly picked his victims well, but he got away with it for a long time. However, I believe he himself was the victim of sexual abuse by a priest.
I think the point a lot of people missed was that holy orders no more made a man holy than holy matrimony would make him a faithful husband. Yes grace is there and I don't question it, but it is necessary to respond to grace. If the truth be told, priesthood opens up greater temptations than we can imagine. It requires a positive act of faith to continue to believe in the Real Presence when one celebrates Mass on a daily basis. I also heard most priests are approached by a woman who wants a relationship with him at some time - normally this is not a real temptation as the sort of woman who does this is not normally very sought after. But I think a lot of priests in the past got into a habit of playing God. I think in particular of someone like Fr Denis Fahey who believed he had diminished himself so much that to criticise his teaching was to criticise Christ Himself, which meant superiors and bishops who should have been a lot firmer gave him enormous latitude because of his emotional state.
Yes, I certainly believe the elevation of the priesthood was an element in this tragedy.
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Post by assisi on Jun 6, 2021 17:32:36 GMT
I think that this article is pertinent. The Council of Trent faced an attack on the priesthood. It articulated the teaching on the priesthood, and as a side effect, the priesthood was glorified. I think the clergy had an interesting relationship with the laity's elevation of the priesthood; they could simultaneously despise it and use it. But it was certainly the sort of thing that drew the wrong type of person into the priesthood. I recall a priest, now under canonical sanction, named Fr John (Dominic Savio) Boland OFM Cap. The man cultivated the air of sanctity, and I remember him preaching on the value of virginity and of the place of the priesthood. He was later convicted of sexual offences against minors. He clearly picked his victims well, but he got away with it for a long time. However, I believe he himself was the victim of sexual abuse by a priest. I think the point a lot of people missed was that holy orders no more made a man holy than holy matrimony would make him a faithful husband. Yes grace is there and I don't question it, but it is necessary to respond to grace. If the truth be told, priesthood opens up greater temptations than we can imagine. It requires a positive act of faith to continue to believe in the Real Presence when one celebrates Mass on a daily basis. I also heard most priests are approached by a woman who wants a relationship with him at some time - normally this is not a real temptation as the sort of woman who does this is not normally very sought after. But I think a lot of priests in the past got into a habit of playing God. I think in particular of someone like Fr Denis Fahey who believed he had diminished himself so much that to criticise his teaching was to criticise Christ Himself, which meant superiors and bishops who should have been a lot firmer gave him enormous latitude because of his emotional state. Yes, I certainly believe the elevation of the priesthood was an element in this tragedy. We may never know the reasons or extent of the scandals in the Church or elsewhere. If we are ever to know the full details we need much more information particularly historic data to see if there are trends in sexual scandal over the ages. However we are unlikely to ever get enough historical data to draw conclusions regarding the growth or decline of sexual abuse over the years due to the often hidden nature of the crime and the stigma associated with it. I write this because the National Crime Agency in the UK has stated that regarding the number of child abusers: "Using a new approach to calculate the number of people deemed to be a threat, authorities now estimate the figure is between 550,000 and 850,000. This total refers to those who download images of child abuse, as well as those who directly abuse children.
Previously, analysis had focused on registered sex offenders and people using the dark web to view images of child abuse, putting the figure at a minimum of 300,000 individuals."
Those figures above, for a largely non-Catholic country, are pretty staggering and show the ubiquitous nature of this disorder. I'm sure that child abuse has always existed but the question that keeps coming to my mind is whether the numbers have increased in the latter half of the 20th century due to cultural influences of modernism and postmodernism emphasising the liberation of the individual from sexual constraint and the idea 'if it feels good, do it'. One of the early reports on abuse in the American Church pointed out that abuse seemed to peak in the 1970s, just after the 'swinging sixties'. Was this just a glitch or did it reflect a change of attitudes where many saw it as a green light to indulge any desire they had? There's no doubt that the elevation of the priesthood could go to the heads of good priests never mind those whose intentions were evil. Similarly, doctors, teachers, police and other professionals were given a trust that they could exploit. In a way this seems to be a reflection of many people in the general population who want to delegate their thinking to others because they wish to have faith in someone apparently superior. While priests, doctors, teachers and police have fallen from their previous high status there are plenty of people who now throw their trust and faith into celebrities, spiritual gurus and scientists; they in turn will exploit the populace too.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 6, 2021 22:20:36 GMT
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