The Pope's crime: failing to respond to two letters from Weakland 20 years after the events.
I think this is related to two things:
The Chruch viewing Homosexauls as o.k. in the Priesthood as long as they are not overtly practicing homosexuals, and
The requirement for a celebate lifestyle in the Regular Clergy.
Both actions invite homosexuals. And although not all homosexuals are sexual predators, it is an abberration in which that kind of behavior can florish, especially given the authority that goes with the clerical robe.
In a related way, Pius XII didn’t say anything about the Holocaust.
Then Abp. Ratzinger was probably confused by the situation of the flaming gay liberal Weakland reporting on someone else. The priest in question was dying at the time and passed away within a year. Weakland may have been trying to divert suspicion from himself.
Look, if the NY Times wants to criticize the Pope for not removing these priests from contact with children and alerting the proper authorities that is fine and I am in general agreement. If, however, the criticism (as it is in this case) is that the Pope did not take the opportunity to defrock a terminally ill priest 20 years after the fact and 4 months before he died because the Pope accepted his repentance, what is a secular newspaper’s standing for that criticism?
Whether he is defrocked or not has no effect on his ability to perpetrate any future injury or crime, and the Pope’s reasoning in granting mercy and accepting repentance from a sinner is WAY above my paygrade and something that has absolutely no relevance to the secular criminal justice system.
How can it not be clear that the NY Times has declared war on the Catholic Church when they give a front page headline to this as the latest in a series of articles on abuses by priests?
Oh...oh...I thought this was about the non-Catholic priest who runs Notre Dame...never mind...
Excuse me- but are not Nazis who participated in crimes against humanity over 50 years ago still being hunted and prosecuted if found? Are they any less guilty of horror and evil because they are doddering old men? Are they excused now?
BECAUSE this is about people who claim to represent GOD we should be more determined to expunge them from the clergy. Covering up such evil, sick abuse of authority and religion cannot be tolerated.
HOW DARE THEY- Pope or anyone else- expect to be excused for tolerating( and aiding!)evil? Why should they not be as reviled as lay people who allow boyfriends and relatives to sexually abuse their children?
Let the heads roll- from the parishes to the Vatican! Better a smaller, clean Church than a large, diseased one.
I am one Roman Catholic who is sick of this, and unafraid of prosecuting ANY and EVERYone involved-past and present.
I want to KNOW if my parish priest- or any clergy that wants me to respect and honor them as consecrated servants of God- is/has violated anyone or is homosexual, since that makes them illegitimate priests with no right to perform as one. And I will- and do- ask directly.
If they are offended, I conclude that they are- at least- tolerant and defensive of such ,
We can no longer safely assume otherwise; the clergy should be as outraged as we are. What’s the popular argument re.
‘good’ Muslims? The good should clean house- if they won’t I won’t assume they are good.
Why creeps like Father Pfleger and his ilk that advocate for a political philosophy that has resulted in the cold-blooded murder of over 100 million people can still be a Catholic priest in good standing is mind-blowing.
“The Vatican did not discipline a Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing up to 200 deaf boys”
He, like any other disgusting pervert that abuses children ought to be taken out and f**king GUT SHOT!
And Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was supposed to believe Waekland?
Evidently, these non-Catholics have not heard of Waekland or the wreckovation he engineered while a Bishop.
“The Pope’s crime: failing to respond to two letters from Weakland 20 years after the events.”
No, it sounds like the Pope’s failure was failing to take these charges seriously.
Here is a scenario for you: a Baptist deacon is told the pastor sexually abused several young children during a Bible Camp. The deacon spends months deciding if he should discuss the matter with anyone else, and if it is serious enough to require investigation.
In the end, he talks to the pastor, who, in Rev Lombardi’s phrasing, agrees to restrict his public ministry and accepts full responsibility for the gravity of his acts. The Baptist pastor moves on to another congregation and spends the rest of his life interacting with young children.
Would you defend the Baptists for their non-handling of that scenario? I wouldn’t!
Also, from the BBC article: “The Rev Peter Hullermann had been accused of abusing boys in the 1970s when the now Pope approved his 1980 transfer to Munich to receive psychological treatment for paedophilia. Hullermann was convicted in 1986 of abusing a youth, but stayed within the Church, serving as a village priest until 2008.”
If he needed treatment for paedophilia, he needed severe church discipline as well - NOT secret counseling, and NOT remaining a priest for 22 years after a criminal conviction!
Sorry, but the Pope & the Catholic Church have dropped the ball on this. They don’t seem to think these cases are serious...just a “Priests will be Priests” attitude.
It is appalling.
Here is a link to an article about Murphy from the site Bishop Accountability. I can not help but notice the accusations came about because of recovered memories by the chief accusers/victims. Though the article does mention one person saying he did report the abuse when it happened.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/03_04/2006_03_27_Zahn_StaringAbuse.htm
marshmallow,
I am not anti-Catholic. I have friends and family that are Catholic and I truly appreciate and honor the church’s unyielding fight to protect the unborn.
Not all priests, bishops, cardinals or pope’s are molesters.
That said, I have entirely too much integrity to see this as an agenda driven attack on the church. The facts are repulsive whether they come from the most liberal or conservative news outlets.
The abuse is systemic and unfortunately for the church, the current sitting Pope appears to be part of the problem.
No one can deny the general pattern: When informed of a priestly abuse case, the priest in question is moved to another parish within the diocese, without regard to whether they might have continuing access to children. The priests involved do not appear to have been otherwise disciplined by the Church in any way. This pattern appears to continue, even when the same priest is accused of abuse in more than one parish. I don’t recall any cases where the priests were transferred to another diocese, where they continued their pattern of abuse, but I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong.
We’ve seen this often enough that, regardless of the specifics of any one case, we recognize the pattern.
It appears that the Vatican made the decision years ago to keep abuse from priests quiet and handle it “in house,” to not air their dirty laundry. I’m sure this decision was made with the best of intentions and the welfare of the Church in mind – “this is an internal problem, we’ll handle it internally, and not give the public a reason to distrust the Church.” They wanted to avoid death by papercut. I’m sure their concern was much less with “protect the pedophile” than with “protect the Church’s reputation.”
The problem is that the decision the Vatican made, however many years (decades? centuries?) ago, was wrong. They avoided being “bitten to death by ducks,” as the saying goes, but now they’re facing a massive and growing scandal that appears to include the current Pope.