Posted on 11/15/2023 12:59:16 PM PST by patriot torch
The institution of the Catholic Church finds itself in a period of extraordinary crisis.
An August 2018 grand jury report on clerical sex abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses gave a detailed, often graphic account of decades of criminal offenses against minors by Catholic priests. Other states have since launched their own investigations. Evidence that church superiors—bishops, archbishops, and even popes—failed to address abuses effectively has only amplified the outrage.
(snip)
All of these tragedies are tinged with a sense of déjà vu. Similar patterns of abuse have been front-page news in the United States since an explosive 2002 investigation by the Boston Globe (subject of the 2015 Academy Award-winning film Spotlight), but the problem was known decades earlier.
In the United States, the first reports appeared in the mid-1980s. In Ireland and Austria, there were notorious cases in the mid-1990s. The case of disgraced priest Brendan Smyth even contributed to the fall of the Irish government in 1994.
(snip)
Occasionally, commentators have referred to an institutional culture going back to the 19th century—the time when Pope Pius IX repositioned the Church against modernity in the aftermath of the liberal revolutions of 1848 in Europe.
(snip)
Whatever the merits of these arguments, an examination of a more distant past may provide another, under-appreciated perspective on the phenomenon we are witnessing now and offer clues to its tenacity. In a general sense, the sexuality of priests has been a thorny issue for much of the history of Christianity.
Yet today’s crisis of the Catholic Church, which commentators have called the gravest since the Reformation, may have its most significant precedent precisely in that era. In fact, the 16th-century Church was rocked by a sexual abuse scandal of its own. Its responses then may still be helpful for understanding the crisis of today.
(Excerpt) Read more at origins.osu.edu ...
Writing in the early 16th century, the Dutch scholar Erasmus already lamented that the faithful “often fall into the hands of priests who, under the pretense of confession, commit acts which are not fit to be mentioned.”
A history within the roman catholic church and child sexual abuse goes back centuries..
COMMISSION TO INQUIRE INTO CHILD ABUSE, MAY 2009
- The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse issued a five-volume report which found that priests abused children between the 1930s and the 1970s in Catholic-run institutions. It described orphanages and industrial schools in 20th century Ireland as places of fear, neglect and endemic sexual abuse.
If the Dims really believed these accusations of the RCC then they would applaud the RCC for being “ahead of its time” in the Dims’ pedo push.
That’s pretty disturbing to think that the hierarchy of the rcc thought it was acceptable to use the very funds collected each week for tithing to be used to silence its victims. All while playing musical parishes to shuffle child molesters from one diocese to another.
If I was a member of the rcc I’d speak loudly of this practice. But apparently many saw fit to collect the payoff and remain silent while the abuse was widespread.
It must be part of the “indulgences”
Yes, administrative action was/is usually required when a practice deeply negatively affects others, whether shoddy bridge construction or continued immorality due to carnality, and the neglect by admin in this case, and actions of them, is a scandal they devil delighted in promoting. However, we are all guilty of the misuse of our brain, eyes, hands and feet, and thus are in need of mercy, thus it is impenitence that calls down severe judgment.
Writing in the early 16th century, the Dutch scholar Erasmus already lamented that the faithful “often fall into the hands of priests who, under the pretense of confession, commit acts which are not fit to be mentioned.” A history within the roman catholic church and child sexual abuse goes back centuries..
https://peacebyjesus.net/deformation_of_new_testament_church.html#the
Thank God Luther listened to his heart and obeyed the Scriptures which set forth the Reformation.
Revelation 18:4
King James Version
4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
It’s hard to imagine how some can be so indoctrinated with falsehood, believing these pedophile priests have the power to forgive sin. It’s tragic!
Unfortunately, sexual impropriety in the Catholic religion goes back centuries.
Cath Cauc: Gomorrah in the 21st Century. The Appeal of a Cardinal and Church Historian
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3703106/posts
Saint Peter Damian, “Gomorrah”, and Today’s Moral Crisis
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3356881/posts
St. Peter Damian’s Book of Gomorrah: Homosexual Situation Graver than Damian’s Time
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/929551/posts
And yet in modern times it has not been unique among Catholics. But as for the past and relevant to the needed Reformation:
• Cardinal Bellarmine:
"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- , in ”A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)
• The Avignon Papacy (1309-76) relocated the throne to France and was followed by the Western Schism (1378-1417), with three rival popes excommunicating each other and their sees. Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries,
•Cardinal Ratzinger observed,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.“
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196). http://www.whitehorseinn.org/blog/2012/06/13/whos-in-charge-here-the-illusions-of-church-infallibility/)
• The Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia (a report commissioned by Pope Paul III on the abuses in the Catholic Church in 1536) testified,
The first abuse in this respect is the ordination of clerics and especially of priests, in which no care is taken, no diligence employed, so that indiscriminately the most unskilled, men of the vilest stock and of evil morals, adolescents, are admitted to Holy Orders and to the priesthood, to the [indelible] mark, we stress, which above all denotes Christ. From this has come numerous scandals and a contempt for the ecclesiastical order, and reverence for the divine worship has not only been diminished but has almost by now been destroyed... Another abuse of the greatest consequence is the bestowing of ecclesiastical benefices, especially parishes and above all bishoprics, in the matter of which the practice has become entrenched that provision is made for the person on whom the benefices are bestowed, but not for the flock and Church of Christ. (pg. 188; Consilium de emendanda ecclesia (1537), Part I • Joseph Lortz, German Roman Catholic theologian: “The real significance of the Western Schism rests in the fact that for decades there was an almost universal uncertainty about where the true pope and the true Church were to be found. For several decades, both popes had excommunicated each other and his followers; thus all Christendom found itself under sentence of excommunication by at least one of the contenders. Both popes referred to their rival claimant as the Antichrist, and to the Masses celebrated by them as idolatry. It seemed impossible to do anything about this scandalous situation, despite sharp protests from all sides, and despite the radical impossibility of having two valid popes at the same time. Time and time again, the petty selfishness of the contenders blocked any solution...” “The significance of the break-up of medieval unity in the thirteenth century, but even more during the Avignon period, is evident in the most distinctive historical consequence of the Avignon Papacy: the Great Western Schism. The real meaning of this event may not be immediately apparent. It can be somewhat superficially described as a period when there were two popes, each with his own Curia, one residing in Rome, the other in Avignon.” “When Luther asserted that the pope of Rome was not the true successor of Saint Peter and that the Church could do without the Papacy, in his mind and in their essence these were new doctrines, but the distinctive element in them was not new and thus they struck a sympathetic resonance in the minds of many. Long before the Reformation itself, the unity of the Christian Church in the West had been severely undermined.” ("The Reformation: A Problem for Today” (Maryland: The Newman Press, 1964), “The Causes of the Reformation," pp. 35-37; . http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/roman-catholic-scholar-look-at-causes.html) • Catholic Encyclopedia>Council of Constance: “The Western Schism was thus at an end, after nearly forty years of disastrous life; one pope (Gregory XII) had voluntarily abdicated; another (John XXIII) had been suspended and then deposed, but had submitted in canonical form; the third claimant (Benedict XIII) was cut off from the body of the Church, "a pope without a Church, a shepherd without a flock" (Hergenröther-Kirsch). It had come about that, whichever of the three claimants of the papacy was the legitimate successor of Peter, there reigned throughout the Church a universal uncertainty and an intolerable confusion, so that saints and scholars and upright souls were to be found in all three obediences. On the principle that a doubtful pope is no pope, the Apostolic See appeared really vacant, and under the circumstances could not possibly be otherwise filled than by the action of a general council.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04288a.htm) • Erasmus, in his new edition of the “Enchiridion: “What man of real piety does not perceive with sighs that this is far the most corrupt of all ages? When did iniquity abound with more licentiousness? When was charity so cold?” (“The Evolution of the English Bible: A Historical Sketch of the Successive,� by Henry William Hamilton-Hoare, p. 132 • Catholic historian Paul Johnson additionally described the existing social situation among the clergy during this period leading up to the Refomation: “Probably as many as half the men in orders had ‘wives’ and families. Behind all the New Learning and the theological debates, clerical celibacy was, in its own way, the biggest single issue at the Reformation. It was a great social problem and, other factors being equal, it tended to tip the balance in favour of reform. As a rule, the only hope for a child of a priest was to go into the Church himself, thus unwillingly or with no great enthusiasm, taking vows which he might subsequently regret: the evil tended to perpetuate itself.” (History of Christianity, pgs 269-270) • Maurice W. Sheehan: In this lecture I want to talk about the causes of the Reformation. This is a rather standard approach to the Reformation because it is admitted by all that the Reformation did not just happen or come like a bolt from the blue...Part of the tragedy of the Reformation is that the Church before 1517 was unable to reform itself or to set in motion events or changes that would have led to a reform in the Church that would have satisfied its members and really affected change.... It is possible to go back deep into the Middle Ages when enumerating or toting up the causes of the Reformation. I would like to start simply with the fourteenth century.... The first thing to note is that in the fourteenth century there was a period of approximately seventy years, from 1309 to 1377, when the pope was not living or residing in Rome...In the midst of the pope living outside of the Italian peninsula, outside of Rome, there occurred one of those events in European history that mark an age forever, and that was the infamous Black Death...Not too long after the Black Death there occurred something that was far worse than the popes living in Avignon... they proceeded to elect a counter-pope in 1378 to the pope who was then living in Rome. This counter-pope was French. He went back to Avignon. The man already resident now in Rome stayed in Rome, and Christendom now had the spectacle of not one pope living where he shouldn't have been, but of two popes each claiming to be the rightful pope, one living in Avignon, the other in Rome. To...Boniface IX, goes the unenviable distinction of probably having begun the papal sale of offices... 1447 is usually taken as the year that began or marked the appearance of what we call the Renaissance Papacy, or the Renaissance Popes. The Italian Renaissance was in full swing at this time, and when we speak of the Renaissance Popes what we mean more than anything else is that these popes were more men of culture or rulers than popes...Sixtus IV was completely a worldling. He is best known perhaps for the chapel that he built which was later decorated by Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel. His successor Innocent VIII had an illegitimate family. Alexander VI, who was Spanish, was perhaps the worst of them all. He had many illegitimate children, but he was a good political candidate. But his reign as pope did more to weaken the moral prestige of the papacy than almost anything imaginable... And if we go to the clergy, to what we can call the lower clergy or the ordinary priests, we can say that one vice that many of them had was immorality. Many of them had women that they kept in their rectories by whom they had children, so they had families to support. — Maurice W. Sheehan, O.F.M. Cap., Lecture 2: Prelude-Causes, Attempts at Reform to 1537; International Catholic University, http://home.comcast.net/~icuweb/c01802.htm • Dickens: In the summer of 1536, Pope Paul III appointed Cardinals Contarini and Cafara and a commission to study church Reform. The report of this commission, the Consilium de emendanda ecclesiae, was completed in March 1537. The final paragraphs deal with the corruptions of Renaissance Rome itself: “the swarm of sordid and ignorant priests in the city, the harlots who are followed around by clerics and by the noble members of the cardinals’ households …” “The immediate effects of the Consilium fell far below the hopes of its authors and its very frankness hampered its public use. … the more noticeably pious prelates [note: this the “noticeably pious” clergy] had no longer to tolerate the open cynicism of the Medicean period, and when moral lapses by clerics came to light, pains were now taken to hush them up as matters of grievous scandal.” (G. Dickens, “The Counter Reformation,” pp. 100,102) • In the same frank spirit is the following statement of de Mézeray, the historiographer of France: [Abrege’ Chronol. VIII. 691, seqq. a Paris, 1681] “As the heads of the Church paid no regard to the maintenance of discipline, the vices and excesses of the ecclesiastics grew up to the highest pitch, and were so public and universally exposed as to excite against them the hatred and contempt of the people. We cannot repeat without a blush the usury, the avarice, the gluttony, the universal dissoluteness of the priests of this period, the licence and debauchery of the monks, the pride and extravagance of the prelates, and the shameful indolence, ignorance and superstition pervading the whole body... These were not, I confess, new scandals: I should rather say that the barbarism and ignorance of preceding centuries, in some sort, concealed such vices; but,, on the subsequent revival of the light of learning, the spots which I have pointed out became more manifest, and as the unlearned who were corrupt could not endure the light through the pain which it caused to their eyes, so neither did the learned spare them, turning them to ridicule and delighting to expose their turpitude and to decry their superstitions.” Bossuet* in the opening statements of his “Histoire des Variations,” admits the frightful corruptions of the Church for centuries before the Reformation; and he has been followed in our own times by Frederic von Schlegel [Philosophy of History, 400, 401, 410, Engl. Transl. 1847.] and Möhler. [Symbolik, II. 31, 32, Engl. Transl.] While all of them are most anxious to prove that the Lutheran movement was revolutionary and subversive of the ancient faith, they are constrained to admit the universality of the abuses, which, in the language of Schlegel, “lay deep, and were ulcerated in their very roots.” — Charles Hardwick A History of the Articles of Religion; A History of the Articles of Religion: By Charles Hardwick, " p. 10
Despite the claim by ardent followers of the rcc that it operates through one divine spirit, it appears that they are led by multiple spirits and not of the Divine nature.
I can’t even begin to imagine what would cause so many to be misled into believing the rcc is the one true church. But then again, since they reject the Word *John 1:1; 1:14,* seems they’ve opened their souls to many evil spirits.
This is not a new problem.
Another recent thread indicated this.
yet the response by so many attempt to portray the abuse as just a recent modern scandal.
I just find it strange that certain posters frame sexual abuse within the church as having no connection with the rcc. And instead, by the nature of her posts, attempts to portray the issue of church sexual abuse scandals as being limited to Protestant churches.
Perhaps now she will broaden her “diverse” accusations to include the rcc in her hit pieces.
No, it’s not and by the tone of the book, it had been going on for a while.
I’m thinking that over 1,000 years should have been enough time to learn how to deal with it appropriately, especially in light of how Scripture tells us to deal with sin in the church.
That fact that it hasn’t is what the big problem is and what the big scandal is. Abusers will find a way to abuse anywhere in any organization. Everyone knows this. The issue at hand is how it was dealt with, or essentially, mismanaged. That’s where the scandal comes in and where the Catholic church has left itself wide open to legitimate criticism.
And ANY organization which mishandles sexual abuse in its ranks is open to the same criticism and condemnation. There simply is no excuse for not addressing it appropriately.
Believing in something called Treasury of Merit baffles me.
‘The Catholic Church Has Paid Nearly $4 Billion Over Sexual Abuse Claims, Group says’
hmmm....I wonder where all those funds come from? Of course I ask in jest.
cont...
BishopAccountability, whose mission is “documenting the abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church,” according to their website, says that there are also payouts involving over 8,600 cases of assault survivors abused by a member of the clergy dating back to the 1950s.
The largest known payout amounted to over $600 million dollars in 2007, CNN reported on Saturday, issued on behalf of 221 priests and other church employees accused of abusing and victimizing over 500 people
BishopAccountability maintains a list of every known settlement paid by the Catholic Church to those who have alleged sexual abuse at the hands of clergy and Church affiliates. “We document settlements involving 5,679 persons who allege sexual abuse by Catholic clergy,” their website states. “These survivors are only one-third of the 15,235 allegations that the bishops say they have received through 2009, and they are only 5% of the 100,000 U.S. victims.”
A grand jury released a document on August 14 that stated more than 300 priests sexually abused children in the state of Pennsylvania. Those accusations are among many global sexual abuse scandals that have come to light within the Catholic Church and its systemic failures to protect children. The Pennsylvania report detailed more than 300 priests that have been accused, credibly, of abusing over 1,000 children over the course of 70 years.
https://www.newsweek.com/over-3-billion-paid-lawsuits-catholic-church-over-sex-abuse-claims-1090753
“Because it requires someone to be born again from above and receiving the dwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit provides the necessary discernment to see the falsehoods.”
100% in agreement.
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