Church sexual abuse may have been factor in Pope Benedict's resignation

National "Catholic" Reporter. Should be known as National Anti-Catholic Reporter. I read it as a form of penance for my sins every day and to keep an eye on the enemy within. If you go to their website, there is a graphic on the upper right corner of their homepage to the effect of "News about Pope Benedict XVI's resignation" or some such. It is in dark red with contrasting letters. Click on that graphic. you will then find yourself on a page of B-XVI news.

In the upper right hand corner of that page is an article by Joshua McElwee with a title to the effect: Benedict XVI to move to a monastery upon resignation." The headline, like much of NCR, is somewhat misleading. B-XVI is moving into a cloistered (public will have no access to him there) convent in the Vatican. He will stay at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo until renovations at the convent are complete in anticipation of his residence there.

Sorry not to be able to provide links since I am a computer technological illiterate and it is hard to teach this old dog new tricks.

I would be flabbergasted if B-XVI were not accorded a full papal burial. Of course, even the Vatican officials will have to wait until he has assumed room temperature. I would imagine that his funeral mass would be said by the then reigning Pope rather than by the Dean of the College of Cardinals as occurs when a pope dies in office and, by Vatican Law no conclave would have been held to choose a successor (such conclaves are to begin between 15 and 30 days after a vacancy arises).

In the case of the conclave to choose B-XVI's successor, the conclave MUST convene between March 15 and March 30 since his resignation is effective by its own terms on February 28 at 8:00 PM. Also, since Easter falls this year on March 31, they will want to convene the conclave early (probably 3/15) to make it unlikely that there will be no new pope by Easter. The entire week preceding Easter is full of important liturgies for just about every day and Vatican authorities will no want the entire voting age membership of the College of Cardinals locked up in the Sistine Chapel and unavailable for those liturgies. Also, just a guess but starting the conclave at a very early date might suggest several candidates are viable potential popes (papabile) who might be chosen by the conclave. A late start may suggest that there is a consensus candidate who is very likely to be chosen quickly.

It is reported that Benedict XVI presided over his last public liturgy as pope today, the Mass for Ash Wednesday, and that it was moved from another smaller Vatican church to the quite spacious St. Peter's Basilica to accommodate an expected giant turnout. The Dean of the College of Cardinals (IIRC) is Angelo Cardinal Sodano and he is not very well known to the public. He is 86 years old and ineligible to vote in conclave (i.e. less than 80 years old).

Thank you. I was aware of the rules about calling and conducting the conclave, I just wasn't sure about the burial. Everything you stated does make logical sense. This is the first Papal resignation in almost 600 years and the first (IIRC) that didn't involve an anti-pope or other usurpson of power.

I also agree with you about NCR. My wife accidentally bought me a subscription after I reverted to the Catholic Church. I asked her if she was trying to drive me back out.

Mr. Clohessy and his organization SNAP are entitled to file lawsuits like anyone else. OTOH, he who lives by the lawsuit dies by the lawsuit.

Perhaps, when invoking the jurisdiction of American courts which are governed not by ill-informed mob rule but by constitutional provisions requiring (not merely suggesting) due process of law, Mr. Clohessy and SNAP should understand that he and his group must submit to the rules of discovery, be deposed upon demand by opposing counsel, answer interrogatories and produce documents on demand instead of erecting his own wall of silence claiming a non-existent "privilege" to protect the "confidentiality" of those he claims to be acting for. "Take my word for it because I and they are 'victims'" won't cut it.

The Catholic League for Civil Rights has published a response by Bill Donahue, its leader, in which he points out that SNAP and Clohessy are chock full of ulterior motives, that Clohessy began his career, such as it is, with none other than the uberleftist "community organizing" group ACORN, that he has a brother Kevin Clohessy who has been a child-abusing priest and that, like so many SNAP claimants, Clohessy has experienced "recovered memory" (a quite discredited phenomenon in courts of law) in about 1988 when he suddenly "remembered" that he had been sexually abused by some priest (or some imagined priest or whomever) 25 years earlier.

No one died and left Clohessy to sit in judgment on popes or anyone else. Clohessy should stifle himself, among other things.

I am happy to be of service.

The older I get the more difficult it seems to be to find good Catholic periodicals. There are Catholic World Report and Crisis Magazine, both of which are heavy on current events from a genuinely Catholic point of view. Also Inside the Vatican.

I had long subscribed to the Wanderer, published in Minneapolis or St. Paul, but it was getting more and more eccentric on matters of secular politics (leaning toward Ron Paul's isolationist views in foreign policy which views are not my cup of tea). The Wanderer IS often a good source on most things Catholic.

There is the interdenominational First Things, founded by Fr. Richard Neuhaus (who, prior to his conversion to Catholicism, had been a Lutheran Pastor). The Catholic articles are first rate as are many of the others.

God bless you and yours.

Jumping in.

Numbers of priests have been incarcerated in the US for molesting children. One, Fr. John Geoghan, was murdered in Walpole State Prison in Massachusetts, apparently by a prisoner whom he had molested when the prisoner was a child.

Another particular notorioso was a Fr. Porter (IIRC he was of the Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts) who not only molested children but gruesomely murdered one by crucifixion. He escaped justice for a while by escaping Massachusetts but was tracked down working as an IBM executive in Minnesota, convicted and jailed.

There are certainly more. Those two will suffice. I know you are not Catholic but I know you to be a person of good will and I ask you to be scrupulous in your judgments as to the Church itself.

Contrary to the ongoing lame stream media anti-Catholic extravaganza and feeding frenzy, the molesters are not at all representative of our priests and they have been and will continue to be a substantial cross for Catholics to bear.

I have a little list of cowardly or complicit bishops whom I would gladly hand over to the Inquisition, especially if its former range of punishments were restored. Fortunately, most, like Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, are now dead. Roger Cardinal Mahoney and Bernard Cardinal Law are still alive. There are no popes on the list.

God bless you and yours.

Your welcome. A simple matter of justice and you deserve to be supported for your virtues and extensive work here on behalf of Jesus Christ and His Church.

#126 should read “You are welcome.”,,,, I am beginning to spell like a teenager and I have never yet texted.

Superb post! Then I checked you home page which is also outstanding.

May God bless you and yours.

Popes have been imprisoned and murdered and don’t abandon their flock.

Pope Benedict isn't abandoning anyone. He gave plenty of notice for the College of Cardinals to have time to meet and choose a successor.

The resignation of a Pope isn't unprecedented; it has happened before, just not for a long time. No reason why they can't, but as Pope Benedict has done, they should be responsible to make sure a successor is chosen.

I stopped at “widespread”.Of course one abused child is one too many but it's strange that you *never* hear about Rabbis,Unitarian/Universalist “ministers” and clergy from other “progressive” faiths/denominations doing that stuff.It's only Catholic priests and the occasional (white) Southern Baptist minister.

I will NOT go into detail, but what you claim is simply not always the case. In my geographical location, the holy man when told ignored ‘evidence’ and it took an outsider to get help for innocent victims. This took place in the past couple of years.

There is this instant response by the overwhelming majority to any and all accusations of criminal behavior against our young as everybody is doing it. Well granted abusing our young does increasingly appear to be ‘mainstream’ but only one bunch makes the claim they are the first and oldest ‘church’ that represents Mary, ah, I mean God.

Who do Catholics think fund these criminal buyouts?