The Church's Acts of Betrayal

Creators Syndicate | orginally published 3.17.02 | Mark Shields

[meandog]

by Mark Shields

RELEASE: WEEKEND, MARCH 16-17, 2002

THE CHURCH'S ACTS OF BETRAYAL

Let me tell you about Tom Duffy, my pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church. Today, 50 years after his ordination, he continues to inspire his flock to feed the hungry, to clothe and shelter those in need. He visits the sick, buries the dead, comforts the lonely, welcomes the stranger, counsels the perplexed and still finds time to read almost everything. Father Duffy is both a good man and a good priest.

But because of the arrogance -- yes, the criminal indifference -- of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church he has served so well, Tom Duffy and too many good priests are now objects of suspicion. That is because the Church hierarchy, most conspicuously in the archdiocese of Boston, unforgivably betrayed young boys and young men -- whose protection, instruction and education were the Church's mission -- by allowing predator clerics to physically, emotionally and spiritually violate them. Predictably, the collateral damage from the Church hierarchy's indefensible policies has resulted in diminished public trust and respect for good priests, dozens of whom I personally know.

Too much of the leadership of the American Church was more concerned about damage control than it was with the horrible damage inflicted upon minors under its protection. A leading scholar of American Catholicism, history professor Scott Appleby of the University of Notre Dame, refuses to understate the grave consequences from the practice of reassigning rather than removing predator priests: "This threatens to erode the most important social capital any institution can have -- trustworthiness, integrity, the confidence to entrust one's children to its care and protection."

The Catholic Church, the nation's largest nonpublic provider of schools and health-care, was once cloaked in mystery. It is now shrouded in defensive secrecy. The Church has looked like an ecclesiastical Enron, with stonewalling its automatic response and preservation of the powerful -- even at the sacrifice and the suffering of the powerless and the unprivileged -- as the overriding imperative.

Through all the cultural wars of the last 40 years, one constant, one moral beacon, has been the Catholic Church's commitment to the poor and to children. That promise was broken when, for 30 years, a Boston priest was shuffled from parish to parish to prey upon his target profile, the sons of single mothers, nearly all of whom were poor children.

Respected Catholic theologian Lawrence Cunningham believes the Church is paying the price for the Vatican's almost exclusive emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy, which has led to the "promotion of mediocrities to positions of leadership." The complicity of the Catholic clerical culture cannot be denied. If war is too important to leave to generals, then the health of the Church must be too important to leave to cardinals and archbishops.

According to Cunningham: "People are legitimately angry. They have been betrayed by this sustained assault on personal decency." But historically, he adds, "no radical changes in the Catholic Church come from the top down. Change, when it does occur, comes from the bottom up." It was, he reminds us, Saint Francis of Assisi who took the priesthood from the cloistered monastery to the town and people.

By way of information, the term pedophile priest is inaccurate. Pedophilia is the sexual disorder where an adult is attracted to prepubescent children. The majority of predator priests have ephebophilia --which is characterized by the adult's disordered attraction in this case not to prepubescent children, but to same-sex teen-agers who are in or through puberty. One other consideration: Thank goodness for the trial lawyers who dared to bring these cases to light and to challenge the corrupt status quo.

The American Catholic church needs a uniform national policy on the screening of seminarians. Emotional immaturity cannot be ignored simply because the applicant is doctrinally orthodox. The Church needs a policy of full transparency and accountability. The Church leadership must publicly apologize and beg for forgiveness for the pain and suffering its cruel indifference has inflicted upon innocent children whose lives and families. have been profoundly damaged. The Church must recognize that its priests have committed criminal acts for which they are criminally liable and cooperate fully with civil authority.

And make no mistake about it: To recover and to rehabilitate itself, the Catholic Church needs idealism, imagination, energy and dedication -- which simply means the long-delayed ordination to the priesthood of women. Sorry, Cardinal Law.

CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[meandog]

Let me tell you about Tom Duffy, my pastor at Blessed Sacrament Church. Today, 50 years after his ordination, he continues to inspire his flock to feed the hungry, to clothe and shelter those in need. He visits the sick, buries the dead, comforts the lonely, welcomes the stranger, counsels the perplexed and still finds time to read almost everything. Father Duffy is both a good man and a good priest.

Another example of a good priest being painted by a broad brush held by a BAD Church!

[Orual]

To recover and to rehabilitate itself, the Catholic Church needs idealism, imagination, energy and dedication -- which simply means the long-delayed ordination to the priesthood of women.

Never liked Shields, but he had a good column going until he came to this ridiculous conclusion.

[Arm_Bears]

Normally, I can't even bear to look at Mark Shields; but he is dead-on here. In my view, one of the reasons church attendance, regardless of faith, has been declining over the years is that the "leaders" have declared detente with sin.

[meandog]

Well, future of the Church unless it reforms:

[Michael_S]

I have no great love for child molesters, and what I say here is only to point out the hypocrisy of our media.

If these priests, who should be castrated, were not priests, but members of the Man Boys Love Association, we would be talking about the sexual rights of the perpetrators, not the victims. ESPECIALLY IN BOSTON.

[Mercat]

I was okay with the editorial right up until his solution which is a total non-sequiter. Ordaining women would only further erode the priesthood. The only way for the priesthood to regain it's authority and it may take a generation, is to exclude all except emotionally stable heterosexual men. It was "tolerance" and "acceptance" and frankly, panic at a falling off of vocations which led to the large number of homosexual and sexually active priests. Believe it or not, at the age of 24, I was a housemother in a fraternity (my husband lived there too and was 30). This chapter became more and more "open and progressive" and within three years, died out. I'm not sure what my point is but I know that letting the Catholic women run things more than they do already is not the answer.

[meandog]

The only way for the priesthood to regain it's authority and it may take a generation, is to exclude all except emotionally stable heterosexual men.

What about ending the ban on celibacy (incidentally, do you realize that the Roman Catholic Church already has a few married priests?)

[LenS]

Respected Catholic theologian Lawrence Cunningham believes the Church is paying the price for the Vatican's almost exclusive emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy, which has led to the "promotion of mediocrities to positions of leadership."

This is where the editorial goes wrong. The reality is that the vast majority of seminaries are being run by priests who are NOT doctrinal orthodox. They have chased away the doctrinal orthodox candidates. Worse, active homosexuals (non-celibate) have come to dominate the seminaries and over time have probably infested the bishophrics through sheer numbers. True doctrinal orthodox priests would have cleaned up this mess by removing the offending priests as unworthy of the priesthood.

[eno_]

Ahhh, like any leftist, Shields goes only so far. To his credit, Shields advances the discussion by identifying and make specific the target profile: Kids without a father. The elephant in the room - and where Shields won't go - is that half the clergy is gay and a lot of them are chickenhawking among those vulnerable kids. The question he does not ask is: Do homosexuals have any role around children that can truly be considered safe?

[Jim Noble]

>>which simply means the long-delayed ordination to the priesthood of women<<

Maybe women should be ordained Roman Catholic priests.

Maybe they shouldn't.

But the notion that they should be ordained, because if they were they would be incapable of evil, is a fallacy.

The "madonna-ization" of women which makes such news out of a POS like Andrea Yates is a threat to our society. Women are not Mary or Eve-they're both, just like men are gods and devils in one flesh.

[quebecois]

This whole disgraceful scandal may have been the staw that broke the camel's back for me. The Jesuits (and many of the other orders) are infested with marxists. The priesthood seems to be teeming with homosexual pedophiles. I can't honestly say that I'd allow my son to be an altar boy....what kind of church is that??

The mainline protestant churches are awash in brain-dead political correctness (I went to an Episcopal service a while back and felt like I was back at my Ivy League freshmen "orientation seminars"). So I can't go there.

I'm thinking of looking into the Eastern Orthodox Churches...they seem to have their #%$@ together.

[drjimmy]

The only way for the priesthood to regain it's authority and it may take a generation, is to exclude all except emotionally stable heterosexual men.
A generation is about how long it would take for there to be no priests whatsoever.

[Cicero]

Respected Catholic theologian Lawrence Cunningham believes the Church is paying the price for the Vatican's almost exclusive emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy, which has led to the "promotion of mediocrities to positions of leadership."

This is total nonsense. The problem is not orthodoxy, but dissent. Does anyone really believe that it's conservative Catholics who have pushed for the ordination of homosexuals, or who have argued that sex isn't really sinful if you mean well by it?

To the contrary, the problem is not Vatican control, but lack of Vatican control. The problem is weak-kneed bishops who don't have the gumption to discipline bad clergy. The problem is liberal bishops who encourage or permit laxness in sexual matters.

I don't know what "respected theologian" means, but I do know that the official body of Catholic theologians in this country has for a long time been taken over and run by dissenting liberals who have pushed, among other things, for an agenda of "sexual liberation." The CTA, which has been run by people like Fathers Curran and McBrien, is a major part of the problems that have plagued the Church in America since Vatican II.

This article is, whether knowingly or not, part of a vicious propaganda attack on the Catholic Church, and in particular on the orthodox Catholicism that (along with the Evangelicals) is one of the few remaining pillars against a total collapse of our country into moral relativism.

[ArrogantBustard]

which simply means the long-delayed ordination to the priesthood of women.

Nope, no agenda. Not here.

[Cicero]

Believe me, the Orthodox Churches also have major problems. Stick with your Church and try to be faithful to it. It's not the Church that is at fault, it's the bad Catholics who have seized many of the levers of power. I have heard that things are very bad in Quebec. But that will not last forever.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

Shields' last remark is a POS. Turn the Church over to people like Helen Prejean and Frances Kissling? Shields must be on crack.

[Renatus]

-- which simply means the long-delayed ordination to the priesthood of women. Sorry, Cardinal Law.

Mark Shields is an alcoholic that apparently never recovered. Poor lost soul. He's dummer than sh!t.

[ArrogantBustard]

Turn the Church over to people like Helen Prejean and Frances Kissling?

Numerous good, solid Scriptural, Traditional, and Theological arguements have been advanced (and infallibly defined) as to why the Church cannot ordain women to the diaconate or presbyterate. This practical arguement, however, is the one I personally find most compelling at the 'gut' level. I know a couple of Sisters who have frequently a) expressed a desire that women be ordained and b) stated that they would seek ordination for themselves. I think one of them is a lesbian, and I wouldn't trust her anywhere near my teenage daughter.

AB

[quebecois]

"Its not the church that is at fault, its the bad catholics who have seized many of the levers of power"

I must confess (no pun intended) that I am weary of this being the analysis of every institution in our society. The schools are indoctrination centers of PC (when the aren't shooting galleries for disturbed hooligans).

The churches, as we have noted here, seem to be controlled by lefties who are corrupting relgion in the name of fashionable social politics.

Everything...government agencies, TV, movies, the music industry....everything seems to be controlled by amoral thugs and/or lefty progagandists.

Can anyone name a single institution that is dominated by upstanding Americans and which functions for the advancement of our culture and values?