California bishops' letter challenges change in sex abuse law

Yahoo News ^ | December 8, 2002 | Paul Wilborn

[wideawake]

That is exactly right.

Most bishops are politicians who have negotiated their way through the hierarchy by being nice, smoothing things over and avoiding controversy.

History shows that the best bishops (and Popes) have been forced to become bishops against their will.

We have too many bishops in our hierarchy who have been angling for the episcopate since before they were ordained.

[Lael]

If California were not in the Ninth Circuit I would guarantee you that the proposed statute (as described in this article) would be deemed unconstitutional

Wrong!

The State Legislature retains the authority to set, suspend, or vary a Statute of Limitations.

Several states have never had them [Statutes of Limitation] for sexual molestation.

[RobbyS]

Presunably, then, many women who have been victimized will now be able to find lawyers who will go after the men who attacked them years ago ?

[Chemnitz]

That is an interesting point. Would you elaborate on past examples? I would like to know.

[wideawake]

Oh, where to begin?

In the period immediately following the introduction of the new Missal, traditional Catholics wanted to continue using the old one and "progressives" wanted to scrap even the new liturgy and make up their own prayers, rites, etc.

The hierarchy reacted by sternly forbidding any return to the old Missal but winking at any and all transgressions by "progressives" including "clown masses" (sic), readings taken from Kahlil Gibran instead of the Scriptures, etc.

Traditional Catholics became increasingly enraged by this, and the hierarchy started toning down the most radical stuff and booting people like Matthew Fox who openly practiced witchcraft from his pulpit.

As the traditional Catholics found their voice and began to call for a return to Catholic practice, the Vatican saw fit to permit priests to offer the old Mass again with their bishops' permission. The "progressives" were outraged and lobbied against giving permission. So the bishops permitted the old Mass only in some dioceses, often only on Saturday night, or every other week, or only allowed people over 30 to attend (in order to split up families and prevent young people from becoming attached to the old Mass).

Lately more and more traditional Masses are being offered in certain dioceses, and other dioceses (like Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles) are either banning them again outright or restricting them to one or two churches once a week (remember that those who attend the old Mass are often daily communicants).

Another issue is abortion. The Church can never waver on it - but the hierarchy can pass over it in silence.

All through the 1980s the Catholic faithful came out in droves to fight abortion and infanticide, enraging the "progressives" to no end. A few bishops came out and actively involved themselves in the pro-life movement (like the late John Cardinal O'Connor) but 95% of them stayed out of the public square in defernce to the "progressives" who were already mad at them for not defying the Vatican on abortion.

Here is another situation where, afraid of offending "progressives", the bishops have failed in their duty.

On the issue of women's ordination the "progressives" manged to get the bishops to write and publish all kinds of documents pushing "equal pay for equal work" and other feminist claptrap. They even got the hierarchy to enroll women in certain seminaries where they received priestly training in case the Holy See came around to their point of view. But, because traditional Catholics would have gone to war, they never officially called for women's ordination.

The list goes on and on.

They always excused themselves to "progressives" pleading that people like me were too "mean-spirited" to be placated. They always excused themselves to people like me by saying that the "progressives" have powerful friends and it's best not to burn bridges when we have a chance of bringing them back into the fold.

But neither traditional catholics or "progressives" can be played off against each other effectively here. The "progressive" may think the solution is to ordain women and allow openly homosexual men to be priests (the Episcopalian solution) and the traditionalist may realize the only option is to thoroughly vet all ordinands to seek out dishonesty and inversion.

But we both agree that keeping these filth around is not part of any solution.

[Chemnitz]

I appreciate your comments. When I was in doctoral work at Notre Dame, we met at the seminary where seminarians took the class with us. The teacher was a Holy Cross father and seminary teacher, as well as being on the graduate faculty. When we discussed papal infallibility, one diocesan priest looked about in wonder and asked why the rest of the class was Roman Catholic (of those who were). The whole class of Roman Catholics opposed infallibility: the professor, the graduate students, the seminarians. The priest was alone. It told me a lot about where the Roman Catholic Church was heading. This was in the 1970's.

[wideawake]

This was in the 1970's.

Yup. In 1968 Pope Paul VI (who was supposed to be a liberal, "progressive" Pope) issued Humanae Vitae, reaffirming the Church's opposition to artificial contraception.

The "progressives" went ballistic.

I assume that a college full of kids who desperately wanted all their female classmates to be on the pill would have opposed, in the 70s, this latest exercise of magisterial authority.

[Chemnitz]

The Vatican has been derided for opposing birth control, which was the sacrament of the 1960's, to be followed by abortion as the sacrament of the 1970's, but all forms of birth control have been found to be harmful to women, including barrier methods (implicated in pre-eclampsia, etc).