Bill O'ReillyL: Vatican has gone quiet when we need it most

NY Daily News ^ | July 14th, 2003 | Bill O'Reilly

[presidio9]

It is almost impossible to know what really goes on behind the scenes at a place as secretive as the Vatican. Running the worldwide Catholic Church, with its more than 1 billion members, is obviously an enormous undertaking, and the important decisions are made by a few powerful clerics, headed, of course, by Pope John Paul. But the pontiff is 83 years old and not in good health. For Americans concerned about the declining image of the church in this country, the question of the Pope's competency is crucial. With that in mind, I recently traveled to Vatican City and sat in the third row at John Paul's weekly audience. I watched him closely for 90 minutes and can tell you that although he can no longer walk, he was mentally alert. His eyes were clear, and his voice retained some power. But it was apparent that the Pope's endurance is limited.

Few get to question the Pope, and I have just one query for him: Why have you not acted more aggressively in combating the priest-sexual abuse scandal in America, a country that provides about half your financing? Although the Pope is beyond my reach, I was able to put that question to a number of Vatican insiders and have come up with what I believe is a cogent answer.

Pope John Paul was furious when told that the scandals in the Boston Archdiocese had reached a flash point. According to someone in the room with him when he received the news that Bernard Cardinal Law was to be deposed, he slammed his hand on his desk and yelled at his assistants: "You told me this situation would be taken care of the right way!" The Pope was visibly angry and shortly afterward retreated into prayer.

And that is what the Pope mostly does these days: pray. He delegates almost all other duties to a variety of underlings, none of whom has the power or insight to deal with a scandal as withering as this priest-sex abuse thing.

According to four sources who often deal with the Vatican, the bureaucracy at St. Peter's is so thick and entrenched that quick action on anything is impossible. With the person in charge, John Paul, spending most of his time on spiritual reflection, there is simply no one in the Vatican hierarchy in place to help the tottering American church.

This is tragic, because for two centuries the Catholic Church in the U.S. has been a powerful moral voice. It champions the poor, promotes respect for life and generally acts as counterweight to the secular philosophy that challenges judgments about personal behavior.

In America today, there is an increasing tolerance for all kinds of actions that the country once deemed immoral. For example, some people now consider heroin dealing to be a nonviolent crime. Partial-birth abortion is embraced by a variety of groups. Drug legalizers have hired lobbyists in Washington, as have homosexuals who want gay marriage sanctioned.

Nearly anything goes in a secular society, and a quick trip to Europe will prove that. In Amsterdam, you can see neighborhoods devoted to legalized prostitution and drug buying. You can watch drug addicts shoot up in the train station. Great for the kids, right?

The Catholic Church at one time could authoritatively speak out against that kind of degeneracy. The church believes that your body is to be respected, along with the bodies and souls of your neighbors. Anything that diminishes the human (or fetal) condition is questioned and sometimes condemned.

But that moral authority is now diminished. Thanks to a few corrupt Catholic clergy and a paralyzed leadership in Rome, a reasonable, collective voice that promotes humanistic conduct has been put on the defensive and, in certain quarters, is even dismissed as irrelevant.

I believe Pope John Paul is a good man - a person of dignity and compassion. But he has lost control of a situation that is causing societal damage far beyond the confines of the Catholic Church. We should all dearly hope that the Pope's prayers are answered. For the American Catholic Church right now, the only solution on the horizon is divine intervention.

[mallardx]

Awesome, thanks.

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

O'Reilly got his start in TV news in the 70s as a reporter in Scranton, Pennsylvania. His stint on "Inside Edition", '89-'95, came along many years later. Having said that, he is nothing but a CINO blowhard.

[fooman]

This is EXACTLY my problem with billy o. He does not understand all of the pathology that the abomination of homosexuality brings.

The broken families and the nihilism of euroland. He can have it. Maybe HE should move to sweden and how much of a no factor he will be.

[rhema]

SMEDLEYBUTLER (post #42) seems to have hit the target with the CINO appellation. O'Reilly's "Catholicism" smacks of a "I don't want to take heat from the fashionable elite by actually standing up for Biblical Catholicism" pusillanimity.

[fooman]

You must be reading Treason. Thats a favorite Ann word.

[rhema]

You must be reading Treason. Thats a favorite Ann word.

I haven't yet, but it's on my read-soon list.

[nmh]

"The Pope was visibly angry and shortly afterward retreated into prayer. "

"And that is what the Pope mostly does these days: pray."

Maybe God has turned away from him as well. I doubt that God approves of what went on with the priests and little ones, bribing victims with tithes to keep quiet, moving the pervert to molest other unsuspecting little ones all for image. Well, now there is no image to protect. Worse yet, consitently on the wrong sides of issues doesn't help matters and why I wonder if God has turned His back on the pope.

[Future Useless Eater]

Why [has he] not acted more aggressively in combating the priest-sexual abuse scandal in America...

The question is much bigger than that! Our American media keeps framing it that way...(it being 'just' about pedophilia)
But the real question is WHY is the Catholic church SILENT on HOMOSEXUALITY???

They'll say that using condoms is a sin as it prevents the creation by God of a human life.

But they won't say that fudge-packing is a sin... even though it ALSO prevents God from creating a human life.

It won't say the gay lifestyle is a sin... even though it it can't procreate... It can only RECRUIT!

We now know why... The gays have taken over the church and it is now a moral sewer.

I won't support them financially any more! And I look forward to eventually finding a replacement to their failed morals.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[dsutah]

Wacky? Wow, I didn't know that Peter and Linus, and Clement and Gregory, and many others, were wacky!

[dsutah]

Exactly! It was so strange that the ultra-liberals and so-called anti-war people suddenly took JP11 to their hearts when they could make it seem he was on their side! Otherwise, they're trashing him, and trying to put him out of the UN!

He says something that he intends to be balanced and these people take liberties with it, and either twist what he said, or leave out what is inconvenient for their agendas.

[presidio9]

Maybe God has turned away from him as well. I doubt that God approves of what went on with the priests and little ones, bribing victims with tithes to keep quiet, moving the pervert to molest other unsuspecting little ones all for image. Well, now there is no image to protect. Worse yet, consitently on the wrong sides of issues doesn't help matters and why I wonder if God has turned His back on the pope.

You are clearly not a Catholic (and not a Christian that I would recognize) if you think God would "turn away" from anyone. Including the Pope. Why are you so interested in what he does? Why do you think it is any of your business?

[presidio9]

But the real question is WHY is the Catholic church SILENT on HOMOSEXUALITY???

You clearly have not been paying attention and have no idea what you are talking about. Most of the recent attacks on the Church have their roots in the Gay community. Biggoted attackers are the unwitting rubes of militant queers. Yourself included.

[Cronos]

I agree. The Pope's message was peace. The church cannot come out on the side of war, not matter how just, it is the taking of life. Don't forget that the Pope forgave the man who tried to assassinate him. I read some of the idiotic comments like the Pope has never been on the side of righteousnes and I consider it written by imbeciles with no knowledge about history, just spouting senseless propaganda.

[presidio9]

Pope John Paul II Speaks About Homosexuality

Vatican January 25, 1999 (LSN), Last Thursday, John Paul II addressed officials and lawyers from the Tribunal of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the opening of the judical year. He took the opportunity to speak about the incongruity of homosexuality. After noting that the only appropriate form of conjugal union comes within marriage, the pope said, "one sees the incongruity of pretending to give conjugal dimensions to the union between persons of the same sex."

"Such union is to be opposed," he continued, "above all because of the objective impossibility of being fruitful in the transmission of life, according to the plan inscribed by God in the very structure of the human being." John Paul also noted that among persons of the same sex "there is an absence of those interpersonal complementary dimesnions which the Creator willed, both on the physical and biological level, as well as in the eminently psychological plan, between man and woman."

To those who would appeal to human freedom to justify homosexuality the pope said, "To think of liberty as a moral permissiveness or the ability to infringe the law, is to twist its true nature." "Liberty, in fact, consists in the ability of the human being to acknowledge he is responsible in other words, that as an individual he can choose to do the will of God as expressed in the law, bringing himself ever closer to be the image of his creator.

---

http://world.std.com/~courage/pope_john_paul_ii_speaks_about_h.htm

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/pope000709.html

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2002/sep/02090908.html


And a little bit about what the buttsex crowd is saying:


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,342660,00.html

[Cronos]

The point about the Iraqi Christians was also correct. Remember that for all Saddy's bad points (and there were many) he was not a fundie, he conly cared for himself. He never persecuated and Iraq never persecuted christianslikeSaudi Our so called ally does.

In fact, now Christiansin Iraqfind themselves under tremendous pressure from the fundies that have risen there.

[Cronos]

You're mixing up the RC with the Anglican...

[wideawake]

You're a mealy-mouthed liar.

The Church has openly and repeatedly condemned sodomy as a grave, deadly sin.

Read the Catechism.

[Cronos]

Forgive the stupid...and those so brainwashed that they don't see the RC church as the only bastion againstIslam

[Cronos]

you seem to be stuck in the 16th century, or rather, in a 16th century of your own making. Consistently on the wrong side of issues, eh? So, then I guess you are a proabortion,proGay, commie