The Catholic Church's Catastrophe ("The press and the pope deserve credit for confronting scandal")

Wall Street Journal ^ | APRIL 2, 2010 | PEGGY NOONAN

[Mrs. Don-o]

There is an interesting and very modern thing that often happens when individuals join and rise within mighty and venerable institutions. They come to think of the institution as invulnerable—to think that there is nothing they can do to really damage it, that the big, strong, proud establishment they're part of can take any amount of abuse, that it doesn't require from its members an attitude of protectiveness because it's so strong, and has lasted so long.

And so people become blithely damaging...

[Mrs. Don-o]

I know a lot of FReepers roll their eyes when it comes to Peggy Noonan, but I thought her message was worth sharing, and well said, especially for the audience she's writing for (Wall Street).

It deserves to be read in conjunction with Elizabeth Scalia, "The Anchoress"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2485854/posts
Scalia's message
"Today, On Good Friday, Here's Why I Remain Catholic"

[Mrs. Don-o]

Whiskers, if you care to, you could ping this out, too.

[hstacey]

Oh really Peggy??? Seems like the Pope was doing things to bring the pedophiles into the light...And isn’t it interesting the news comes out during Lent and the media gets it wrong as usual...

[Flintlock]

This is typical Noonan.
Wait untill the problem is identified, recognized and being dealt with............
THEN—she charges right in to bayonet the wounded.

[Caipirabob]

The biggest catastrophe here is that with all the perverts running around unchecked, the scandal makes the church look like the democrat party.

It's also one of the reasons I know that most Catholics in my life are more partial to non-denominational churches. Just one of the reasons.

[oldbill]

Does anyone really care what Peggy Noonan says?

This ageing relic who has proven the Peter Principle wrong by elevating herself far above her level of competence writes stream of consciousness drivel. Like Frum and Brooks and some others, she provides leftist publications with a falsely “conservative” token to let them claim balance.

Noonan’s current goal in life is to remain viable by sucking up to the liberal MSM line, else she would fade into a well deserved oblivion.

[Northern Yankee]

I think Peggy makes some very valid points, but I don't think that the media is as fair as she would pretend it to be.

There have been scandals among many of the clergy, Catholic and protestant, yet we certainly seem to get a very biased look at the attacks upon the Catholic Church. (I know you know this.)

We must never forget that the church was established by God. It is men who refuse to follow the teachings of God who create the scandal, not the church itself. It is rock solid.

Have a blessed Easter.

[yorkie01]

Noonan, it’s time for you to join frum. Stay out of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church will right itself and you are endangering the Bishops, Priests, Deacons, laity with your secularist, satanic attacks on the Church. Go to Mass this evening, Peggy, and wait for the risen Lord. Take dowd with you. Don’t take communion unless you’re At One with God. Thank your parrish Clergy for their tireless work saving God’s people and pray for the fallen away. Imagine, if you may, how many secularist, non church going Catholics and fallen-away Catholics have used the Church during this difficult time whether to line their pockets or malign the Church. The Devil’s at work and you, dowd and others may be furthering his cause. Don’t take the chance.

[vladimir998]

Good summing up of things! Well done.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Maybe the biggest catastrophe is this: the fact that those in the Catholic Church who have fought and are fighting with determination, intelligence, and moral uprightness against the forces of corruption, are themselves being attacked.

According to this article by George Weigel (Link) -- which maybe I should run as a thread in itself --- Sex abuse by priests is "a phenomenon that spiked between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s but seems to have virtually disappeared (six credible cases of clerical sexual abuse in 2009 were reported in the U.S. bishops’ annual audit, in a Church of some 65,000,000 members). ...The Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today."

But this is not in the news; or I could say, it's the news nobody knows: the thorough self-examination, investigation, and internal cleansing which has transformed and is transforming the Church in the USA, in the past 20 and especially the past 12 years, since the introduction of the VIRTUS risk assessment and intervention program (Link) in Catholic parishes and schools.

It's a story that needs to be told. And Pope Benedict has been the captain leading the way.

But instead, we have the corrupt, like the New York Times and the pro-sodomy "moral ethicist" Daniel Maguire (Link) targeting the upright (Benedict) for destruction.

[RobbyS]

You might not have noticed that the lawyers are now going after the Boy Scouts. The strategy seems to be to make those organizations that resist the gay agenda to be responsible for the abuse. Institutions such as the public schools where abuse is more commonly found are left alone, because they have bought into the agenda.

[Diago]

The press, and in particular the New York Times, could care less that homeosexuals are mollesting teenage boys. Where are all the other front page articles when such molestations take place at other institutions (start with public schools)? In fact, most liberal journalists favor lowering the age of consent so that homosexuals can molest 16 year olds legally.

The liberal media is only using this scandal to destroy the Catholic Church during Holy Week.

The NYT’s has in the past criticized the Catholic Church for trying to weed out Homosexaul priests. Pope Benedict wants homosexuals out of the priesthood.

Wake up! Who is really trying to end this perversion?

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/913302/posts?page=48
New York Times national correspondent Richard Berke: “...literally three-quarters of the people deciding what’s on the front page are not-so-closeted homosexuals.”

[Mrs. Don-o]

Exactly. Thank you. See mine, here, especially #21.

[Salvation]

If only the press had told the truth! Especially the NYSlimes and their co-conspirators!

[Tax-chick]

The press, and in particular the New York Times, could care less that homeosexuals are molesting teenage boys.

Bears repeating. These are people who think that being a sodomite is something that should be celebrated with tax-funded "Pride" parades that include public sex acts. These are people who think that age-of-consent laws are an unjust restriction on "sexual freedom." They LIKE intergenerational same-sex intimacy. They promote it and celebrate it as a right.

[Salvation]

**It's also one of the reasons I know that most Catholics in my life are more partial to non-denominational churches. Just one of the reasons.**

How strange that you should say this -- check out these thoughts and links.

Sexual abuse by anyone at all is horrible, but please grab the truth about all this!

The most probable pedophiles in order are:

Fathers
Teachers
Coaches
Protestant ministers

Priests are way down on the list.

So if a father is a teacher of mid-high history, coaches the girl’s basketball team and is a youth minister at his church on weekends/Sundays — watch out! He would be much more prone to pedophilia that any priest.

Sexual Abuse of Children by Protestant Ministers

Report: Protestant Church Insurers Handle 260 Sex Abuse Cases a Year

Abuse by Protestant Ministers of Every Denomination

Child Sexual Molestation by Various Protestant Clergy

Baptist Predators website

"Yeshiva" of Brooklyn also Guilty of Child Abuse

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Teacher's Advocacy of Pedophilia Raises Legal Questions

Teachers and Pedophilia - In YOUR Backyard

Washington Post -- D.C. school officials reported 220 abuse allegations against teachers

Sex Abuse by Teachers Said Worse Than Catholic Church

WHEN BOYS ARE MOLESTED BY TEACHERS AND OTHERS IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY

 

[Salvation]

The Catholic Church's Catastrophe ("The press and the pope deserve credit for confronting scandal")
Archbishop [Vlazny] Calls Boycott: ‘Cancel subscriptions to Oregonian…’
Today, On Good Friday, Here's Why I Remain Catholic
HOLY WEEK'S SORE LOSER (secular media loses)

To Confuse the Wood with the Trees ...[Pravda defends Pope Benedict]
The Pope and The Abuse Scandal: a Guide For Perplexed Catholics
Pope Has Immunity In Abuse Trials: Vatican
The Dictatorship of Relativism Strikes Back—and Goes Nuclear
New York Daily News Urges ‘Fairness for the Pope’

Brooklyn Bishop: Catholic Church Won't be NYT's 'Personal Punching Bag'
holding the New York Times accountable
Cardinal Levada to NY Times: Reconsider 'Attack Mode' Against Pope Benedict
Clearing Benedict's Good Name: The New York Times Must Retract Its False Reporting
Game Over: Benedict – 1. MSM – 0.

Milwaukee WI Archbishop defends Pope Benedict
[Milwaukee] Archbishop Listecki Apologizes For Priest's Sex Abuse
Defending the Pope against Hot Air
Catholic Caucus: Accusations that Pope Complicit in Abuse Cover-Up Fall Flat
Setting the record straight in the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Father Lawrence Murphy

Former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland Admits He's Gay
Long Applause for New York Prelate Who Defends Pope
NYT UNFAIRLY CITES POPE'S ROLE [Catholic Caucus]
Scoundrel Time(s)
The Pope and the Murphy case: what the New York Times story didn't tell you

[grey_whiskers]

Per request from Mrs.Don-o, *PING*.

...and Happy Easter.

g_w

[unique]

I’m a non-Catholic but feel sorry for members of the church that are having to go through this mess for years with no end in sight. It seems to me that pedophiles have probably been in the church for hundreds of years with circumstances surfacing in recent years that has brought this situation to light. Having priests practice celibacy seems like the primary problem in my view and clearly attracts pedophiles for some reason (once again strictly my belief) - therefore, the pedophile scenario will continue to surface unless married priests are allowed.

Would it be well beyond the ‘rules’ and ‘beliefs’ of the Catholic Church to allow married priests?

I hate to see the church, even as a non-member, subjected to all this grief and expense - it tends to discount all the good work that is done.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Thank you for your charitable view -- your understanding of those of us who are suffering.

The notion that there is a causal relationship between celibacy and sex abuse is initially plausible to people who are trying to puzzle out what's going on, but it turns out to be unfounded. The problem is not that priests become pedophiles, but that pedophiles (and, more to the point, homosexuals) become priests.

(I say "more to the point," because way more than half of it was male/male sexual relations, with adolescent male youths. This is morally depraved and also criminal, but for "clinical" accuracy, it's not pedophilia. It's homosexuality.)

The Sexual Revolution hit in a big way in the mid-60's to mid-80's, which is when the abuses peaked. But in the Church it had a 2-part impact. The sexually normal men who rejected the Church's teachings, tended to leave the priesthood: to just desert, walk out, get girlfriends, get married. They left. But the homosexually-inclined, while rejecting the Church's teachings, reacted differently. They stayed.

Homosexuals are not supposed to be ordained at all; but for 20+ years they became a kind of Lavender Mafia, recruiting more of the same sort, corrupting seminaries, covering up for each other, and actually driving out normal, holy, traditional seminarians.

But for the past 20, and especially the last 10 years, the Church has been conducting internal investigation and trying to clear out the corruption. Pope Benedict has been exerting enormous efforts in favor of doctrinal clarity and personal holiness--- which the dissenters and their allies call being "homophobic".

It's revealing how many of the people who are shouting for Benedict's resignation are in fact pro-gay.

I'm praying for Pope Benedict. I would appreciate your prayers.