Posted on 01/04/2011 1:06:16 PM PST by ADSUM
Letter from Archbishop Jerome Listecki, Milwaukee
You guys are just looking for a fight. Read my tagline to get a notion of my attitude for the bishops. Geezh.
3. A major cause of the perpetuation of abuse was that the church looked to secular “experts,” such as civil lawyers and psychologists, instead of canonical lawyers, confessors, and even exorcists. Civil lawyers’ purposes were to avoid lost investment, and psychologists’ purposes was rehab; the church’s purpose should have been to remove offenders from their ministry (cf. Nicene Council), THEN incarcerate the guilty, THEN spiritually assist the victims and ALL THE WHILE looking to spiritual combat to save the souls of the scandalized and yes, the perpetrators.
Secondly, your contention that Bp. Listecki is blaming the priests, not the bishop is uproarious. When Bp. Listicki writes, "We are here because of one reason: priests sexually abused minors," he does so in a diocese where by far the most famous abuse case involved the archbishop embezzling funds to pay off a gay lover. He's not "blaming priests, not bishops." He's counting the former bishop (Weakland) in with the priests he's blaming.
If I were king of Wisconsin and could get the Church to strip Weakland of his clerical state, he would be facing a date with a millstone. If I were Pope, I would strip him of his clerical state. If I were God . . . but I am none of these, and trust that God in His providence will work things out for God’s greater glory.
It's these.....
They are not walking a godly path, but they are still the representatives of God—very flawed representatives, but representatives none the less.
That said, the horrible way in which the Church is run is actually a proof of divine grace. One Pope, I believe Pius VI, responded to Napoleon when Napoleon said that he would destroy the Church “You silly little man, if we and our priests haven’t managed to destroy the Church in 18 centuries, what makes you think that you can do it.”
I trust the authorities of the Church, when teaching authoritatively, to say things that ought to be listened to—and I trust providence to order things through them in such a way that God’s glory will eventually be manifest. I also suspect that words attributed to St. John Chrysostom (rightly or not I do not know) may be proven right: The walls of hell are lined with mitres. This is not to say that bishops are not ordained by Christ, but that much is expected from those to whom much is given,and so the path of salvation for a bishop is very hard and full of all sorts of temptations.
Trust God, and trust Him to act through those who He bestows authority upon—He writes straight with crooked lines.
They kind of overwhelm your one opinion that isn't even that definitive with the way it ends.
We’re not talking perfect here in regard to priests. We’re talking not so hideously, evil.
Almost every Catholic, with the exception of two I’ve seen on FR, manages to downplay the evil perpetrated by the priests against these children and their families.
This is not a matter of *ooops, I slipped, I’m human*. This is a matter of premeditated, planned out, intentional, disgusting evil done against their victims, who are being continually victimized by the Church in with its failure to do anything about it until forced to by the publicity and the disgusting accusations that the victims are in it for the money.
We are talking a habitual evil lifestyle, which is none the better simply because of the age of the victims. The excuses and hair splitting over definitions of what particular brand of sexual sin was engaged in by the priests, as it makes that any less heinous, is revolting.
With its failure to properly address and act on this situation, the Catholic church deserves all the bad publicity and fallout it gets. It brought it on to itself with it’s failure in so many areas regarding this.
It’s your church. You all own it.
(Sexual Immorality Defiles the Church)
1It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife. 2And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
3For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. 4When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, 5you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? 7Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. 12For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? 13God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."
Call me when the Catholic Church legalizes the rape of children, proposes it as a sign of progress and liberation and calls it "a right" or "a choice" in the way America has embraced abortion.
No "church" rapes children.
Happily, the United Nations' main adversary in the war over declaring abortion a universal human right, has been the Vatican (plus a few Muslim countries).
Sadly, America has for the most part, been in the vanguard of those countries who are spreading the gospel of infanticide and funding it through your tax dollars.
WELL PUT.
~”See you back on the Luther thread some time”~
For your reading pleasure...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2650932/posts?page=501#501
~”Pacelli was a tangent”~
No, Pacelli’s accommodation of evil followed Rome’s long-standing pattern, as illustrated in the comment above.
~”I have a four year old that needs cuddles.”~
Would that be a child?
And as far as your brave insistence that the bishop should be killed for his crimes, would you advocate that for all pederast priests?
If so, there won’t be anyone left to perform the alchemy of the mass.
Bonus round.
True authority is founded in credibility. Absent credibility there is no true authority. Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, and more all had credibility and it was upon that credibility that their authority was founded.
To say that a child raping Archbishop can have authority “when teaching authoritatively, to say things that ought to be listened to” is foolishness. Were Bishop Weakland to utter the gilded dulcet words of the angels themselves those words word be lost to me because of who was saying them.
My father used to have a favorite saying: “Who you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
If the appointed church leader is beneath contempt, I really don’t care what he has to say. What I’m wondering is why he’s still in his job? Why isn’t he in jail? Why are his colleagues protecting him by their inaction in standing against him? Why are, in some cases, church leaders protecting child rapists in order to protect their own reputations?
See, even the most perfect message gets lost in all of that.
In the sum, the messenger cannot distract from the message.
And a church that thinks this way is no church of my God.
Likewise, your blanket assertion that Catholics are not interested in obeying God's word is a pitiful slur.
It disqualifies you as a serious poster. You've just earned yourself a spot on my Kook Filter.
If you want to moan about splitting hairs, your beef is with TSgt, not me. Post 42 was about how I WASN’T regarding ephibophilia more lightly than pedophilia.
The real problem seems to me that he has difficulty accepting that there is a connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. Nevertheless, the report he himself cites indicates unquestionably that "the scandal", in addition to being one of child abuse, was one of homosexuality.
It was not a case of randomly selected men abusing randomly selected children.
It was overwhelmingly a case of militant homosexual men abusing boys.
I'm sick of folks trying to cover for the faggots by obscuring the homosexual angle. It's almost like the faggot-protectors don't want the problem to be solved.
Then why juxtapose the two?
Pedophiles are pedophiles.
Put the shovel away.
Stuff and nonsense.
True authority is founded in God, whether any human recognizes it or not.
Moses, Elijah, Jesus, Peter, and more all had credibility and it was upon that credibility that their authority was founded.
Nonsense again. They had true authority because God gave it to them, and for no other reason. It had nothing to do with something so amorphous and ephemeral as "credibility".
So ... the rest of your post is meaningless.
Besides ignoring the question, you say 'wait until it becomes legal'.
Now comes the inevitable protestant tactic of inverting the meaning of someone's post ... very self revelatory. Thanks for doing that, PNSN.
Faggots are faggots.
Quit covering for them.
>> Then why juxtapose the two? <<
YOU’RE THE ONE WHO BROUGHT IT UP!
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