Posted on 03/14/2011 1:56:03 PM PDT by topher
<
Catholic priest who finances abortions remains unpunished by bishop
by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman
Fri Mar 11 8:47 PM EST
BARCELONA, March 11, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - For three years, the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona has refused to act against a priest in his diocese who boasts openly of having financed abortions.
Now, the priest is a subject of a new book in Catalonian, “Fr. Manel: Closer to earth than to heaven”, which describes the ever-growing popularity of his charitable work with Spanish celebrities. In addition to repeating his claim of having paid for abortions, Fr. Manel Pousa says he has performed “blessings” of homosexual unions, and endorses the creation of female “priests”, according to reports in the Spanish media.
He also states that he regards clerical celibacy as optional, and says he has a girlfriend—but claims that their relationship is celibate.
Although Pousa has never retracted any of his statements, his prelate, Cardinal Lluís Martínez Sistach, has only given Manel a verbal “warning”, leaving him in his place to continue his leadership of his parish and his other activities.
The controversy about Pousa began in 2008, when the Spanish website Religion en Libertad (Religion in Liberty) first published in Spanish a quote from an interview given by the priest, in which he said: “What interests me is the person. It is true that there are ethical principles, but there are reasons, that, for example, lead certain women to have an abortion. I have paid for abortions. And the Spanish Episcopal Conference doesn’t realize that the Gospel doesn’t condemn, but rather offers liberating measures.”
In the new book on Pousa, the priest admits to paying for at least one abortion, and appears to defy the Church authorities, claiming that “I am as much the Church as the pope or the bishop.”
“It may be that what I say sounds bad to the extreme right,” continues Pousa, “but those people are not going to distance me from the Church, an institution where I have been received by extraordinary people. We may have frictions, like all families do, and the Church is my family.”
The Catholic Church condemns homosexual unions and teaches that abortion, which takes the life of an unborn child, is the equivalent of murder. Those who assist in an abortion are automatically excommunicated under Church law.
“The excommunication applies to all of those who commit this crime knowing the penalty, including those accomplices without whose cooperation the crime would not have been produced,” wrote Pope John Paul II in his encyclical letter “The Gospel of Life,” in 1995.
Pousa is a celebrity in ultra-liberal Catalonia, where he has won the Solidarity Prize from the Catalonian Institute of Human Rights.
Cardinal Martínez Sistach has reportedly scheduled another meeting with the priest, although the outcome has not been reported.
The Pousa scandal follows on the heels of revelations in September of last year that Catholic hospitals under the jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of Barcelona were performing abortions and distributing the deadly abortion drug, RU-486.
Contact information:
His Eminence Giovanni Battista Cardinal Re
Prefect, Congregation for Bishops
Piazza Pio XII 10
00193 Rome, Italy
Europe
phone: 011-3906-6988-4217
fax: 011-3906-6988-5303
His Eminence Cláudio Cardinal Hummes, O.F.M.
Prefect
The Congregation for the Clergy
Piazza Pio XII 3
00l93 Rome, Italy
Europe
phone: 011.3906.69.88.4l.5l
Fax: 011.3906.69.88.48.45
www.clerus.org
Cardinal William J. Levada.
Prefect for The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and Pontifical Commission “Ecclesia Dei”
Piazza del S. Uffizio ll
00l93 Rome Italy
Europe
phone: 011.3906.69.88.33.57
phone: 011.3906.69.88.34.13
fax: 011.3906.69.88.34.09
email: cdf@cfaith.va
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI
benedictxvi@vatican.va
Copyright © 2010 LifeSiteNews.com, Inc. All rights reserved.
Father Pousa blesses homosexual unions...
Ping. I thought someone would have posted this story before now...
These priests need to sit in front of Cardinal Burke’s tribunal. They wouldn’t last long, would they?
Remember the homosexual “kiss in”, when B16 was in Barcelona a few months back? Not even in crazy England did something like that occur during a papal visit. The anti-Catholic feeling in Catalonia is deep and widespread and the Ordinary, Card. Sistach is completely intimidated by the current political/cultural climate.
And then this Judas priest! Lord. It's just heart-crushingly malicious and crazy.
Pretty much every organization has its very own Charlie Sheen. That is a matter of statistics. The question is, how do they deal with it?
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But I believe their superiors (Bishops/Cardinals) are neglecting their duty. I believe it was a great move probably by the Vatican to take Father Jose Gomez, make him an Auxillary Bishop under Archbishop Bishop of Denver, and then move him first to San Antonio, and now to Los Angeles.
It is my belief the Vatican had in mind grooming Archbishop Gomez for the job in Los Angeles. I imagine he has to deal with an ugly mess.
You forgot your usual:
“Warning, this post has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with bigotry. All Catholic and Orthodox Catholic posters, as well as all Christians of good will, are advised to avoid such threads as they are here to generate hate, not the love of Christ.”
< /sarc>
>>It is my belief the Vatican had in mind grooming Archbishop Gomez for the job in Los Angeles.<<
Sure hope you’re right... spent yesterday afternoon with RCIA and Archbishop Gomez at the cathedral— Rite of Election. Very nice service and homily.
Archbishop Chaput would be a great bishop to learn from.
In the western United States, Archbishop Chaput has an important seminary in Denver.
Archbishop Gomez (when named to that post in San Antonio) also had an important seminary in San Antonio.
It is my personal belief that the church felt it important to have good seminaries in the Western United States, and it appears that Chaput and Gomez have worked on that.
I imagine an important aspect of Gomez's work in Los Angeles will be cleaning up the seminary or seminaries there.
I think the Vatican had a hand in this being done, and probably Cardinal Stafford (who was head of Denver before Chaput). Cardinal Stafford was working in the Vatican at the time.
So I have a good feeling about Archbishop Jose Gomez.
It is my belief some things are done by the Holy Spirit.
The grooming of Archbishop Jose Gomez is one of them. But he has a can of worms on his hands left over by the previous head of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
When Archbishop Chaput's friend Sean O'Malley took over Boston, there were many conservative Catholics that criticized him.
But by accident, I found out that Chaput felt that O'Malley had quite a bit on his plate when Sean took over Boston.
I was going to try to find out something about a martyr that died in Maine that the first and second bishops of Boston made pilgrimages to, and I was going to contact Sean O'Malley about it.
Let's just say that Archbishop Chaput was not happy with me for suggesting it...
Maybe Pope Benedict XVI can help him out by retiring him and getting someone who stand up to them even if it means his death...
Saint Peter had a couple times that he acted with cowardice, but he eventually died a martyr. There is too much precious blood of martyrs as well as Jesus Christ for people to betray the Church by living with Half-truths and not promoting the true Catholic identity.
Maybe they will need people willing to physically defend the Church in that area.
Are y’all thinking of scheduling another INQUISITION?
Eventually it becomes pretty clear the institution must want it that way.
Or else it would be different.
The RCC has been wringing its hands publicly while privately turning a blind eye to pederast priests for decades if not centuries.
Rome isn't some small-town cub scout troop with with an errant scout master. It's a global network of money and power and yet this homosexual/pederasty problem is just too gosh darn difficult for all these grown men to figure out how to fix.
It's nothing less than a criminal enterprise. And the fact that they're not all rotting in jail tells us once again it is, indeed, a fallen world.
There was the problem at that time that the Spanish Government helped to decide who was appointed Bishops of the Church in Spain.
If you read about Saint Vincent de Paul and stories of him and the Queen of France, you will understand how the royalty wanted certain people to be Bishops.
There was one famous story where the Queen of France demanded Saint Vincent de Paul (because of his fame) approve of a very unworthy candidate for Bishop.
He was told to write the name on a piece of paper and give it to her.
He gave her a blank piece of paper and said that if she really wanted this man made bishop, the Queen would have to write the name.
The Queen was mad, and told Saint Vincent he had to tell the mother of the man of the rejection.
The mother was so angry she threw an iron (as in used in ironing clothes) at Saint Vincent. Saint Vincent went away from the meeting with a bloody forehead.
And where is the Pope?
YUP.
I wasn’t there.
Pretending the Vatican had no dreadful part in things seems more than a little nonsensical, inaccurate, deceptive, to me.
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