Posted on 08/22/2018 5:05:06 PM PDT by markomalley
The president of the Catholic University of America, the university in Washington founded by U.S. bishops, says it’s going to take years to rebuild trust following recent sexual abuse scandals in the church. And he says non-clergy Catholics will be essential to the process.
“It’s difficult to overstate the impact that this has on them on the moral authority of the church. And that’s something that is going to take decades to recover,” said John Garvey, president of Catholic University.
Calling On Non-Clergy Catholics To Keep Church Accountable
Garvey wrote a letter over the weekend encouraging students to prepare themselves “to take on key roles in rebuilding Christ’s Church,” and he emphasized the role of lay Catholics in keeping the church accountable. Garvey is the third lay president in the university’s history.
As a father of five children, Garvey said his reaction to the misconduct of priests was strong.
“My instinctive reaction is to go after them with a baseball bat or, failing that, I would at least to refer them for criminal prosecution. And I think that kind of that experience of closeness to your own children is something… the kind of awareness that the laity bring to problems like this that’s healthy for the church and would be helpful in sorting this out,” Garvey said.
On Entrusting Children to the Church
Many of Catholic University’s students are not training to be clergy. As these students graduate and start families, they will consider raising their children in the church.
“I don’t have concerns about entrusting our children to the church,” Garvey said. “I think following the Dallas charter in 2002 as a result of the clergy sex abuse in Boston, there’s probably no safer place than Catholic schools and Catholic institutions nowadays. But what is troublesome about this for our children is we preach a message about temperance and chastity to our young people and see a different example, and that undermines our teaching to our students, and it undermines our teaching as parents to our children.”
On Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington
A Pennsylvania grand jury report released last week revealed more than 1,000 children were abused by priests since the 1940’s. The same grand jury report raised questions about the Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, for how he acted regarding priests who were accused of abuse.
Wuerl is Catholic University’s chancellor. Some, including in an online petition, have called on Wuerl’s removal as Archbishop of Washington.
“It’s not my position to say what the Cardinal Archbishop of Washington has to do,” Garvey said. “What none of the bishops did at the time is to refer these cases for criminal prosecution, and I think that’s something that has people particularly upset.”
Garvey’s Message To Students
Garvey said he’ll be meeting with students a number of times over the next several days, as classes begin next week.
“I have two goals: one of them is to make clear to our students that this is something that is of concern to us and that they are rightly upset about what they have witnessed,” Garvey said. “The other is, a concern, that we not allow this series of events to eclipse the fact that they’re going away to college and that they have many other thoughts on their minds.”
On The Effect Of The Report On Enrollment
“I don’t really know what to expect about the effect of this business on our enrollment,” Garvey said. “Of course, in choosing colleges 17-year-olds have many different thoughts in mind than you and I might, but those who come here are interested in the church and in our relationship to it, as well as the fact that we’re in Washington D.C. and have great sports teams and so on, so that’s something that we’re just going to be watching, but it’s something we intend to talk to our students about.”
Garvey still won’t face reality. The problem is the abomination of homosexuality. At its core homosexuality is the molestation and imprinting of young boys and men by vile perverts. Until these perverts are purged and bleached out of the priesthood and hierarchy, the crimes against humanity will continue. What now exists is not holy.
I do think the part about going after them with a baseball bat was about right.
Any Catholic leader who continues the ruse that this is other than homosexuality is a liar, complicit in the scandal, and probably himself a predatory faggot.
Put him in charge and tell him to act on his instincts.
Second it.
C.U.A. alum here.... John Garvey is a good man and in his full letter, he does address better profiling required for incoming priests. It only got one vague sentence in his letter but it is one more than the letter put out by my parish priest, Bishop or the Pope’s own letter. I’m not understanding what or whom has all these people under their thumb but practicing Catholocs are angry and out for blood. We want names, consequences and homosexual priests out of the seminaries and pulpits.
Yep.
And Cathedrals.
My solution is to enact a law that it shall be an affirmative defense to a murder or manslaughter charge to prove that the alleged perpetrator was unable to control his or her violent urges because the deceased had previously raped or sexually abused the defendant.
In a society where saying “boo” about gays will get you charged with a hate crime? Not bloody well likely.
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