A Nope for Pope

We, the parents who have children being fucked by the “help.”

No more drinking the cool aid.

A bunch of “Religious” Bernie Madoffs

WOW, calm down, learn where your children are and what they are doing, talk to your children so they will confide in you when something evil happens to them, know who they are with at all times, question unusual behavior or language, or reactions to normal things....Good thing you are Catholic, because the incidences of MARRIED protestant clergy abusing children far surpasses that of Catholic Priests.....I don’t drink kool aid, vodka is my preference

You are correct

All based upon the same lies that were previously shown to be lies in the other post from National Review with the associated timelines.

Just because hacks from two different papers published it doesn't mean it's more true.

Because I eschew the magical words with which they mesmerize the faithful, you think I know nothing about Church governance, which, incidentally, is becoming an oxymoron hour by hour.

lolol. Clueless in drag.

Ratzinger doesn’t know what went on in his German diocese or so his spokesman says, the cardinals and bishops do not understand his letters. The police are tapping the Vatican phones; they are running a rent a seminarian escort service from the Vatican, which his spokesman said he just found out about.

By tomorrow he will have forgotten it and by Tuesday he won't have been told at all.

More and more he is made to look like “I see nothing Sgt. Schlutz,” as he strives to avoid culpability, responsibility and blames everyone else.

Now that is one, appropriate metaphor. 8~)

Clueless in drag

Perfect.

I love how these people pretend to care what is best for the Church.

As if Maureen is truly worried about helping the Church right?

But I’m sure Rome will take this into serious consideration since Ms. Dowd is such a great theologian and all that.

At least dear Scotswife you ladies will not allow your Church to degenerate into such a (supply the word)

Au Contraire - some of us strive to be part of the solution, and I can say I’ve participated in that process.

But Maureen?
She cares not.

Churches who try women in leadership soon learn the axiom: when the women lead, the men leave

In this particulsr case one wonders why they were ever there in the first place.

Then I wish you all success you have recognised that mindless support of the status quo is the road to perdition.

Give my regards to Maureen too.

I’ve never accepted the status quo and I have met very few people who do.

You pass those regards along yourself - I won’t be bumping into her I’m sure ;)

Good night!

Goodnight - I forgot that Maureen was the author of the thread

Utter lies. Sickening lies. What a sleazy, slimey, ugly attack on the Pope during Holy Week.

Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed “God’s Rottweiler” when he was the church’s enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys.

First, in spite of the horrific claims, not ONE criminal charge was ever brought. Why MoDope? Second, how long after this case hit then Card. Ratzinger's desk did the alleged molester DIE MoDope? Grrrr......

In Defense of the Pope

I looked at the headlines this morning to see that there are "new revelations" that threaten to "bring down the Vatican" regarding a Wisconsin priest who molested deaf children under this care.

In reading the articles, however, I did not find what was "new", only the cry that people want to know "what the Pope knew and when he knew it."

Now, the Church has made grave mistakes regarding the sexual abuse scandal. With 1 billion plus adherents, we are going to have our chare of bad apples. But the majority of priests remain what we expect them to be - good men who are dedicated to their vows and work a hard life for the glory of God.

But I would like to make sure people know the timeline in the case of Fr. Murphy, the Wisconsin priest, because those facts are not being widely reported. And why not? Because they show the Pope is not to be hung out to dry on this one.

The case involved Fr Lawrence Murphy, who worked at a school for the deaf in Milwaukee from 1950 to 1974. In the early 1970s, multiple allegations of sexual abuse against the priest were made to civil authorities, who investigated but never brought charges. He was placed on a leave of absence for a while and later returned to pastoral ministry in the Diocese of Superior, where he worked until 1993.

The Times story said that according to documents it obtained from lawyers involved in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, then Archbishop Rembert Weakland in 1993 hired a social worker who interviewed Fr Murphy and reported that the priest had admitted his acts, had probably molested about 200 boys and felt no remorse. The archbishop placed restrictions on Fr Murphy's ministry.

Archbishop Weakland wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger about the case in 1996 because he thought it might involve "solicitation in the confessional", a sin which because of its gravity involved the doctrinal congregation.

Later in 1996, the doctrinal congregation told Wisconsin bishops to begin a canonical trial of Fr Murphy, the Times article said. But it said that process was halted after Fr Murphy wrote directly to Cardinal Ratzinger, saying that he had repented and was in poor health, and that the allegations went beyond the Church's own statute of limitations for such crimes.

When Archbishop Weakland met in 1998 with Cardinal Ratzinger's assistants at the doctrinal congregation official, he failed to persuade them to allow a trial that could lead to the defrocking of Fr Murphy.

Jesuit Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the Fr Murphy case was a "tragic" one that "involved particularly vulnerable victims who suffered terribly from
what he did".

Fr Lombardi pointed out, however, that the Vatican was only informed of the case more than two decades after the abuse had been reported to diocesan officials and the police. He noted that civil authorities had dropped their investigation without filing charges.

The Church's canonical procedures in such cases do not envision "automatic penalties", but recommend that a judgment be made, not excluding removal of a guilty priest from the priesthood, Fr Lombardi said.

"In light of the facts that Fr Murphy was elderly and in very poor health, and that he was living in seclusion and no allegations of abuse had been reported in over 20 years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith suggested that the Archbishop of Milwaukee give consideration to addressing the situation by, for example, restricting Fr Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Fr Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts," Fr Lombardi said.

"Fr Murphy died approximately four months later, without further incident," he added.

Since 2002, the Church has instituted a broad overhaul of how it handles these situations for the safety of all. However, it is not fair to criticize how a case was handled in 1998 while using current policies.

It needs to be understood too that not everything gets reported to the Vatican, not because of secrecy, but because that is the structure of the Church, that is, the bishops and cardinals have a sense of autonomy to govern their areas accordingly. Did I mention the Catholic Church has over a billion members?

So what odd sect or denomination do you claim as your own?

did she mention the priest was removed from the active ministry in 1974?

probably not because then Weakland, a hero to the NYTimes might be exposed as protecting a fellow gay...

and this is the Maureen Dowd who gushed last week about how wonderful it was in Saudi Arabia, where all churches are banned, where attending a house church can get you jailed or deported, and (probably more important to her) the Filipinos who merely attended a “cross dressing” party in a private home face sixty lashes for their crime.

find a Catholic church with a Vietnamese priest, and you will find a pious priest.

I’m not surprised that you didn’t get any replies. Most of the haters on these threads don’t want to hear about your facts. They just want a springboard to vent their venomous hatred toward our church.

And to any fellow Christians out there using these attacks on the Pope to attack the Church: thanks a lot and have a Happy Easter!

The principal responsibility for sexual-abuse cases lay with the local Ordinary, Archbishop Rembert Weakland. Leaving the accused abuser priest supposedly "without assignment," and likewise without supervision from 1977 until 1996, and neglecting any effort to discover the scope of his abuses or to minister to his victims, Weakland essentially did nothing.

It was not until 1996 (19 years after Fr. Murphy was put out of circulation on "sick leave") that Weakland first notified Cardinal Ratzinger’s Vatican office, which promptly moved forward on having a canonical trial. Neither Ratzinger nor anyone in his office in any way impeded the local process. In fact, Card. Ratzinger’s Deputy, Cardinal Narciso Bertone, tried in every way to expedite the process, despite the huge gap created by Abp Weakland's negligence and the statute of limitations.

Fr. Murphy died in 1998, before a canonical trial could take place.

The real fault here, as I read the facts, was with Archbishop Weakland, who was notoriously derelict in his duties.

But because the Associated Press, the New York Times, and rhe MSM in general cannot lodge fault with Weakland ---who, as a “progressive,” a payoff-paying gay prelate himself, and a longtime enabler/protector of defiant anti-papal dissenters, is immune from all criticism --- there is this a concerted, international effort to find some way to drag in Pope Benedict.

Maureen Dowd's opinions are contemptible and I wouldn't care to comment on them.

But what the New York Times is doing as a "news" organization is vicious, prejudicial, and (it seems to me) probably legally libellous.

The Archbishop of Milwaukee should have dealt with the situation properly. He dropped the ball and it probably didn't help that he was a homosexual dealing with his own personal issues(of which blew up in the extreme later on).

He did not inform Cardinal Ratzinger of the molestations until 1996. It allegedly started in 1950 and lasted until the 70’s. Cardinal Ratzinger decided to allow proceedings to begin against Father Murphy despite the fact that the statute of limitations had expired as per Church guidelines. The Archbishop appealed to him to not do that so they agreed to strip the priest of his faculties and have him spend the remainder of his time in prayer and repentance. The only reason the Pope was told about this priest was because it was about to be revealed to the public. The police had pursued the cases as well, but never followed through? I don't know why.

As a Catholic I am very repulsed to hear about any children being victimized. I don't agree with just getting the priests some therapy and shifting them around to somewhere else. If you are a child sex offender you will always be that way. They should be stripped of their faculties and it should be reported to the police immediately as to give the victims the swift justice they deserve. But, if some of us sound like we have our doubts about some of the victims, it is only because of the timing of some of their claims. Why would you wait 20 to 30 years after the fact to finally say something? Look, I am a victim of childhood sexual abuse and I do take it very seriously! It destroyed me, so I do feel for these people. But to come out so late demanding huge wads of cash hurts your credibility.

I do believe that the authorities within the Church (Local Bishop's in particular) did not handle these cases properly. The victims deserved justice and didn't get it. However, to pin all of this on Pope Benedict is unfair. We cannot go back in time and stop what happened. We need to go forward, learn from our mistakes and never allow this to happen again.

I don't like how people from other Church's are latching onto this stuff and using it to bash our Church, especially during Lent. And for people from other faiths and religions to go on pretending that this stuff doesn't happen in their Church's is naive and unjust. This goes on everywhere and is usually handled the same way, not that it makes it right.

I will end with this, in regards to my fellow Christian's, we should try to be there for each other. I don't mean give each other a free pass. Why go after all of us? If you go after our Pope you go after us. It gets personal. Please everybody, lets try to be civil, especially during this special time.