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Abuse scandal angers conservative Catholics
Boston Globe ^ | 3/27/2002 | Michael Paulson

Posted on 04/10/2002 1:39:57 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity

Edited on 04/13/2004 2:07:41 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The Catholic Church's most reliable supporters, conservatives who have traditionally leapt to defend the institutional hierarchy whenever its practices have been questioned, are increasingly irate over the church's handling of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Commentators William J. Bennett, William F. Buckley,Jr., and Patrick Buchanan have harshly criticized Cardinal Bernard F. Law. Self-described orthodox Catholics are denouncing the church's bishops. "We spend our time monitoring and fighting anti-Catholicism wherever it exists in American society, but I have always had a disdain of intellectual dishonesty, and if I sat on the sidelines I'd have to be accused of that myself," said William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a group that fights anti-Catholic bias. "I don't know of single Catholic priest or layman who isn't furious about the sex abuse scandal, in terms of tolerance they [the hierarchy] have had for intolerable behavior and the way they've played musical chairs with these miscreant priests. I've never seen such anger."


(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: catholicism; church; homosexualism; modernism; pedophilia; religion; scandal
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To: goldenstategirl
I have read that the seminaries which feed into the traditional movement (Latin Mass--Society of St. Peter?) are packed full of applicants and students.
There are a couple non-schismatic traditional orders, I think you are referring to the The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), and they are overflowing with applicants. Many of the seminaries in the more conservative dioceses, e.g, Nebraska, are also overflowing even though they are Novus Ordo. The SSPX of course is schismatic.

patent

61 posted on 04/11/2002 3:57:28 PM PDT by patent
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To: inquest
Well, I checked out that link, and what's still left unexplained is how all this could go on under the noses of the Old Guard. I just don't understand how they couldn't have completely stopped it in its tracks.
It is my opinion (and take it as no more then that-an opinion) that large portions of the heirarchy in this country were corrupted long before Vatican II. Many of the most powerful Cardinals in this country empraced the theories that led straight into cafeteria catholicism, and promoted like minded priests into numerous chanceries all over the country. Their dissent became a lot more open in the decades after V2 as society and the Church reeled from the changes.

patent

62 posted on 04/11/2002 4:00:08 PM PDT by patent
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To: patent
If that were true, it still couldn't have happened in a vacuum. It's one thing for Church officials to be "corrupted" - I think of corruption as things like taking bribes and kickbacks, stuff like that - and another thing altogether for officials to be actively promoting things that are so contrary to everything that the Church was erected to stand for. There would have to have been some outside force that has been very dedicated to a certain goal. I've heard rumblings from various sources about a certain Antonio Gramsci, who's said to have laid the groundwork for a deliberate "long march through the institutions" by certain subversive forces, but I don't know how credible those types of stories are. But I don't know what else to conclude, because this is just not a normal type of degeneration.
63 posted on 04/11/2002 4:34:35 PM PDT by inquest
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To: constitutiongirl
You might read William Estep, Jr. The Anabaptist Story (he was my dissertation external reader and a leading Anabaptist scholar in America). A more exhaustive treatment is George H. Williams, The Radical Reformation which dilineates the variety of radicals including anabaptists, spiritualists and anti-trinitarian radicals.

Modern Anabaptists usually look most favorably on the German Swiss Anabaptists (Grebel, Blaurock & Manz) who were initially disciples of Zwingli yet split over the issue of believer's baptism. This group was far more biblically oriented as opposed to the South Germans (Lutheran context) who were more "charismatic / experientialist."

Zwingli remained a pedobaptist serving as pastor in Zurich and was succeeded by Henrich Bullinger who held the same views. Zwingli and Calvin are patriarchs of the Reformed tradition. Both rejected the Anabaptist doctrine which said Christians could not be magistrates nor should they go to war. Zwingli was killed in battle, ironically.

64 posted on 04/11/2002 4:40:14 PM PDT by drstevej
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To: patent
Yes, the FSSP, that's the one I was thinking of! Thanks!
65 posted on 04/11/2002 5:09:15 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
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To: inquest
Latin for "mystery of iniquity." The Pope used the phrase in his response to the scandals in the U.S. It alludes to the Catholic concept of supernatural evil lying in the background of grave sin, apparently implying the diabolical.
66 posted on 04/11/2002 5:14:11 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: sfousa ; inquest
"how could all this go under the noses..."

Believe it or not, there at least have been in the past people so out of touch with reality and a realistic understanding of the aggressive nature of homosexual subculture that they would doubt you were telling the truth if you described how bad the situation might be in a given institution. I know this to be a fact at least with respect to problems other than pedophile molestations. I personally described the nefarious anti-Catholic environment of a particular institution (about ten years ago) and the response from a ranking, senior member of the religious order was: "I doubt it's that bad." (exact words). Well, it was and is that bad.

67 posted on 04/11/2002 5:24:55 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: Mike Fieschko
"...better now than in 1962."

There's no doubt that there is much more public heresy, moral confusion, and criminal investigations than in 1962. American culture is also different. Cultural trends have been influencing and infiltrating the church. Liberals in the Catholic Church in America share virtually the same ideology as their non-Catholic fellow travellers. The hatred of Catholicism which has been expressed on too many Catholic campuses is also new. Along with the expanded presence of non-Catholic and anti-Catholic professors at nominally Catholic institutions. Some people are obviously in denial when they can only see good in the postconciliar period.

68 posted on 04/11/2002 5:50:37 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: goldenstategirl
According to my parish priest (who was vice-rector at the Fraternity of St. Peter seminary in Denton, NE) they get about 100 applications a year, but have only space at most for 20.

The Jesuits are averaging about 50 new seminarians a year in the USA, despite having been around for 400 years and a much higher profile. The Fraternity is now ordaining more priests every year in France than the Jesuits. So is the Society of St. Pius X.

I wouldn't be surprised if the a Fraternity priest ends up burying the last Jesuit.

69 posted on 04/11/2002 6:29:57 PM PDT by Loyalist
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
There is no question that there is something 'rotten in the Church'. . .and it is the presence and impact of the Liberal Left.

They are as determined; and as patient, in their commitment to corrupt the Church as it they have been determined to corrupt all things of 'value' in our secular world and our 'body politic' as well.

. . .the same destructive goals; the same ugly time-tested tactics; and their 'will'; absolutley steadfast and resolute. . .

70 posted on 04/11/2002 6:35:16 PM PDT by cricket
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To: Loyalist
What is interesting is that the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the SSPX both teach approximately exactly the same thing which the Jesuits used to teach at the height of their Catholic influence. If you look at books like Fr. Vincent Miceli's The Gods of Atheism or Fr. John Courtney Murray's The Problem of God, or many of the theology and philosophy textbooks used during the 1940s and 1950s, or autobiographical reflections on Jesuit education (by Frederick Wilhelmsen, for instance), the current problems are not evident. My father and grandfather, for instance, encountered a very different kind of Catholic environment from much of what we see today.
71 posted on 04/11/2002 6:42:07 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: cricket
"...imapct of the Liberal Left."

Agreed. Definitely, absolutely. I can testify to this.

72 posted on 04/11/2002 6:43:55 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: drstevej
Thanks for the suggestions. Do you also know of anything written prior to the 1800's?
73 posted on 04/11/2002 7:32:38 PM PDT by constitutiongirl
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To: constitutiongirl
Are you looking for primary sources? There are very few written by early anabaptists themselves since many were martyred in their thirties (as my professor used to say, "It's hard to write theology at the bottom of Lake Zurich.") One source from the 1600's is Thieleman van Braght's Bloody Theater or Martyr's Mirror of the Defenseless Christians -- available at amazon.com. This is one of the few sympathetic early treatments. The focus is on the martyrs. Very moving accounts!

Most Anabaptist studies prior to 1800 were done by authors hostile to the Anabaptists and are not balanced. Or they were done by Landmark baptists seeking to trace believer's baptism back to John the Baptist and thus tend to include any and every group that might help make the case despite the group's other views which were often heretical. Modern studies like Estep and Williams have separated the nuts from the godly and given us a more balanced perspective.

A second generation Anabaptism worth studying is Menno Simons (progenitor of the Mennonites). He is the most significant individual in uniting the fractured Anabatptists. (Anabaptists in the early 1530s seized Munster and tried to set up a theocracy. They received the Janet Reno Waco treatment. This incident gave Anabaptism a black eye for decades and even centuries.) Menno's writings, which include extensive theological studies are readily available.

There are ties between Dutch Anabaptism and the earliest English Baptists -- this was the focus of my dissertation.

74 posted on 04/11/2002 8:25:03 PM PDT by drstevej
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity ; cricket
Back to the actual topic of this thread: Catholic conservatives criticizing the handling of the current scandals and unorthodoxy...

There are probably going to be some very good conservative and orthodox Catholic books which will emerge from the current raging controversies which will expose the Leftist corruption. Let's hope. Liberals actually support the homosexual movement among clergy. If there is blame to go around, they have their fair share.

75 posted on 04/11/2002 8:36:55 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
Book Exposes Aggressive, Liberal, Heretical, Clerical Gay Subculture
76 posted on 04/11/2002 8:48:25 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: Loyalist
This is interesting. It seems like we should be expanding our seminaries to accomodate all the applicants, yet all we continue to hear about is the shortage of priests and how we need to pray for vocations. This fact directly conflicts that.
77 posted on 04/11/2002 8:49:25 PM PDT by Canticle_of_Deborah
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To: goldenstategirl
Yeah. It's worse than that though. The liberal anti-Catholic mafia in some quarters of Catholic higher education is destroying colleges and universities. The response to this has been inadequate as well. When bishops sit by as churches are gutted and fine colleges destroyed, who speaks for the Church?
78 posted on 04/11/2002 8:52:36 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: goldenstategirl ; Loyalist
In fact, I think one could accurately describe the behavior of heretical liberal dissenters
and their homosexual activist fellow travellers as "looting."
79 posted on 04/11/2002 8:54:39 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: uglyworld
Women's ordination...I haven't thought about enough.

Well, you can save yourself the trouble. The Pope has already ruled on that aspect of the faith. ;-)

80 posted on 04/11/2002 9:05:08 PM PDT by Proud2BAmerican
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