Posted on 10/30/2013 11:25:23 AM PDT by Dr. Thorne
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A popular St. Paul priest on Sunday accused Archbishop John Nienstedt of arrogance and demanded an explanation for the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
"He needs to stand before us and explain himself," the Rev. Stephen O'Gara, pastor of the Church of the Assumption, said in a Sunday homily. "Only then will we have the respect called to his office. It's about arrogance, and we all fall victim to arrogance in some degree or in some place in our lives. But this is more. This is not some small matter. This is a big deal. It's the first time, I must say, in 69 years that I'm embarrassed to be Catholic."
(Excerpt) Read more at minnesota.publicradio.org ...
Rev. Stephen O'Gara needs to remember who he is.
Mr. Podles I believe is Catholic and has an interesting website besides writing books and the blog is of interest.
http://www.podles.org/index.htm
That said, for the record, I can Bing search the news “sex abuse”, you get a cross-section of where this happens, all I will say, there are no excuses.
As for Father O’Gara, I believe what he is saying is that another committee is being set up as maybe one was 10 years ago or so to look into the situation. I believe O’Gara is saying some real “outside-the-church” oversight should be brought in. I think that’s all.
For a sidelight, a long time bar/pub in St. Paul is called “O’Garas” so that name may be long time in the history of St. Paul and I believe Father O’Gara is an elderly man.
What is interesting about O’Garas pub I know I’m going on here but once upon a time, a Carl Schultz would cut hair there.
http://www.pbase.com/harpeggio/image/52226813
Carl Schultz, the father or Charles Schultz who went on to do the Peanuts Comic strip and now you know the rest of the story!
The story reads:
“”In the wake of the terrible reports in the news, some parishioners here at Guardian Angels, and I would imagine in every parish in the Archdiocese, have expressed concern that none of their contributions to the church go to the Archdiocese,” Bauman wrote. “The majority of your contributions to Guardian Angels stay right here to pay salaries, support programs and keep the doors open.”
Someone, maybe the blog I cited urged investigators to check church books meaning their financial books, if you have payments going out to legal or whatever, there is a fear this is money going out to cover up abuse.
So the real ramifications is people want their hard-earned monies to be well spent and also that these kinds of things that go on, can expose the church to big lawsuits.
As for this other excerpt from the story:
“O’Gara’s homily references the recent revelations of the handling of clergy sexual abuse allegations by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. An MPR News investigation has found Nienstedt and other church leaders failed to warn parishioners of a priest’s sexual misconduct, did not turn over possible child pornography to police for nine years and gave special payments to offending priests.”
They are not finding any child porn and there is also a record of what was on this computer from an outside 3rd source, it might be porn but not child porn.
Well, if it's just ORDINARY porn, then it's not a big deal right?
After all, the church is filled with fallible humans and boys will be boys.
Legally speaking, I suppose there is a big difference.
Mistakes made in Catholic clergy sex abuse probes: Minnesota archbishop
Reuters ^ | Thu Oct 24, 2013 8:38pm EDT | David Bailey
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3083337/posts
Legally speaking is irrelevant.
If the Catholic church is going to take the moral high ground and tell others how to live and set itself up as some kind of example of moral living, it is more than relevant morally.
This business of blowing off sin in the lives of the priests with no more than a *everyone is perfect, the church is filled with sinners* is absolutely reprehensible.
I must be really really New Testament because I do not expect any church “leader” to be an example to others how to live. Their job is to make Jesus our example. Who does this teaching is wholly irrelevant to me. It’s the message being more important than the messenger in this case.
No it is relevant. Sure we want the Priests to be morally upright but having a playboy magazine would be nothing compared to doing something illegally, a sex crime with a minor for example that the Church and Archdiocese could be heavily sued for. That’s why some dioceses have suffered great financial losses, Philadelphia, Boston, LA.
Having porn is always wrong but if it were kiddie porn, that is criminal.
Is that what Paul said? Why did Jesus send out his disciples to preach to all nations and to shake the dust off their sandals if the people did not welcome their message??
What’s the Great Commission? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Commission
Christians were fed to the lions, things like that I’m sure set an example of how strong one’s faith is.
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