Posted on 06/18/2003 10:26:18 AM PDT by NYer
Two days ago, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating stepped down as chairman of the review board investigating sex abuse in the Catholic Church. He was facing resistance from a few of the most powerful prelates in America, some of whom pushed for his resignation after the former prosecutor and FBI agent characterized episcopal stonewalling as tactics perfected by "La Cosa Nostra." Mr. Keating defended his view in his resignation letter, saying, "To resist grand jury subpoenas, to suppress the names of offending clerics, to deny, to obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organization, not my church." While his directness and impolitic choice of words might rankle the fainthearted, the criticism is valid.
As sad and inexplicable as it may be, many bishops still act like the answer to priest sex scandals is more covering up. The showdown that led to Monday's resignation occurred between Mr. Keating and Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, who has at least 400 allegations of abuse in his own archdiocese. His Eminence, and the 12 other ordinaries in California, refused to cooperate with a survey on local abuse cases and voted unanimously that the study itself should be cancelled. Approximately one-third of the bishops governing America's 195 dioceses have not responded to the investigation.
Last year, amidst a flood of bad publicity, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted new guidelines to handle clerical misdeeds, created the review board, appointed Mr. Keating as its head and charged the body with the inquiry. The lack of cooperation from bishops like Cardinal Mahony lends validity to the complaint that last year's measures were insincere and intended as mere damage control.
The issue is deeper than sex and abuse of power, as radicals are using the weakened authority of the hierarchy to further their agenda for leftist reform in the church. For example, Voice of the Faithful, a prominent group founded in the wake of the scandal ostensibly to deal with sex abuse, is comprised of leading dissenters on church teaching against abortion, divorce, homosexuality and married or women priests. One of Mr. Keating's failures was to give too much voice to this faction of rabblerousers. Catholic doctrine is not the issue; molestation — a clear violation of the moral precepts of the religion — is. With Mr. Keating gone, the review board is now dominated by those opposed to conservative religious ideas, such as Clinton defense lawyer Robert Bennett. The leading candidate to be the next chairman is board member Leon Panetta, whose public career as a congressman and President Clinton's chief of staff spurned church positions on social issues, such as abortion.
When appointed last year, Mr. Keating said that, "The Church needs a thorough scrubbing." This was a call to clean up immorality, not to do away with moral standards, as some of the dissenters are trying to do. The response to hypocrisy cannot be relativism. The scandals have given many leftists a club with which to take whacks at an institution that stands against much that is bad in our culture.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
On Target!
Those who are wise to Mahony, have maintained a web site where they document "who - what - where - when - how", much to the chagrin of Mahony and his cohorts.
Mr. Keating's frustrated probe ...Interesting choice of words ...
A pretty telling statistic. Wonder how many Pedophile Homo Bishops and priests we are actually talking about here?
Seems like the priesthood has been a magnet for these Gay vocations for quite sometime and now us/we parishioners are paying the price for it in $$$$$$ and in heartaches too!
An astute observation. Here in the Albany, NY diocese, the stats are in .......
In abuse scandal, parishioners are paying for it
It's NOT a pretty picture!
It sure isn't! :(
What a farce. No one associated with Clinton should be involved officially with the Catholic Church. Bennett and Panetta are already well-experienced with the Clinton cover-ups. This is the problem that happens when politician and celebrity Catholics are tapped for boards. More often than not you end up with liberal or grotesquely undereducated and uninformed Catholics whose claim to fame is their association with some travesty from secular American culture - like the Clinton White House or Washington law firms. Every Catholic ought to outraged that these flunky hacks of the corrupt, rapacious, and pro-abortion Clinton gang are having anything to do with the policies of the Catholic Church. Panetta should have been excommunicated for assisting a pro-abortion/anti-life regime.
It's kind of sad when The Washington Times sounds like its making more sense than many bishops.
Those who interpret recent events as a divine chastisement may not be far from the truth. It's absurd in the extreme that any educated adult Catholic would support Clinton or the pro-abortion policies of the U.S. Democratic party. Whoever selected people associated with Clinton has a weird idea about how to improve the sex abuse situation. "Pro-choice" liberals, abortionists, and those associated with Clinton cover-ups have no business involving themselves in official capacities in the Church.
The national "review board" in itself poses many problems, but clearly Clintonites are woefully unqualified to deliberate on any Catholic issue. What seems to be going on with the bizarre aftermath of these sex abuse scandals is merely a return to the usual circus of liberal modernist "AmChurch" Catholicism. Laymen selected for advisory roles on any "Catholic" board ought to be free from unsavory associations like the Clinton regime which itself covered up sexual abuse by Sick Willie. Robert Bennett and Leon Panetta should have had enough sense to recuse themselves from this.
The Church must do a better job at educating, training, and preparing adult leaders who are actually Catholic. Supporting pro-abortion politicians or politicians who are sexual predators automatically disqualifies any liberal Catholic from serving in an official capacity for the Church. In fact, it is questionable whether any nominal "Catholic" who knowingly supports pro-abortion politicians is actually still a Catholic in a real sense. The Clinton regime was one of the most corrupt and grotesquely immoral in history. It is beyond reason that the Church dignifies anyone associated with that in an official capacity especially with anything having to do with sex abuse. What exactly is it that they think these types are "experts" at?
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