Catholic church in Disaray

I don't know if it is fear of persecution or striving for inclusiveness, but Reagan is right! The Catholic church needs to wake up and start sheparing it's flock.

I have seen not one whit of evidence that the bishops understand the lifelong damage done to a child who has been sexually molested, especially by someone as respected as a Catholic priest in whom they had placed total reliance.

As the column points out, Reagan himself was an abuse victim.

The clerical abuse victims are hearing nothing but words from the bishops. They want to know that they are being taken seriously, and that they are not to blame and that the bishops realize that!

They'd like a bishop to meet with them, to talk to them as a human being, to try to understand what they're dealing with.

Instead, the bishops listen to their attorneys, who tell them NOT to meet with the men, lest it somehow hit them in the bank account.

The thing is, they know what to do; they just don't have the guts to do it.

the state of the Roman Catholic Church in ~~America~~ Rome

"Today the American Church is known for its internal dissention and frank disbelief. The list of organizations whose members are in full communion with the Church and call themselves Catholic, and yet promote patently anti-Catholic positions, seems endless. The causes these organizations support include homosexuality, abortion, female priests, gay and lesbian priests, divorce and re-marriage, sex outside of marriage, and a panoply of ‘women's issues.’ These organizations flatly reject the teaching authority of the Magisterium, and evidence of these organizations' influence, whether pamphlets, members, or invited speakers, can be found in virtually any parish one randomly enters. These dissenting groups didn't appear out of nowhere. They find their origin, direction, and support in the American catechetical and theological establishments. These are the academics and professional educators who shape the minds and consciences of American youngsters and adults."

That state of affairs, many devout Catholics say, is the fault of the bishops here in America. It could not exist if they were fulfilling their responsibilities as shepherds of their flocks.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Left to our own devices, without God and the teaching of the church, we get into all sorts of trouble.

And when bishops like Myers and Chaput and the like speak orthodoxy, they are "dissed" at it were. It's sad to say, but it's true.

And when bishops like Myers and Chaput and the like speak orthodoxy, they are "dissed" at it were.

I don't read many criticisms of Chaput. He's very smooth, and nuanced, like a sports car.

Myers, comparably, acts like a dump truck.

No need to excerpt frontpagemag.com articles

A Church in Disarray
By Michael Reagan
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 20, 2003

The resignation of Oklahoma’s former Governor Frank Keating from his post as head of the National Review Board, an all-lay panel charged with keeping track of bishops efforts to rid the priesthood of sexual molesters has shown that the scandal is not going away.

And the reason it’s not going away, Catholics say, is the state of the Roman Catholic Church in America – a church in disarray.

Writing in the New Oxford Review, a conservative Catholic journal, Dr. Timothy P. Collins, M.D., a Chesapeake, Va, convert to Catholicism and a Fellow of the College of American Pathologists revealed the current state of the Church:

"Today the American Church is known for its internal dissention and frank disbelief. The list of organizations whose members are in full communion with the Church and call themselves Catholic, and yet promote patently anti-Catholic positions, seems endless. The causes these organizations support include homosexuality, abortion, female priests, gay and lesbian priests, divorce and re-marriage, sex outside of marriage, and a panoply of ‘women's issues.’ These organizations flatly reject the teaching authority of the Magisterium, and evidence of these organizations' influence, whether pamphlets, members, or invited speakers, can be found in virtually any parish one randomly enters. These dissenting groups didn't appear out of nowhere. They find their origin, direction, and support in the American catechetical and theological establishments. These are the academics and professional educators who shape the minds and consciences of American youngsters and adults."

That state of affairs, many devout Catholics say, is the fault of the bishops here in America. It could not exist if they were fulfilling their responsibilities as shepherds of their flocks.

As Keating said, "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." He also told the Los Angeles Times: "To act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress, I think, is very unhealthy. Eventually it will all come out."

The blame for the Church’s problems lies squarely on the bishops for tolerating, and in some cases encouraging, the state of affairs described by Dr. Collins. What they fail to understand, for example, is that far more than monetary damages, victims of priestly sex abuse want an admission that it was the priests who were wrong, not themselves.

As a victim of abuse by a day camp counselor when I was a child, I know that victims blame themselves.

We who were abused are the ones carrying the burden of thinking we’ve done something terribly wrong. All victims want is for somebody to say “No. You haven’t done anything wrong. It was us.” There is no accountability, and until the Church accepts responsibility and says “We did wrong to you,” there will be no accountability.

Kids are looking for affirmation, especially today when both parents are often absent from the daily lives, and when they are approached by a respected figure such as a priest who begins by offering them the affirmation they seek their sense of betrayal once the abuse begins is horrific. An honored father figure has done the most unspeakable things to them and it is a memory that will haunt them all their lives.

This is what the bishops must face up to and admit their guilt for allowing this scandal to fester and grow for decades. What bothers me most is their utter failure to understand their incredible mis- or non-feasance in the matter of the hideous crime of pedophilia. I have seen not one whit of evidence that the bishops understand the lifelong damage done to a child who has been sexually molested, especially by someone as respected as a Catholic priest in whom they had placed total reliance.

Their sympathy has almost universally been directed at the priestly molesters, their exposure to financial penalties, and only incidentally, to the victims who will carry the psychological burden of their abuse until the day they die.

Until they face up to this and accept the guilt they bear, they will fit Keating’s description that they "act like La Cosa Nostra and hide and suppress" the truth.

rglencheek: Man, do you ever make factual statements or do you always rely on ad hominem and reflexive dismisal?

It's called a "metaphor," rglencheek. And it's my opinion of Myers' style, not of him as a person (though he is a very large man).

He is white, though, you probably think I'm picking on him for that reason.

The rise of white nationalism is not going to be derailed by sarcastic retort.

What is "white nationalism?"

warns conservatives, who may be drawn to some seemingly legitimate aspects of white nationalism, of its underlying racist and white supremacist nature.

So, what do you think of white nationalism?

The bolded above summarizes my feelings of it.

I don't want anything to do with anything that separates people on the basis of race.

And the reason it’s not going away, Catholics say, is the state of the Roman Catholic Church in America – a church in disarray.

This is the direct result of post Vatican II liberal modernism. The Church has been devastated by this ugly modernism that the Church's enemies praise. There is no denying it. The same people sing the praises of the sodomites who have devastated our young men and brought all this public ire down on the Church. The diabolical smiles will be wiped off their sodomy-coddling faces in the end.