Posted on 06/12/2002 6:38:40 AM PDT by robowombat
Edited on 07/12/2004 3:54:39 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
When America's Roman Catholic bishops meet in Dallas on June 13, they will have a lot to talk about. Finding better ways to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse will be at the top of the agenda, as well it should. But the bishops should also give careful consideration to the link between homosexuality and child sexual abuse. As the scandal in the Catholic Church has unfolded, it has grown increasingly clear that boys, not girls, make up the vast majority of those sexually victimized by (exclusively male) priests. At the same time, there have been startling revelations of a large and powerful homosexual subculture among priests. These developments suggest that the real problem is neither priestly celibacy nor "a culture of sexual repression" (as Newsweek put it), but is instead the sexual exploitation of minors by homosexual men.
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Rule Number 1: NO POOFTAHS!
The Catholic Church has had its very own "exclusionary" policy against ordaining homosexuals to the priesthood since 1961. The only problem is that the seminaries and bishops defiantly gave the Vatican the finger and ignored the directive. We're all seeing just how smart those idiots were in thinking they knew better than Rome.
Your observation could be the key to the problem. It would apply to ordaining known homosexuals only because closeted ones could slip through and no one would be the wiser unless they slipped up and were exposed.
The American bishops should have heeded Rome (and their fellow bishops around the world in matters pertaining to their dioceses) and maybe we wouldn't have this mess on our hands.
Catholics don't think about this much, but when you are in another bishop's diocese, that bishop must be obeyed (if at all possible).
I noticed that some groups shop to get approval for their activities in liberal dioceses. If their bishop condemns their activites, it seems to me some of them find a diocese and try to find another bishop to approve. Case in point. Can't remember the name of the book but it was about catholic charismatics. The group was from New Orleans, but when they got their book published, they got their approval from the bishop in Singapore. I think it was Cardinal Sin but I could be mistaken. I could be wrong and it could have been for another reason. If I am right, it is a very devious way to practice one's religious activities and surely displeases God. Obedience (to rightful directives) is also very scriptural. There must be severe punishment for willful disobedience. That was my theory but I couldn't prove it one way or the other.
Are billboards the answer. For example, "Bishop Adamec coddles gays." "Bishop Pilla luvs lavendar" etc.
Flame away........but for heaven sakes........no MAN would ever be allowed to enter my child's bedroom! NO MAN.
That is simply due to the fact that Catholics worship God alone, not clergy, friend. The "Catholic worship of clergy" exists only in your mind. (Good rule of thumb for you in the future: If NO ONE else but YOU thought of it, chances are ONLY you think its important. That is a dangerous rule of thumb for judging what really is important.)
There are some people who just need attention and they are the people like those you describe. They suck up to anyone who they think is ,in charge, rich, powerful and they hang on their every word. It makes me sick. There are needy people in every situation in life, not just churches and not just the Catholic Church in particular.
I pray for the church. It affects all of us.
To illustrate the dilemma, here is an email I received from a friend who is a local priest, and my response below it:
Brian, It was good to see you and your family at Mass on Sunday.
I just read a review of "Good Bye, Good Men" in a magazine called Culture Wars. I liked it a lot, and I pretty much agreed with the author. I thought you might like to read it. It can be found at culturewars.com. Click on the link for the review.
Also, I hope you folks know what you are doing by bringing this man into our diocese. The crisis of the priesthood has caused so much harm to the faithful of the church. That is certainly true!! And, we are in great need of reform. However, I wonder if such an approach as you have embraced will not do an equal amount of harm. It's all very frightening to me. Please continue to pray for priests, the victims of abuse, and for the faithful of the church.
father *
Dear Father,
Three weeks ago I met up with an old friend who I played basketball with on our Catholic grade school team in 5th through 8th grade.
It turns out he was a victim of a priest in our diocese. I believe him, because he has the letters, and I read them, signed by Adamec dating back to 1994, where Adamec promised this victim the diocese would pay for his counseling and that the priest who abused him would never have access to boys again. I had never heard of the priest involved and knew nothing about him prior to three weeks ago.
In November, my 9 year old Mikey broke his wrist badly. We had to take him to Conemaugh Hospital, where he had to go to the operating room to go under general anesthesia to have his arm set and casted.
While recovering from anesthesia in his ER room, he was ministered to by a very kind, caring priest, who brought him soda and pretzels and gave him a blessing.
I was very impressed with this priest, and felt I could trust him and the nursing staff to watch over Mikey while I stepped out to call family members regarding Mike's outcome.
Nothing happened to Mikey.
But the priest who ministered to him, I found out three weeks ago, was the same priest who molested my friend while he played for St John's basketball team. I'll be talking to the President of Conemaugh Hospital about this very soon.
He was just removed by Adamec and placed on medical leave within the last several weeks. Adamec promised my friend he would never have access to young boys again. Adamec lied. He had direct access to my own son!!!
I resent your implication that Michael Rose is a trouble maker. I've read the culture wars review. It does not hold up to scrutiny, IF YOU"VE read the book itself, and personally know the priest interviewed in Chapter 9, as I have and do.
I also resent your implication that the approach we have embraced will do an equal amount of harm.
For the love of God, David Brown is LITERALLY teaching heresy, in the name of our Church, and Sister Parks and Adamec defend him! There are many currently ACTIVE homosexual priests in our diocese, and many who were actively homosexual in the past, placed in prominent positions by Adamec, and you think us laity fighting this rot are the trouble makers?!?
Get your head out of the sand, stop wringing your hands in despair, and start doing something constructive to protect the children of our diocese. Wake up! And realize who is fighting on which side here!
I respect you greatly, but you are incredibly naive, judging by the tenor of this letter. I've done my homework. Have you?
I am angry. I am outraged one of Adamec's pedophiles had access to my own son, after he abused one of my own friends from gradeschool. I am livid that Adamec is continuing to lie through his teeth in the media to his faithful when he claims there are no other problem priests serving in our diocese. I know from personal communication with two judges, one federal, one local, as well as local lawyers, that this is a lie. I know personally victims of Adamec's pedophiles.
I will not stop until Brown is fired, all pedophiles are removed, and no more homosexuals are ordained into the priesthood by this diocese.
If Adamec will not do these simple things, demanded by justice in the eyes of God, then I will not stop till Adamec is removed.
Brian
Your response was perfect, Polycarp, simply perfect. I think the priest who wrote you is the priestly equivalent of slime. How dare he compare those of us who oppose the lavendar mafia and the homosexual rapist priests to those very same criminals. His head isn't only buried in the sand, Polycarp. I found his e-mail to you so offensive and so indicative of how we need to clean house not just of sex criminals and homosexuals, but we need to get rid of all of these hand-wringing quivering masses of protoplasm in Roman collars.
Are they all lawyers, with their forum shopping?
Fox News has been trying. Yesterday, it came up on each break to the religion reporter covering Dallas. And on Britt Hume, the panel discussion was on this, and all agreed that it is the homosexuality that is the basic problem.
I don't know if any other networks are covering it this way, because I don't consult them. But there are supposed to be 750 reporters covering Dallas (600 from the U.S. I read in another source). Surely all those hungry, ambitious reporters will have to find something to report. (I wonder if the supermarket rags are covering it?)
Does anyone remember which are the European papers that aren't afraid to expose scandal -- those, e.g., that were covering the Clinton scandals more thoroughly than the American press? I don't, but they might be useful.
Maybe I shouldn't be sharing these private discussions in public, but I feel the laity need to know exactly what we are up against, besides the fact that its all driving me nutz and I need to share it with others to see if my own perspective is somehow wrong. And I want to encourage them to network with other orthodox Catholics locally and initiate their own investigations, and put on the pressure in whatever way they deem necessary. Locally we have used newspaper ads, letters to ed, we have initiated multiple newspaper investigative stories, we have appeared on local TV news, and we have used multiple billboard ads t promote the talk by Michael Rose here next week, which we initiated to educate the laity and combat the diocesan spin on the mention of our diocese in Rose's book.
However, this priest's attitude is what's so darn frustrating! This priest is one of our best priests, holy, pious, orthodox, with strong Marian and Eucharistic devotion.
Every day points out to us that the laity are on their own, in uncharted waters. The priests, even the good ones, are too timid to act, too worried still, even now, of scandalizing Joe six-pack in the pews, or violating the "rights" of homosexuals!
Here's a little more of our subsequent "discussion":
Brian, Thank you for your response. First of all I must say, I do not fear Joseph Adamec, nor am I afraid of losing my facilities, my pension or my heath benefits. You are welcome to take them all. Pigs we all must be!!
And, what does Fr. Silvan [my own spritual director--Polycarp] say about all of this -- that I would like to know. I would respect his view. Your letter is overwhelming and sweeping in it's accusations As I have felt with so much of this situation I am shocked. And, it is true that we have not been able to truly be responsible for and to police our own. We are pigs!!
Again, however, you miss my point!!! Action is required. Moreover, action by the laity is required, but I am afraid that your tact and you tone will only divide and destroy, not built up. That's it. That's all I'm trying to say. I'm sure I will read portions of the book, and I will read Dr. Hildebrand's intro.
I guess we are all responsible for our actions -- myself included. We are all playing a dangerous game. And,if I have missed the movement of the Spirit in my own life in all of this, (which is very possible) then may God have mercy on my soul.
Father
Dear Fr. Mark,
"I am afraid that your tact and you tone will only divide and destroy, not built up."
OK, lets look at this rationally. I too am very upset about this, as you can obviously see. A pedophile had access to my son. I have too much subjective involvement to be 100% objective and rational. I openly admit this.
And my private correspondence with you is in no way indicative of my public words or action. I am much more "open" with you in private correspondence than I am in public in any forum. And I'm sorry if it seems I'm "taking it out" on you personally. That is a mistake on my part, a grave mistake.
However, which part of our public tact and tone, exactly, are you referring to? Please be specific.
We have been begging the bishop to act regarding Brown's public statements, as well as the statements of other priests in this diocese, for 4 years now, quietly, behind the scenes, with calm charitable correspondence through the proper canonical channels.
At every single turn we have been rebuffed, ridiculed and belittled by a diocesan hierarchy mired in theological dissent regarding homosexual issues.
Now, on top of all that, we find that there are active pedophiles still serving in the local Church, the bishop is lying about it, we have legal proof of his lies, there are MANY active homosexual priests here, nothing is being done, the diocese is misrepresenting Church teaching in the local media, and local priests simply will not unite to fight this.
Yet all you offer is scorn regarding our tact.
Offer something constructive to do, for those of us who have done everything possible already through the "normal" and "proper" channels.
You say "action by the laity is required."
Be specific. You obviously think our action is gravely flawed. But what we are acting against is pederasty of our children, and in this type of battle I fail to see how our tact is wrong, compared to any other tact that has been tried.
Please illustrate for me any other lay Catholic activism that has forced this bishop to address our concerns regarding the priests STILL SERVING in this diocese who are pederasts. Frankly, I doubt you are even aware of the cases for which we have obtained documented proof.
Why did it take the laity to find these cases??? Why have not the priests of this dioocese done anything about these cases themselves? Almost every priest we have spoken to admits there are numerous homosexuals in our local diocesan priesthood, and almost all of them can guess who the active pedophiles are.
So why have they gone on in their positions where they could continue to prey on our children???
And why are you more concerned about our Tact than the criminals in your midst???
"There will be a lot more innocent wounded (my opinion) as we try to destroy each other"
Just who do you think is trying to destroy who here???
The bishop calls us diabolical. Becker calls us cowards. Brown calls us Nazis, Taliban, homophobes, and bigots. When we place ads simply quoting the CCC and Cardinal Ratzinger regarding making homosexual orientation a civil right in State College, Sr Parks [diocesan spokesperson] and Adamec and the other priests in State College publicly state that these excerpts from the Catechism and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are not true Church teachings, but that "Always Our Children," a document that carries ZERO authority, is binding magisterial doctrine, and that Adamec's pastoral letter on homosexuality, which uses the same reasoning for which Sister Gramick and Fr Nugent were silenced by the Vatican, is the bottom line.
This diocese has been actively trying to destroy the voice of faithful orthodox Cathoilics for years, but all you can see is your perception that us loose canons are trying to "destroy" others, and that somehow our efforts will scandalize the faithful in the pews.
This is maddening! There is nothing, NOTHING, us laity can do that could hurt the faithful in the pews more than the misfeasance and malfeasance of the hierarchy and priests that lead, over the last 4 decades, to this point.
We're not trying to "destroy" anyone! We're trying to defend the faith and protect our children.
And all I see from you right now is your scorn for us conservative, activist Catholics.
I never see any scorn from you for the real problems here. Maybe you just have not shared it with me. Maybe you are naive. Maybe you have so much subjective involvement being "inside" THE SYSTEM THAT YOU SIMPLY CANNOT SEE the Truth of what is going on in this diocese.
But I've been painfully aware for years now of your scorn for me and those I work with, by your comments and comments you have made to friends. I'm tired of it. We are not the enemy. We are not the problem. But you seem to expend an inordinate amount of energy worrying about us "conservatives" and our "approach" and not nearly enough about the real problems.
Again, It is the inaction of the bishops, and code of silence of the priests, that has thrust the duty of cleaning up this mess on the shoulders of the laity.
And there is nothing, NOTHING, us laity can do that could hurt the faithful in the pews more than the misfeasance and malfeasance of the hierarchy and priests that lead, over the last 4 decades, to this point.
Brian
This is good news. We don't have TV in our home, so most of my information regarding the coverage comes from internet news, especially here on FR, as well as internet email lists.
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