Dr. Judith Reisman, Advises Catholic Church to Sue the Sex Experts for Medical Malpractice

Dr. Judith Reisman, Debunker of Kinsey Sex Research, Advises Catholic Church to Sue the Sex Experts for Medical Malpractice

As the sex scandal in the Catholic Church continues to unfold, the most shocking aspect is not so much the abuse itself, but that molester priests were repeatedly given access to children, even after they were known to be child molesters. While the Bishops are in a large part responsible for the sex scandal in the church, there is a growing body of evidence pointing to an enormous fraud perpetrated on the Catholic Church by so-called sex "experts" who consulted to the Bishops and allegedly "treated" sex abuser priests.

What if these "experts", who claimed that child molesting priests could be reformed and then repatriated to their parishes, weren't really experts at all? What if they were quack doctors, who believed there was fundamentally nothing wrong with adult/child sexually contact? What if their so-called treatments never showed success, and in fact were never intended to stop child sexual abuse?

This is the thesis advanced by Dr. Judith Reisman, Ph. D., who believes that the entire field of sexology, established by the notorious Dr. Alfred Kinsey, is a fraud. Dr. Reisman also believes that the so-called treatments given to predator priests in Kinsey inspired therapy sessions were so grossly ineffective, that the Catholic Church and the victims of clerical sexual abuse have a legal claim against these sex clinics for medical malpractice. She is currently consulting with several attorneys regarding class action suits whereby the Catholic laity can seek damages.

Dr. Reisman, Ph.D. visited Chicago in November to discuss these issues and the second edition of her landmark book, Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences at the invitation of Catholic Citizens of Illinois, a lay group founded in 1996 which offers a monthly luncheon and speaker forum open to the public.

After completing her doctorate studies in mass communication in 1980, Dr. Reisman entered an investigation into Dr. Kinsey . In 1998, she published the first edition of Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences, which exposed Dr. Kinsey, for the first time, as an academic fraud and a bi/homosexual responsible for massive child molestation.

Long before the Catholic Church made the headlines for the child abuse scandals, Dr. Alfred Kinsey, the so-called father of the Sexual Revolution, was quietly employing child abusers and homosexuals as researchers. In spite of the fact that Kinsey was a bi/homosexual, criminally responsible for massive child molestation, and an academic fraud, he obtained the financial backing of the notorious Rockefeller Foundation. Kinsey's research was ultimately used to eliminate laws that banned pornography and sexual deviancy in all fifty states. In the process, he ignited the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties. Kinsey was so influential on American culture that in 1989 the National Research Council pronounced that American society could be divided into "Pre- and Post Kinsey" eras.

Dr. Reisman's investigation has revealed that the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University ("IU"), led by Dr. Kinsey, was responsible for the criminal sexual abuse of over 300 infants and children, the results of which were published in Kinsey's 1948 report on male sexuality. Dr. Reisman also revealed that Kinsey's female 'research' subjects would have included large numbers of prostitutes, the only women willing to candidly discuss their sex lives with him. For his "normal" male subjects, Kinsey used prison inmates, where homosexuality was rampant .

By performing his 'research' on a population on children, and men and women who were totally unrepresentative of the larger U.S. population, Kinsey's results were hopelessly flawed. Not only was Kinsey aware of this fraud, but his financiers at the Rockefeller Foundation were also aware. All parties knew that in the end, the 'research' needed to serve as evidence that sex laws needed to be overturned.

Dr. Reisman opened her lecture by showing a 1998 video "Kinsey's Paedophiles," produced by Britian's Yorkshire Television. The video was based largely on the results of Dr. Reisman's findings and documents the existence of known child abusers on Kinsey's research team, including a Nazi in Germany who had abused imprisoned children during World War Two. As of this time, no public television station in the United States has shown the program, in spite of being sent copies, and in contrast to the openly pro-gay programming frequently aired on public television.

Dr. Reisman noted that, "the members of the Catholic Church have a unique opportunity during this catastrophic challenge to help the entire nation to pull itself out of the very tragic place it has fallen into." In addition to a catastrophic loss of faith within the Church hierarchy, the hidden source of the current child sexual abuse scandal "is the constant stream of immorality in the media and popular culture that has polluted the nation and the Church. The main source of the sexual scandal today is Dr. Kinsey's sexual revolution."

Dr. Reisman pointed out that the media's use of the term ephebophilia to describe the abuse by priests is an intentionally misleading manipulation of language. "The main problem has been priests having sex with boys. Ephebophilia can by definition be heterosexual or homosexual assault. What we see today are almost exclusively homosexual assaults of boys, 'pederasty', and it has a long history. Ephebophilia has no validity in terms of what is taking place in the Catholic Church."

"The idea that homosexuality is not about pederasty and abusing boys is not sustained by the data," said Dr. Reisman. "One of the most notorious lesbian activists, Camille Paglia, noted how ridiculous it is that the American public is being conned into believing homosexuality is not about boys. Maintaining one's youth through the sexual abuse of boys, that is the history of homosexuality going back to the ancient Greeks."

As for the current propaganda alleging children are 'born gay', Dr. Reisman stated, "There are no scientific data confirming children are born homosexual. Historically and cross-culturally, the data confirm the exact opposite, that homosexuality is environmentally created and can be reversed." However, cautioned Dr. Reisman, in cases of pederasty, pedophilia, and other forms of sexual child abuse, there are no data confirming reversal or rehabilitation, as the recent experiences of the Catholic Church have demonstrated.

A publication by the North American Man Boy Love Association, co-found by the notorious Boston child molester Rev. Paul Shanley, cited Kinsey as the father of the pedophile and pederast movements. The article stated , "Gay liberationists in general, and boy lovers in particular, should know Kinsey's work and hold it dear. Implicit in Kinsey is the struggle we fight today."

Dr. Reisman highlighted the recent statements of Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz, who has insisted, "questions should be asked about the clinics and treatment centers used by Bishops, and the faulty counsel by various kinds of sexologists, psychologists and other assorted 'experts' who advised recycling predatory priests."

In response to Bishop Bruskewitz's call, Dr. Reisman has developed a proposal mapping out the legal strategy for suing the "treatment centers" that accepted predatory priests fraudulently promising to rehabilitate them. The report was recently hand delivered to Pope John Paul II. "We have to face the fact," noted Dr. Reisman, "that just as there are closet pederast priests, and even Bishops, there are pederast therapists," and they have been misleading the Church for decades. As of this date, there has been no response from the Vatican regarding Dr. Reisman's proposals.

Dr. Reisman noted that legal precedence for culpability of therapists for fraudulent malpractice has already established by a $5.7 million award in 1984 against one such center, which had established a record for treating and releasing sexual predators who continued to prey on children after they had been allegedly "cured."

Referencing a growing mountain of evidence, Dr. Reisman declared it a well know fact that for decades parish school children, seminarians and priests in the Catholic Church have been counseled and taught using Kinsey's perverted and fraudulently derived theories of sexuality. In fact, "They (seminarians) have been taught the Sexual Attitude Restructuring (SAR) process that was created at the Institute for the Study of Advanced Sexuality in San Francisco, which was founded by Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, Dr. Kinsey's one time lover. Pomeroy who not only endorsed wife-swapping and homosexuality, but has also extolled the virtues of child sex and even bestiality."

We often hear of predatory priests who were "treated in California" and later released. What the media fails to mention is that they were treated at Kinsey based centers where the 'experts' all believe homosexuality is completely natural, and that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with adults who prefer to have sex with children, according to Dr. Reisman.

In fact, notes Dr. Reisman, Kinsey's 'research' was not designed to simply liberate America from outdated and restrictive sexual morality, which is a common misconception. "Kinsey meant to undermine the legal protections for the institution of marriage," writes Reisman in her book, and the legal legacy of Kinsey's efforts is an accelerating desent of our culture into pornography, protected by a perversion of laws governing freedom of speech.

" The "Sex Offenses" section defining "normal sexuality" of The Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute ("ALI") that changed all our sex laws was 100% the work of Dr. Alfred Kinsey," Reisman noted. "The ALI is the educational arm of the American Bar Association ("ABA") which educates our lawyers. If you are being taught fraud in your law school, via Dr. Kinsey, how can one be expected to go into a courtroom and argue effectively?" It was the introduction of Kinsey's sexology 'findings' into major law schools, via the ALI Model Penal Code, that began the process of repealing state laws, according to Dr. Reisman.

Kinseyites in all the top the law schools, according to Dr. Reisman, published law review articles demanding we lighten our allegedly repressive sex laws. "It was a small cabal of lawyers, psychologists, and Kinsey," said Reisman. "These people went about quietly, state by state, creating commission reports on sex that were forwarded to the state legislatures. The legislatures then responded by implementing the ALI/MPC recommendations. Prostitution, "contributing to the delinquency of a minor, sodomy, all of these laws crumbled when Kinsey 's fraudulent data were presented to state lawmakers."

"Kinsey broke down the structures that were put into place in our society to protect children, women, and the family structure," Dr. Reisman observes. " Look at the data regarding sex in the late 1940's. Abortion was illegal and contraception was difficult to obtain, especially for a single person. If what Kinsey was saying about the commonality of co-habitation, sex out of wedlock, prostitution and promiscuity were true, we would have had epidemic rates of "illegitimacy," sexually transmitted diseases , rape, and child sexual abuse. In fact, there were no such epidemics, because nonmarital sexual activity simply did not exist on anywhere near the scale Kinsey claimed.

Dr. Reisman noted, "Kinsey said he found that children were 100% orgasmic, even babies. 96% of our men are male sex offenders, 50% of husbands and 26% of wives were adulterers, and 90% of all single pregnant girls were having abortions… He claimed that the majority of all American men and women were bi-sexual…Which begs the question -- how does he know all this?" Dr. Reisman speculates that Kinsey's Midwestern university credentials were critical in suppressing protest. In her book, Dr. Reisman includes public relations photos and campaigns that were used to give the public the impression that Kinsey was an otherwise normal and serious scholar, and the con worked. "Nobody asked how he knew about the children's orgasms," noted Dr. Reisman, "because it was assumed that Kinsey's university research was scientific, and guess what? It wasn't scientific at all. It was fraud!"

"What's the fallout?" asks Reisman, "Just look around. If law and society say that out of wedlock births are OK and sadomasochism or bestiality are just alternative lifestyles, how can law and society say that any kind of obscenity is wrong? You can't make pornography illegal if its OK for people to be doing anything they want outside of marriage. If that's the case, then why isn't it OK to simply photograph and sell it?"

"The human sexuality disciples of Alfred Kinsey today counsel the Catholic Church," warned Dr. Reisman. "They train its children as future nuns, priests, brothers and bishops and they are Kinseyans, without question."

Kinsey disciple, Dr. Fred Berlin, from Johns Hopkins University, has been a major advisor to the to the Catholic Church since 1985, when he was identified as an expert in the treatment of pedophiles. Dr. Berlin was recommended to the National Council of Catholic Bishops ("NCCB") in a document known as the Peterson/Doyle Report, which has been cited as a warning of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests that was ignored by the NCCB.

The problem with the report is that it recommended the Bishops turn over all of their problem priests to sexual treatment centers, specifying Johns Hopkins, which was based entirely on the perverted and fraudulent treatment methods of Kinsey. While it is often said that the Bishops did not act on this report, it is clear that indeed they did send pedopriests to these centers for repair, or cures.

Both Dr. Berlin and Dr. John Money had been recommended to the Bishops by the authors of the Peterson/Doyle Report. (Peterson later died of died of AIDS.) Peterson wrote, "Drs. Money and Berlin are considered by me and most people the field as the two U.S. experts (and are) mental health professionals with good success in the treatment of such disorders." According to Dr. Reisman, Berlin and Money are peddling Kinsey's bogus sex science.

Dr. Berlin himself has stated publicly that he would not turn over predatory child molesters to the police. In fact, in1988 the Maryland press reported there were at least 8 men accused of sexually abusing children under the care of Dr. Berlin. "Dr. Berlin has served as a witness for sadistic sex offenders, and has testified in court that such men cannot control their sexual barbarism," observed Dr. Reisman. "But these deviants have no difficulty controlling their lust when they are in front of parents or legal authorities."

Dr. Reisman noted that, "Dr. John Money has written in the Journal of Paedophilia that sex between men and boys is a perfectly viable activity, it's really good for the boys, and he says he would never report a pedophile (to the police). This is the man in charge of training and curing priests!" Dr. Money also claimed that the Johns Hopkins clinic was not created to repair sex offenders but to give "lee-way for judges," as an alternative to jail.

In fact, Peterson's assessment of Money and Berlin's success was false. They had demonstrated no success in 'curing' child abusers. Another Johns Hopkins and Kinsey influenced 'expert' who impacts the Catholic Church is Dr. Paul McHue. Dr, McHue was appointed by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops ("USCCB") leader Bishop Wilton Gregory to the Catholic oversight board responsible for overseeing the implementation of various sexual abuse reforms. His role on the board is stated to have been to provide expert advice on the psychological treatment of clerics accused of sexually abusing children.

In a story critical of Johns Hopkins 'treatment' of pedophile priests, the Maryland press revealed that Dr. Berlin had been subverting the child abuse reporting required by state law with the full approval of his boss, Dr. Paul McHue. Dr. McHue was in charge of the treatment center at Johns Hopkins when Dr. Money was forcing boy patients at Johns Hopkins to engage in incestuous child pornography, which was revealed in the book As Nature Made Him, a book about trans-gendered operations performed at Johns Hopkins.

"I don't want to impugn the Bishops," said Dr. Reisman. "One of the reasons I focus on the Peterson /Doyle report is because I believe that document intentionally mislead the Catholic Church. This document told the Bishops to turn over all of their pederast priests to professionals…(The Peterson/Doyle Report) claimed they could cure the child abusing priests knowing they couldn’t. Whether Father Doyle understood this reality is another question. On the less generous side, just as we have closet pederasts in therapy profession, we have closet pederasts among the bishops. The problem is that these pederast bishops can influence other bishops and as a result, compromise the entire structure. In the end, there's simply no justification for Paul McHue being on an advisory board designed to curb child sexual abuse."

The Peterson/Doyle report also said, quoted Dr. Reisman, that, "the Catholic Church had to get away from its "extreme moral judgmentalism" and the only way was to transfer the sex offenders to specialized clinics, so they could be trained and repatriated. But you can’t very well train and repatriate a pederast priest if you believe that pederasty is OK, can you?"

Kinsey's influence on the Catholic Church is far deeper than the bogus treatment facilities responsible for recycling predator priests. The Kinsey Institute is the curator of the 'science' Kinsey created, and responsible for spreading it. To the extent that Kinsey's views on sex have been nearly universally accepted as truth, they have infiltrated public and private schools, and even been introduced into U.S. seminaries.

In his best selling book, Goodbye Good Men, author Michael Rose records the testimony of dozens of seminarians exposed to radical programs featuring hard core pornography while they were in the seminary. Remarkably, these programs continue in seminaries all over the world. Dr. Reisman contacted Rose after reading his book to make sure Rose was aware that these programs were products of the Kinsey Institute, and specifically, the Sexual Attitude Restructuring (SAR) program. The SAR as shown in Kinsey training centers is a barrage of pornography on multiple screens, which is consistent with the programs described by shocked seminarians. In addition to seminarians, hundreds of orthodox priests who have been adjudged as "too rigid" have been forced to enter SAR programs at indoctrination centers across the country.

Just how has the Sexual Revolution spawned by Kinsey changed our culture? Dr. Reisman cited the statistics recently released by the U.S. Department of Justice. From 1976 to 1999 there has been a 1,311% increase in child sexual abuse. Roughly 400,000 children are prostituted annually in the United States. 67% of all reported sex abuse victims are children, and 34% of those children are under 12 years of age. 64% of all forced sodomy victims are boys under the age of 12 and age 4 is the most common age.

In 1999 the US Department of Justice reported 58,200 cases of non-family child abductions, two thirds reporting sexual abuse. 35% of these kidnappings were of boys, commonly abducted and sexually abused by homosexual men, who represent only 2% of the total population, according to Dr. Reisman.

Dr. Reisman concluded, "The ultimate source of the child sex abuse scandal in the Church can only be understood by studying Alfred Kinsey, the bisexual, pornographically obsessed pederast guru, and his disciples who currently counsel church and secular leaders."

For more information about Dr. Reisman, see www.drjudithreisman.org. To order a copy of Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences, do so at the website or call, The Institute for Media Education at 1-800-476-0975.

Karl Maurer is the President of Aquinas Consulting, CPA's and Management Consultants, and is the Vice President of Catholic Citizens of Illinois (www.catholiccitizens.org). He may be reached at karl@aquinconsult.com.

Thanks for the ping!

Yes, this is a great article with lots of info. And I really like the idea of suing the "experts." Are there any legal folk out there who might know if this is workable?

I think you're right, saradippity, there is definitely a decline in interest in actually doing anything about this problem. Once the press got Law out (although I personally think he should have resigned in shame much earlier, and given the press less fodder), the story lost momentum with them. In any case, they certainly don't want to examine the issue of the devastation wrought by homosexual clergy.

And I suspect there are many in the Church who also just want to keep their heads down for a bit, until the whole thing has gone away and they can go back to business as usual.

Q: Who is going to be hurt by the lawsuits?
A: Certainly not the guilty -- not the pederast and not the negligent bishops.

True. I have a friend who teaches at the school in the parish in St. Louis that was hardest hit. In the last couple weeks, the former associate pleaded guitly and my friend told me that it just brought all the anger and resentment back to the surface. Here was the priest they confessed sins to. The counselor. The "good guy" going to jail for a heinous crime - where EVERYONE is a victim and nothing can change that. I'm just glad that the child and that parish were spared a trial. Those people really feel betrayed because that associate was the one who told them about the pastor and was the comforter, the healer - when all along he was just as guilty. And not even a month later, Bishop Dolan, who was living there, was sent to Milwaulkee.

Does anyone know who was on the bishops committee that appointed these characters?
The members of the episcopal committees are not publicly identified by the NCCB, although individual members sometimes choose to identify themselves (see, for example, Bishop Pilarczyk's CV).

My initial suspicion is that the bishop of the diocese in which John Hopkins is found had a hand in this. That would be Cardinal Keeler, Diocese of Baltimore. Sound familiar? : )

But, I can see the odd archbishop giving it a try anyway.

With respect, I'd say that a better use of the "odd archbishop's" time would be in cleaning his own house. This is not by way of excusing quack therapists, but simply to say that corrupt bishops consulted quack practitioners because they wanted quack results.

These sex therapists were running a laundry for soiled priests, and all concerned knew it.

And what if the secular medical professionals really told the hierarchy not to let these clowns back into contact with children, but the hierarchy did so anyway?

As usual, secular society is better than the RCC and ahead of the curve, while the hides behind joke, grifting academics to defraud people of knowledge of its misdeeds.

As usual, conservative Catholicism cooks up a lie. It has no integrity, and nothing to offer Americans beyond smoky bingo halls, fish fries and the smell of cheap, stale beer.

Thanks, Siobhan. That's sort of the feeling I had. I thought he was pro-life (which in my mind always takes priority), but I've never been entirely comfortable with him. I had the same feeling about Law: orthodox on the surface, but obviously with a lot of other things going on, as we have all discovered.

I don't know if any other Freepers read McCarrick's "Christmas" article, but it nearly ruined my day.

I don't trust McCarrick at all. I know of too much feminist/homosexual dissent¹ festering in the Archdiocese of Washington. He tolerates the intolerable. The place seems to be ruled by the bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy is not entirely orthodox.

1) I am not aware of any cases of sexual abuse. If I were, somdbody would be linking the Washington Post article...

Dear ArrogantBustard,

Cardinal McCarrick has been here in Washington not quite two years.

Do you believe that the "feminist/homosexual dissent" began with him?

"The place seems to be ruled by the bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy is not entirely orthodox."

This is not surprising in that the Archdiocese of Washington is the physical nexus for Georgetown University, The Catholic University of America, the bishops' conference, and several other related, wooly organizations.

Cardinal Hickey labored here for 20 years, and achieved many victories over these folks, but nonetheless, did not achieve anything approaching complete success.

Furthermore, Cardinal Hickey had a heck of a time getting traction here. It took years before he figured out how to effectively rout the heterodox. And he learned that patience was his friend. He learned that in being patient with the heterodox, once he disciplined them, no one could argue that he had not gone the extra mile to win them back.

Why do you believe that in less than two years, Cardinal McCarrick should have accomplished what Cardinal Hickey fought for 20 years?

sitetest

Dear Brother Knight, I thought you were stuck in Richmond??? Virginia Beach, to be exact?

I've been in the "Washington Area" since the late 1980s. I've been personally connected to ADW Catholic High Schools (in what capacity I will not specify in an open forum) for almost that entire time. I have also been personally connected with the Pro-life office for much of that time.

The Pro-life office is run by a gentleman of sterling character; I have naught but praise for him and and the work of his group. The High Schools are a different matter. The handful of orthodox Theology teachers whom I know, from several schools, report constant struggle with their administrations to maintain some semblance of a Catholic identity to the school. One school's principal is a dissident feminist ex-nun (I'm referring to a specific person) who deliberately hired a male homosexual religion teacher (again, specific person in mind, here), and earlier had vetoed an ex-lesbian guest speaker, on the grounds that homosexuality is not an abnormality. I find this principal, and her protestant/dissident administration to be typical of the suburban Washington High Schools I am familiar with. I saw no change in this problem over the past 15 years, and Cardinal McCarrick seems to me to be going along to get along.

In sum, the problem began before Cardinal McCarrick showed up, it festered under the bishopric of Cardinal Hickey, and continues unabated.

In fairness, I have the understanding the Catholic University has somewhat cleaned up its act in the past few years. And the worst of the liturgical abuses I used to see in some parishes have been corrected. But the problems of inadequate and heterodox catechesis in primary and secondary schools, fostered by dissident and protestant school administrations, continues unabated.

Dear AB,

Vivat Jesus!

No, I'm here in the Archdiocese of Washington, though now I live just across the line in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. I'm a "transdiocesan". I told my pastor that perhaps I should transfer, but he likes us Knights (he instigated the institution of our Council), and won't let me go. I caught him muttering something about Fr. "X" of my geographical parish, and draft picks and several players in trade. ;-)

I appreciate your comments regarding Catholic high schools in our archdiocese. I am a graduate of one. I can assure you, they were worse when I graduated (1978). I'm unsure whether or not my senior religion teacher was even a theist. Pretty sure he wasn't a Christian (Ironically, some years after I left, he sort of "converted" to Catholicism - after having been the head of the religion department at a Catholic high school for nearly 20 years!!). The catholicity of my alma mater is dramatically improved since I went there. And frankly, I don't think the folks running my old school were the worst of the lot.

As to the elementary schools, many of them have improved even more dramatically. I've seen the religious education homework of the kids at the local regional school. It is worlds away better than what they did to us thirty-plus years ago. I regret to say that CCD doesn't seemed to have improved much, that I can see, but it's a long war, not a short battle.

"But the problems of inadequate and heterodox catechesis in primary and secondary schools, fostered by dissident and protestant school administrations, continues unabated."

Pope St. Pius X made complaints about the poor catechesis of Catholics in his day. I suspect that it's like shoveling sand against the tide.

I just don't see that one can yet hold Cardinal McCarrick responsible for things which, as you say, have their roots going back decades.

sitetest

Cardinal Hickey is a man of valor who had a careful and purposed plan for his pastoral leadership and the tending of the straying. Mind you his method was not my cup of tea ( coming from the "off with their heads" school of thought as I do ), but I have great respect for him. If you look to Cardinal McCarrick's previous diocese, you will find something very different indeed having transpired there. Part of our family had a grave issue with a priest, and they were treated by the then bishop in such a cold calculating way that I can only describe his actions as without honor.

A man can become more than his past or past choices. But to do that, a man must change his friends and stop listening to those who have given him bad counsel in the past. Would that Cardinal McCarrick would say adieu to some of those who give him close counsel. Such cold, calculating men can do more harm than most would imagine.

obvious protestant here:
This is not a uniquely Roman Catholic issue, though your church has my sympathy and prayers for healing with the attention it has drawn from these matters. We protestants have some of the same issues, though heterosexual abuse seems to predominate. This article should go out to All Christian churches both Catholic and Protestant. i'll bet some of those seminaries referred to in the article were Protestant, in fact i'll bet a lot of them were. This Kinsey view has permeated all of society. i once heard James Dobson (Focus on the Family) say that abuse of (male) children by men was not homosexual! There is much propoganda in our society to counter, and both branches of Christianity should turn their attention to it.

Dear Siobhan,

Life has its ironies.

"Cardinal Hickey is a man of valor who had a careful and purposed plan for his pastoral leadership and the tending of the straying. Mind you his method was not my cup of tea ( coming from the 'off with their heads' school of thought as I do ), but I have great respect for him."

When I was young (and even more stupid than I am now, if that can be believed), I was one of the folks quite horrified when Cardinal (then merely Archbishop) Hickey took the "off with their heads" approach. In his early years, he had an iron fist, no velvet glove. There is a parish nearby that was absolutely traumatized by his poor handling of appointing a new pastor. The wound has not healed nearly 20 years later.

The cardinal grew wise after a while, and came to understand that frontal assault was often ineffective. It didn't play well to the media or to a large majority of less-than-fully knowledgeable Catholics, it gave ammunition to his enemies, and it often accomplished little at a very great price.

In his later years, he waited patiently to do the things he needed to do. He provided every opportunity for folks to get back on the program. He let out enough rope so that folks would hang themselves. This seemed to be more effective.

"If you look to Cardinal McCarrick's previous diocese, you will find something very different indeed having transpired there. Part of our family had a grave issue with a priest, and they were treated by the then bishop in such a cold calculating way that I can only describe his actions as without honor."

I saw Cardinal Hickey do things which could be fairly called the same. I suppose that effective bishops must be cold and calculating, even ruthless. I wish that instead of maintaining his warm personal relationships that he'd had with his own errant priests, that Cardinal Law had acted more ruthlessly years ago.

That being said, I'm a great fan of Cardinal Hickey. When I weigh the bad against the good, he seems to me to have been better than most.

sitetest

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