Free Republic

Last week, The New York Times implicated Pope Benedict XVI in an alleged cover-up by accusing Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s deputy at the time, of stopping a canonical trial of a notrious child abuser-priest, Fr. Lawrence Murphy. Even though no decision was made by Cardinal Ratzinger himself, the implication is that he, as the ultimate authority on the question, was ultimately responsible in stopping this canonical trial. The Times's reporting was false. This petition seeks to correct the public record.

Late last week, the Canadian Bishops posted a news item on their website entitled “Professor Richard R. Gaillardetz responds to attacks“. The source of these “attacks” was a collection of credible critiques which I posted on Socon or Bust of Dr. Gaillardetz’s theological and moral positions at variance with Catholic teaching and pastoral practice. This theologian has been asked by the Cdn. Conf. of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) to speak at its plenary session this Oct.19-23. You can read the CCCB communication and Dr. Gaillardetz’s letter in response here: http://www.cccb.ca/site/content/view/2717/1217/lang,eng/ ...

Well, I must say that at least the CCCB is listening to the concerns of lay Catholics. That’s a good sign, indeed. In a statement published today by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops had this to say about Dr. Gaillardetz’s invitation to speak to them at their Plenary Assembly scheduled for October 19-23 in Cornwall, Ontario:

In light of these different foundations, therefore, it is important to point out to our opponents that their very conception of equality is fundamentally different than our own. There is a false assumption that both sides view equality in the same way. As we can see, however, that is not a valid assumption at all. It is no surprise, therefore, to find that there is a divergence of opinion on the issue of women’s ordination. Feminists believe they don’t have equality in the Church because they are denied a function, but this is a distortion of what true equality is....

Anyone who says that religion and politics don’t mix is a person I don’t want to have dinner with; really, these are the topics that animate life, at least life outside our own homes. Yet there are places where religion and politics should not mix and that is in one side telling the other what to do. What we have in two cases being deal with at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is a case of the state trying to tell a church and a religious organization what to do and that is scary. One case involves the rights...

Fr. Tom Rosica, the CEO of Salt + Light TV, has posted a scathing, malicious, and bizarre attack on the pro-life community in the Catholic Church on his blog, wildly accusing critics of Sen. Edward Kennedy’s public funeral of “division, destruction, hatred, vitriol, judgment and violence…destroying and killing others“. ...