Posted on 08/30/2018 2:23:49 PM PDT by markomalley
FR seems to suppress noting the parallel to Augustinian Martin Luther’s efforts to reform the Church.
Not sure what that’s about but it is creepy.
The laity must always be attentive to the marks of the Church.
We recite it in the creed - One Holy Catholic Apostolic.
When I get to Holy, I pause.
Sixteen years ago ..... Not long thereafte ... Chicago
This kind of fake news is absurd in 2018. When I went from Wheaton College to Chicago’s inner city dominated by Catholics there were frequent reports of priests abusing altar boys. Niles Seminary was nothing but a club for gay preists to hit on altar boys who were now 18. Mundelein Seminary was a heavier dose than Niles.
When a priest was sleeping with the director of the local welfare office, the old ladies would say “Well, at least he isn’t doing it to the altar boys like all the others”.
The real story here is the way so many Catholics were resigned to what they knew was happening and let it continue.
In our American culture we have this excuse that “nobody knew”, which of course, is a lie. We know and don’t do anything about it.
Thank you.
What a wonderful comment.Thank you.Any Christian that is enjoying this is short sighted.
Yes, the Church was that.
#EchoHomo
Neal Morse The Conflict, from his concept album on the life of Martin Luther, Sola Scriptura.
("I may have a mistress but at least I'm a hetero...")
If they got into a position of authority in the church, they are not innocent. At the very least they are complicit in their silence.
There is a vast difference between "knowing about" and PROVING such allegations. Without actual hard evidence (photos/videos??) the "average person in the pew" is hard pressed to do anything.
I sense that this time is different. The laity is really "up in arms" over this, and are very much P.O.'d with the vacillation of the bishops, who DO have the power and authority to take action.
When 4 or 5 students at Holy Trinity HS all make the same allegations against the same collar and adults believe there is no need for “beyond reasonable doubt”. You go to the Bishop (Cardinal Cody in the Chicago case) and say “This collar should confess, and part of his penance and repentance is that he will not be in any role that teaches, coaches or supervises anyone younger than the collar is.
When 4 or 5 students at Niles Seminary Prep transfer out or drop out and all make the same allegations and try to start a movement but nobody will join, who is to blame?
When lay groups go on retreat to Mundelein Seminary and see suspicious stuff, and the priest leading the group tells us to close our eyes and pray ... the priest who is openly gay, has a townhouse he shares with other priests in gay-town on his day off is said to only do it with othe adults ... that priest tells us to close our eyes and pray ... and don’t judge.
So now it has to be handled externally, which involves the criminal justice system, and "does" require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
My point is that many thousands, probably millions, of practicing Catholics saw it and continued to take communion from bad priests. They continued to have the priest perform all kinds of sacraments for them, knowing full well what he was ... but living in denial of it ... pretending it was not real.
I seriously doubt that that number of parishioners knew. Queers are very good at hiding and obfuscating. And from my reading of the PA report (I'm only up to page 300 out of 1400), those who did know were told "it's been reported to the bishop" and went away expecting it was being handled.
Virtually everything I read points up two things...the laity by far did NOT know, and they are by damned expecting the hierarchy to get it right this time or there would be consequences. Any priest or bishop who thinks they can get away with delay and obfuscation this time is simply foolish.
I was active in an Alinsky organization run by Msgr John Egan with the mandatory support of 22 of the 23 Catholic churches in the neighborhood for the Alinsky organization.
I heard the voices of lay and clergy from all 23 Catholic churches, plus many of the schools which were also in the Alinsky organization (NCO-Northwest Community Organization). The Alisnky organization played on finding things people were upset about and organizing around those issues. I would estimate that 95% of the 20,000 people who attended an anti-Urban Renewal hearing (the biggest issue in the area) ... 95% of 20,000 were aware of the pdeophile problem in the Clergy. Of course, only 75% of the 20,000 were Catholic. So many Protestants were also aware of it.
The NCO had a rule that they only attacked outside enemies, eg Daley and city hall. The pedophile problem was considered an internal issue. Interestingly, if you think back to the 60s. The Republians were the pro-homo party. The Democrats were the ones who were beating the s..t out of homos. The far left wing Alinsky organizers were extremely anti-homo. It was the non-ideologues who prevented them from organizing on that issue.
Separately, in 1969 I rented an apartment to a Niles Seminary drop out who dropped out because he did not like the non-stop homo pressure on him and his fellow students. My tenant tried to organize other Niles students and dropouts who were unhappy with the situation at Niles. He had a few meetings in his apartment of 8 or 9 but it never went anywhere. He only lived in my place about 4 months and then moved on.
Interesting politics. From internal references, I assume this is some diocese in/near Chicago. Given the strong Irish presence in the priesthood of the day, I suspect the Chicago hierarchy “owned” Daley.
bump
The Catholic parishioners in the 23 parishes in my area in 1964 were probably 70% Polish, 20% Italian, 10% a mix of Hispanic, Slovak, Ukranian, Irish, German and other. Over the years the Hispanic ratio increased to over 50% of those who actually lived in the area and attended Catholic mass.
Under Cardinal Cody the Irish controlled everything. Msgr John Egan controlled all money for charity and activism, and the assignment of priests based on activism. The normal pattern was to roate pastors in the archdiocese every 7 years. Egan repeatedly bent that to keep activist priests in control of community activism when his own agenda would have been served by getting more fresh blood in a parish.
Hmmm...I think I see why folks in your area might be more vulnerable to believing the priests and bishops and not their own lying eyes and ears, depending on how recently they or their families emigrated. They are (or were) trained from childhood to elevate the hierarchy to a level of virtually absolute unquestioned authority.
Poles are in two distinctly different camps in view of role of the clergy. The Polish Roman Catholic Union is identified with what you describe.... clergy that are untouchable... are sacred... almost infallible. That is half.
The other half, the PNA-Polish National Alliance is the Poles of Pope John Paul II and Lech Walesa. See Adam Andrzejewski on openthebooks.com for these Polish American political views. Their view is closer to Protestant than the Irish view. Poland never had a Protestant Reformation because half the Polish Catholic Churches were already similar to Protestant in some respects.
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