Posted on 05/02/2002 7:48:10 AM PDT by history_matters
ATLANTIC CITY - Three years before his death in 2001, a priest said he wanted to end "the silence of the decades" regarding alleged sexual abuse by his colleagues in the Camden Diocese.
So Monsignor Salvatore J. Adamo, then 78, went to the office of an attorney who had filed a class-action suit on behalf of victims and gave an affidavit in which he said the diocese promoted homosexual priests and ignored allegations of abuse to avoid moral responsibility and financial liability.
He said the late Bishop George Guilfoyle - who he said was known as "the Queen of the Fairies" - put his lovers in high positions in the diocese.
"As the years of my earthly journey are ebbing, I am compelled to speak the truth as to the germination of tragic incidents of pedophilia and sexual abuse that is known to have become incessantly rampant within the Diocese of Camden throughout the decades," Adamo said.
"I share years of personal knowledge and observations as a priest of the Diocese of Camden and servant of the Lord in rendering my opinion. I do so not to disgrace anyone or anyone's memory. I do so in the interests of disclosing the truth, to the extent that I know it, and in the interests of vindicating the victims of abuse," Adamo said.
The suit, which is being litigated in Superior Court, was filed in 1994 by 18 people who say they were molested by priests. It accused the diocese of covering up the abuse and in at least one case, transferring an accused priest to a new parish as a show of faith in his innocence.
Among the defendant priests is retired Monsignor Philip Rigney, 85, who allegedly molested two altar boy brothers for years.
Adamo's 1998 affidavit contains no details of firsthand knowledge of the alleged abuse and was barred from being admitted as testimony in the case.
It does appear in court documents.
"It is full of unsubstantiated claims and untruths," said Andrew Walton, a diocesan spokesman. Adamo was an "angry, bitter man" who had lingering resentment over having been passed up for promotions, Walton said.
Adamo served as executive editor of the diocese's weekly newspaper - the Catholic Star Herald - before being fired by Guilfoyle in 1977. He left the priesthood in 1991. He died in January 2001 of pneumonia.
According to his affidavit:
* Once Guilfoyle became bishop, there was a noticeable change in regard to "sexual expression in the Diocese. ... Guilfoyle's sexual preference was apparent. [He] came to be referred to as the 'Queen of the Fairies.' He was ... prone to promote his alleged male 'lovers.'"
* His "spiritual adviser" was the Rev. Patrick Weaver, an alleged pedophile who Adamo said was protected by the diocese "to avoid scandal and to cover up the record in Rome."
* Rigney served as Guilfoyle's "pimp," using his position as director of vocations for the diocese to fill vacancies with "priests having a homosexual propensity."
* Guilfoyle's successor, Bishop James T. McHugh, coerced Adamo into remaining silent on the topic, threatening to remove him as pastor of St. Vincent Palloti parish in Haddon Township and withhold pension money.
Walton would not comment Tuesday on the Adamo affidavit's allegations specifically, but disputed the assertion that McHugh tried to silence Adamo.
"Bishop McHugh wrote to him to insist that he stop writing about some of these issues because he so consistently and repeatedly misrepresented and mischaracterized the church's position on a whole range of issues," he said.
Walton noted that after Guilfoyle died in 1991, Adamo praised him as a gentleman and a model Christian in a newspaper column.
"Bishop Guilfoyle goes into eternity with the sign of the cross etched on his soul. He deserved to be loved more than he was," Adamo wrote in the column.
Rigney could not be reached for comment. A woman who answered the telephone at his home in Palm Beach County, Fla., hung up.
See The Perfect President, Post #5 and then follow my link in that post.
You and yours are the reason for the creation of this Religion Forum Ghetto in the first place.
You and yours are the source of Jim Rob's statement, I got tired of the constant abuse and headaches though because of diplomacy Jim cannot come out and say such.
Thus by your acts you and yours have committed the supreme act of squelching FRee Speech on this Forum.
And knowing this in your heart, you must put a happy face on it and say how wonderful life is here in the ghetto.
Once in a while we as Christians need to recognize and be subject to authorities that are higher than ourselves:
Rom 13:1 Let every soul be subject to the authorities that are above him . For there is no authority except from God; and those that exist are set up by God.
In this forum there is no higher authority than JR. So if you are not willing to be subject to his authority, then you should not be here. Right now we must recognize that at least in regard to this forum, JR's will is God's will.
Abide by it, or start your own forum.
If the Forums are separate, we'll advocate the Reformation of the Church in the Religion Forum.
If the Forums were to be Re-Combined, then we'll advocate the Reformation of the Church in the General Forum.
Either way, for America to be Reformed, the American Church -- the seed and generation of God's working in this Land -- must be Reformed.
To imagine otherwise, is to ignore the current state of the American Church.
The Church must be Reformed.
Of course, we post completely at your pleasure on this forum so your word is law, big guy.
Amen.
Lighten up. A lot of the Newsies go luriking around the religion ghetto. Your opinion, if its worth anything, will be circulated.
BTW it is God's will we've been banished here. Pretend its Patmos and you are Saint John.
I joined FR shortly after the March for Justice was televised on C-SPAN, because the media had become, with few exceptions, such as the American Spectator, Clinton sycophants. I pegged Clinton for a liar during the '92 campaign when he was characterizing a rather mild and short-lived recession as "the worst economy in 50 years" or "since the great depression". So my motivations for joining were political, and FR considered itself a "Conservative Political News Forum". Since my background is in physics and mathematics, I learned a great deal about politics and humanities from my exposure to this place. In those days, Lucianne Goldberg was a FReeper (in fact, she coined the term), and we had a number of impressive essayists, such as MadIvan, posting regularly.
I was also serious enough about my religious convictions to have spent a year as a novice monk in an abbey of the English Benedictine Congregation in Washington, DC. Naturally, religious ideas inform our morality, and the moral basis for law is an important component of political theory. So it is unavoidable that some aspect of religion enter into political discussion. In particular, the Clinton crisis was summarized by Henry Hyde (a conservative, pro-life Catholic) as centering around the meaning of oaths, and of course, the strength of oaths depends on whether or not we believe foreswearing them will have an effect on our eternal destiny. Alan Keyes, another conservative, pro-life Catholic, was making the point at that time - almost uniquely in the public forum - that the crisis America was facing was primarily a moral crisis. Using typically Catholic methods of reasoning, he looked to the Declaration of Independence as a way of injecting Judeo-Christian principles into our Constitutional republic. Anyone objecting to the Declaration would find himself in the position of questioning the basis for the American revolution as well.
In the course of these discussions, I became increasingly aware of the anti-Catholic current underlying much of American religious thought. I had not really experienced this as a young man, with the exception of a co-worker pressing upon me his copy of Robert Woodward's Babylon Mystery Religion. I found this book so incredibly poorly researched - what stands out in my memory is the author's attempt to make us into sun-worshipers based on his misrepresentation of the Holy Spirit window in St. Peter's Basilica as a "sunburst" - that I thought only the lunatic fringe could find it persuasive. Naturally, I never gave the experience a second thought. Until, that is, the fundies started their "flying-monkey" attacks on any FR thread that contained "Catholic", "Pope", or something similar in the title. Their posts were often quite hateful, and depended for their argumentation on gross misrepresentations of Catholic teaching. Their attitude was confrontational, and often quite venomous. I tried to understand this mentality, and I couldn't. I still can't, really. But the experience did teach me important lessons in the history of America, and its religous development. So I owe a debt to FR for opening my eyes in this way.
At first, we Catholics tried to ignore this bullying, in the hope that it would simply stop if we gave it no attention. The foundational assumptions of our interlocators ranged, after all, from the simply erroneous, to the paranoid, to the truly bizarre. There posts seemed unworthy of our attention, and forebearance seemed the best policy. But the attacks continued. Soon it was impossible to spend any time at FR without being insulted - often cruelly and deeply, and in some cases so badly that some of my friends lost sleep over the frustration they felt - so we began to defend ourselves. These defenses eventually developed into full-scale and often quite impressive apologetics. I generally demurred from taking part in them because I didn't think doctrinal discussions were really appropriate to a political news forum. The advent of the Religion forum removes that objection, and I will feel fewer qualms about such engagements. Unfortunately, my time for this will be quite constrained until summer.
The press constantly misrepresents Catholic teaching, so much so that I bought one of my Jewish friends a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church so that he could get the straight story. No doubt the press, and the fundies, will continue to do this. The existence of the Religion forum gives us a legitimate opportunity to counter this misinformation. The present dispute seems to be over the amount of exposure the Religion forum gets relative to the News forum. As I've stated, I think there are simple remedies for this. I also think that fundie disruption - and, yes, I do contend that these people are the single most disruptive members of FR - is less likely than in the News forum, or at least it can be better contained.
It is difficult, as a Catholic, especially one who finds the fundie arguments entirely meritless, to endure, for example, the recent blasphemies against the Holy Eucharist. But it must be remembered that the FR management may not appreciate just how serious this sort of attack is to us. Similarly, the management may not be able to distinguish between our own displeasure with our spineless leadership, and prejudicial attacks against our Church. The upshot is that I would prefer that a Religion forum exist so that these discussions may proceed, rather than have such discussions be considered off-limits at FR.
The development at FR, which was originally essentially unmoderated, into its present moderated state, shows the folly of unregulated free speech. Stupidity always wins, because it is easier to tear something down than to defend its existence. Barbarians know this instinctively, which is why the maintenance of civilization is a constant struggle. One simply cannot mount a reasoned defense against every unsubstantiated allegation, and still have time left for intellegent, informed discussion among those who actually have some knowledge of the issues at hand. The Internet also provides no ordinary social inhibitions against shooting one's mouth off, so to speak, so the signal-to-noise ratio tends to diminish without some degree of supervision.
It is unlikely that the FR management will solve this problem to everyone's satisfaction. But it's rather unseemly to complain about their failures when they need not provide anyone a forum for anything at all. And I have learned valuable lessons from this experience as to just how reliable our ostensible political allies will be when the chips are down. Though it's not a lesson I've enjoyed learning, I'm grateful to FR for providing it.
Regardless the forum, thanks for the bandwidth, Jim.
Thank you for NOT recombining the forums. Some people around here have nothing else to do but complain and stir up strife. You have the patience of a saint! Would you like to be our next Pope?
No. If the article transfer is handled in a fair way, that is articles attacking the Church for its handling of this crisis and articles defending the Church are both moved, I don't have a problem. Regardless, I'm not going anywhere.
patent
Interesting response. Thanks. We can use that level of coherence in public debates. I DO think that public discourse was lowered immensely during the Clinton years, nearly a decade of cultural and moral insanity.
I fully expect the response to what I have said here to have a distinct demarcation between RC and NC. You have illustrated it well.
Searching for some intuition from fellow Christian freepers here on this one.
Something about all this attack on the Catholic Church regarding sexual immorality that has me a bit perplexed. It has to do with the nature of spiritual warfare in general. It's been my experience that when the Church is attacked by unbelievers, that if an impropriety exists, there is no shortage of press and hoopla left to attack the Church in every conceivable forum, vaulting every antichristian rhetoric at hand.
I don't see much evidence of this.
The query is similar as if Republicans in Congress were caught in a scandal and all of the sudden the Democrats just ignored it,....the lack of consistent activity causes me to doubt the veracity of the reports, not that it isn't possible, but human character/old sin nature wise, things don't seem to add up.
A second point. The allegations are that the Church leadership is and has been wittingly corrupt for decades now. Yet we have small groups of 'believers' bringing these issues to light of day in quiet forums, with little fanfare. Those bringing the issues to light seem to be young or immature Christians, who would be very prone to 'Crusaderism' or eager to attack the devil.
I've pondered this a bit, and I wonder if we aren't actually witnessing a barrage of false witness and biased attacks on scanty evidence supported by say a handful of valid charges, but the bulk being an ulterior attack on the Church. This would tend IMHO to better explain the character and behavior of the parties involved in the public forum charged and involved in the issues directly.
On the other hand, perhaps the Adversary is so deeply entrenched and successful in the Catholic Church, that as a divided house won't stand, antichristian views aren't pushing too hard.
Curious as to the intuition and read of others on this perspective.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.