Click here to read: “Irish abuse victim tells Pope she wants Cardinal Brady removed,” by Patsy McGarry, The Irish Times, July 7, 2014.
Excerpt: “It’s a big thing with me that there are still members of the hierarchy there who were involved in the cover-up. I feel personally they (Church) cannot contemplate any change happening, there will be no success” as long as such people remained in place, she told The Irish Times today.
In the Philadelphia Inquirer today, one day after meeting face to face with several sexually abused victims, Pope Francis likened priests who abused children to members of a “sacrilegious cult.” What a wishy-washy if not pusillanimous statement. How can it be any comfort to the abused to hear the pope,yet again, insinuate that the priest abusers were not part and parcel of The Church hierarchy. The culture of The Church fostered the abuse and covered it up – not some outside cult.
I read recently that boys in Catholic orphanages in Ireland would wet the bed so that the night visiting priest would not abuse them “In 1984, nearly 90% of Irish Catholics attended weekly mass. By 2011 only 18 percent did.” (Article in The Week Magazine, week of 4 July.)
Reid
If Pope Francis were to dismiss all of the hierarchy involved in the cover up of abuse, I don’t think there would be too many left. The movement of priests to avoid prosecution was also a big part of the cover up. I believe that this cover up was part of Church policy and started at the Vatican. Perhaps Pope Francis could start by looking at the popes that preceded him. Fat Chance.
Jim, don’t forget the nuns who had knowledge of and “properly” fostered the cover up. One, big, Catholic, institutional, groupthink, cover up crime! Name one cleric or religious sister who did NOT have knowledge of it. An entire religious sector, en masse, defiled children and itself in the name of loyalty.
Diarmuid Martin has never sat well with me, too quick to stand by victims of abuse for my liking, with the boy’s from Rome in his pocket.
Maybe because of his feeble excuse of why he never acted on what he knew what was going on under his nose, if not then certainly later before the lid came off during one of the Reports.
Or maybe he did but across the See of Ireland..
To the survivor’s request that Francis get rid of Ireland’s Cardinal Sean Brady he responded, “its difficult to change these things.” By that he means that he swore and vowed to maintain the priestly tradition of protecting his fellow brothers in Christ regardless of and in spite of their failings, sins, and crimes. THAT is the difficulty! Such an abominably misconstrued and distorted cultish atrocity. Utterly irrational, indecent, and unconscionable.
http://popecrimes.blogspot.com/?m=1
This guys puts everything in layman’s terms.
Remember, you can always trust guys like these!
http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm
All I can think is Jesus would have solved the problem rather quickly by flipping over a few tables and telling them to get out of His Fathers house…………
As a diocesan priest, (now retired from WDC) I can say that I never knew of any such actions by other priests nor did I ever have any inkling such activity was going on until it all hit the fan in the later 70’s and early 80’s. Classmates from the seminary and priests whom I knew suddenly became publicly known as pedophiles. Like many of our friends, we were overwhlemingly shocked by such appalling and horrendous activity. I personally knew none of the victims especially since the Archdiocese had been so secretive and made so many victims sign “secret agreements” and had not gone to the civil authorities first.
Last week, reading the Philly Inquirer, I found an article on the sport’s page about the suit against ” fan friendly mascots”. One such “team mascot” and the team he represented have been sued for tossing a hot dog into the stands and hit a fan in the eye causing significant damage. What is fascinating to me is the paragraph which states that (“employers can be held accountable for the unlawful conduct of their employees through the doctrine called “vicarious liability”).
If this is true and it is a “fundamental axiom” in the legal process, why has this not been applied to those in the hierarchy who knew and allowed sexual abusers to continue their activity of abusing children entrusted to them. If a company can be sued for a hot dog in the eye, why is this principal not applied to those who have responsibility of jurisdiction for priest pedophiles who scarred and destroyed the lives of so many innocent victims??
Clearly, priests “work” for the Diocese and the Bishop. Their salary and healthcare and living expenses and retirement are all cared for by the Bishop. If this not a contractual agreement of work, then it must be a form of “slavery”. Which surely is not the case.
It is true that apologies mean nothing unless there is some action to correct the evil and remove those responsible for allowing this evil to continue.
The absurd theological blockage to handling this situation is the idea of “Ontological Change”. Supposedly a priest is marked on the soul by some indelible sign by the Sacrament of Orders. So the hierarchs struggle to justify removing a person so marked. Historically this has always been a struggle to deal with such a person “marked forever”. Yet, the Inquisition had no problem burning any priest who disagreed with “Church Teaching”. I have not found any priest burned for pedophilia in our history, but if one has a theological discrepancy, one could be fed to the flames. I am so lucky that I live in this age of history and not just a few centuries ago.
Ontological change? Get real. I’m sick of it!
Anecdotal evidence altogether disproves it.
The majority were taught to be like the three wise monkey’s……hear think and speak…..not necessarily in that order..
Rev. Wintermyer,
To what degree does the average priest actually believe in the ontological change in your opinion?
I understand the ontological change dictates the choices and decisions of hierarchs in positions of authority. But are hierarchs merely “going through the motions” of ontological change or are they literally sold on the notion?
What kind of person would be comfortable being elevated to a superperson/superhero via the sacrament of Holy Orders?
Thank you.
Hold Hierarchy responsible for sexual abuse of children by priests in their dioceses.
Katherine, in response to your question, I have no idea how many priests really believe in this “theological mystery” but it is the basis for most of the theology surrounding the idea of priesthood. The idea that “priesthood is forever”. The need to “laicize” a priest after some major infraction and even then to know that the person remains a priest and can function in moments of crisis, eg. “give absolution to a dying person”.
Please do not hit me after these previous remarks. This is the Theology that envelopes the notion of “priesthood” from the middle ages until the present time.
Do I believe or accept such a notion? I am sure that I will get in real trouble, but absolutely not. Rome, the Vatican, is trapped in its own whirlpool of misunderstanding and theological ambiguity developed in a world which fully clashes with the real world in which we live and experience. The whirlpool just keeps going around and around and the “theologians” are stuck in this whirling flow of speculation, unable to free themselves
The Theology of the New Cosmology totally challenges most of the premises on which so much of “traditional” theology has been based. This notion of Indelible” marking is truly one of those assumptions to be challenged, no matter how “sacrosanct” that teaching is at the present.
Fr. Wintermyer, you hit the nail on the head with your “whirlpool” analogy. When a theological concept defies experience and reason, and hierarchs continue to cling to it, at best it’s a form of ignorance and at worst its a form of deception. Ignorance and deception are hardly attributes of a true religion. The hierarchical aimless swirling acts to defile Catholicism.
As always, thank you for your candid and honest response.
My image of monkeys is more the one where the 3 are covering their ears,eyes, and mouth. “I see nothing”. The priest that violated me was transferred and replaced by a second pedophile. Both are on the bishop accountability list
When he left another priest that had been in the parish all along (really nice sensitive guy) announced that he was leaving the priesthood. I often wonder if he heard something that he couldn’t deal with or had his hands tied by the company bosses. He was a very mild mannered spiritual guy. Hope he found a place to flourish and not be opressed to death
In an interview with Italian Newspaper, La Republica , Pope Francis with” reliable data” presented to him by colleagues admitted that two percent of cardinals, bishops and priests are pedophiles. Now as someone who knows how reliable statistics on pedophilia have proven in the past, I certainly have my doubts on these stats. The week back in 1992 that I went public, the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilaqua claimed to know of only fifty cases of abuse in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia dating back to the nineteen fifties .Both Grand Jury reports proved that this was an outright lie. From what I have read, six percent of Catholic Priests have been accused of molesting children in the United States. Not that statistics really matter, even one child is one too many..
The Vatican spin doctors jumped all over the 2%, claiming that wasn’t exactly what the pope said. They should have just let it go, as their response further diminishes their credibility. Only a fool would believe anything the Vatican press puts out. I’m with you Jim; the percentage is much higher.
On Richard Sipe’s website he reports that between 6 and 9 percent of U.S. priests have violated children.
Good for her…the Irish victim/survivor…glad she told the pope. Pope Francis and the hierarchy are never going to get this right unless they hear it ( and I mean really hear it…really listen) from those most impacted by this crisis…the victim/survivors. They are our best teachers. She is 100% correct. Justice needs to happen within the church and judicial system…this cardinal should be removed if we want this cancer to be healed. The church has lost its credibility globally. We are praying and fasting for the restoration of our universal church and an end to the corruption within all the way to the Vatican. We want our children, youth and all safe within our church and in greater society. We should lead the world on this issue which is a respect life issue…safeguarding and promoting the safety and well-being of our children and youth so they can grow up and have a healthy development un-impaired. The Pope must act justly on behalf of those who abused children and those who protected and moved the predators around only to abuse more children. Let the insanity and corruption end. Let the criminal behavior end. It has taken (and still is) a huge toll on every aspect of the church and devastated our soul. Let the dysfunctional, unhealthy behavior stop NOW! May more victims and survivors find their voice and speak out and up loud and clear…you are our hope!