Repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the Catholic Church


Don’t ask, Don’t tell” (DADT) was the official United States policy on same-sex oriented people serving in the US military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011.

“Don’t ask, Don’t tell” has been the official Roman Catholic policy

for priests and bishops for hundreds of years.

It is time to repeal Roman Catholic DADT.

(For today’s spiritual reflection I offer this  interview — sent by a good friend — that appeared in  SPIEGEL.)

Interview With Gay Theologian David Berger

“A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual”

David Berger, a gay theologian who has written a book about his experiences as a senior theologian in the Catholic Church, speaks to SPIEGEL about homophobia and the church’s shift to the right.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Berger, you describe the Catholic Church as a homophobic organization. Why did it take you, a homosexual theologian, so long to resign from your offices in the church?

Berger: Because such an exit isn’t a question of days. Even as a child I wanted to be a priest, but by the time I had finished high school it was clear to me that I would not be able to live a life of celibacy.

SPIEGEL: And you became a theologian anyway?

Berger: Yes, because the church never lost its attraction for me. The Tridentine Mass was like a gateway drug for me. When I was 17, I was with the Pius Brothers in Lower Bavaria. What I saw there was a fascinatingly aesthetic baroque dream of leaf gold and Brussels Bobbin lace. I couldn’t get away from it. It only became clear to me later what I had got involved in, and the dream turned more and more into a nightmare.

SPIEGEL: Why?

Berger: Because my own life, my life with a partner, increasingly contradicted what was said and demanded in my church environment. Through my enthusiasm for the traditional mass and for conservative theology, I became increasingly involved with conservative Catholic networks of young aristocrats, industrialists and reputable academics. They utterly condemned homosexuality.

SPIEGEL: How did that manifest itself?

Berger: I kept having to listen to inhuman views. For example, Hitler was praised for having interned and murdered homosexuals in concentration camps. The point came when I couldn’t remain silent any longer …

SPIEGEL: … after you and your career had profited for a long time from contact with these right-wing circles.

Berger: Ever since Pope Benedict XVI, at the latest, you have to be anti-modern to have a career in the Catholic Church. I criticized the relatively progressive theology and left-wing church policy of Karl Rahner. That is how people noticed me. Because I was an expert on the medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas, I was invited by almost all right-wing conservative groups to give lectures. I was in touch with the Sedevacantists, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, Una Voce, Opus Dei and the Servants of Jesus and Mary.

SPIEGEL: What went on at the meetings?

Berger: These groups are very careful about who they invite. They meet in very high-class venues, sometimes in former aristocratic residences or in luxury hotels. Old men smoke fat cigars, drink expensive red wine and eat well. It is a parallel world whose inhabitants seek to defy the modern world.

SPIEGEL: And what do they discuss?

Berger: They talk about a supposed Jewish global conspiracy or about how to keep emancipators, freemasons and gays out of the church. For many years, there were
“gentlemen’s evenings” in Düsseldorf that were organized by a tax consultant. They increasingly became a focal point for a right-wing Catholic network. At one of the meetings, which were regularly visited by senior clerics, the man sitting next to me, a retired university professor, was railing against the gay parades on Christopher Street Day (in Germany):
“Instead of standing in a corner, being ashamed of themselves and just shutting up, they behave like pigs gone wild.”

SPIEGEL: Why didn’t you turn your back on the church at that point?

Berger: Many gays are attracted by the clear hierarchies of the male world of Catholic rituals. Among clerics I discovered extremely effeminate behavior of the sort I knew well from certain gay scenes. People give each other women’s names and attach very high importance to clerical robes in all colors. Just think of the nicknames Bishop Walter Mixa (who recently stepped down amid accusations of violence and financial irregularities) and his housemaster friend gave each other: “Hasi,” or “bunny,” and “Monsi,” short for
monsignore.

SPIEGEL: Did you get the impression that your homosexuality may even have helped your career?

Berger: In clerical circles I kept getting shown through unmistakeable looks, hugs, stroking of my upper arms and excessively long handshakes that one didn’t just appreciate my work a lot. The fact that many prelates had homosexual tendencies is certain to have made them more ready to help me get positions.

SPIEGEL: And these gentlemen weren’t homophobic?

Berger: The contradiction between evident homosexual inclinations and homophobic statements is one way in which people in the church deal with their own, usually
suppressed inclination.

SPIEGEL: You must explain that to us.

Berger: Evidently those who succumb to their desires are rejected particularly vehemently by those who painfully suppress such leanings in themselves. In the course of my
own close cooperation with clerics, something I had long disavowed suddenly became clear to me: The fiercest homophobia in the Catholic Church comes from homophile clerics who desperately suppress their own sexuality.

‘I Hope that the Church Will at Last Confront the Issue of Homophobia’

SPIEGEL: Did you feel this pressure yourself?

Berger: I published the magazine Theological Issues and was summoned by the sponsors every time a faintly liberal view was espoused. Opus Dei people were always there to observe. They said I wasn’t allowed to write “life partner;” it should instead be referred to as “fornication partner.” “Homosexuality” was too neutral, they said. One had to refer to it as “unnatural fornication.”

SPIEGEL: What finally triggered your departure?

Berger: The appearance of the bishop of Essen, Franz-Josef Overbeck, on Anne Will (a prominent Sunday night political talk show broadcast on German public television station ARD), when he described homosexuality as unnatural and a sin during a debate about sexual abuse.

SPIEGEL: Did that make clear to you that you’d been part of the church too long?

Berger: Instead of standing up for my rights and those of my partner I supported anti-democratic and anti-liberal groups that fight against these rights and in which some people dream of a fundamentalist Catholic religious state or seriously call for a Catholic jihad. I joined in this playing with fire and was then naively appalled when the whole house was ablaze. I regret that.

SPIEGEL: It sounds as if your book is a confession. But your former colleagues are not prepared to grant you absolution.

Berger: A reputable theologian loyal to the pope put it clearly: He said I was given the opportunity to discreetly distance myself from the “scene.” I was offered the chance to continue this hypocrisy and go on climbing up the career ladder. Because I didn’t want to take part in this ecclesiastic “crisis management,” I was accused of “shamelessly seeking the public spotlight.”

SPIEGEL: What impact do you hope your book will have?

Berger: I hope that the church will at last confront the issue of homophobia. It must recognize that a large proportion of the Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexual.

SPIEGEL: Can one really apply your experiences with peripheral right-wing groups to the whole church?

Berger: Ever since the rehabilitation of the Pius Brothers with a Holocaust denier among its leaders, it has become evident how much influence extreme conservative circles
have won in just a few years. The views that used to be exchanged discreetly at gentlemen’s evenings or in the editorial conferences of newspapers and magazines have now been declared part of the official doctrine of the Catholic Church by leading clerics.

SPIEGEL: Where do you think this development will end?

Berger: The fear of the world, of a spoiled, godless civil society, from which the Catholic Church wants to seal itself off in a bastion, will lead into isolation. There is no longer much sign of the open spirit, the sense of renewal that emanated from the Second Vatican Council. In order to defend itself, the Vatican is instead relying increasingly on reactionary troops. It is closing ranks with evangelists, bible fundamentals and extremely reactionary forces. But a fundamentalist parallel world will turn the people’s church into a sect.

Interview conducted by Anna Loll
and Peter Wensierski


http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,730520,00.html

Note to my readers: I have not forgotten the Autumn hierarchical fashion show…It will still come…..JW GREENLEAF

From the Boston Globe…..


 

September 17, 2011

As a dispute escalates between the Roman Catholic Church and the government of Ireland, it’s clear that the Vatican still has yet to fully digest the lessons it might have drawn from the sex-abuse scandal in the United States. This summer, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny delivered a thorough condemnation of the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse allegations. The Vatican, not to be outdone, recalled its ambassador. Then, Justice Minister Alan Shatter suggested passing a law that would require priests to report suspicions of child abuse, even if learned by confessions.

The dispute, which surely could have been avoided, is all the more remarkable in light of the traditional closeness between the church and Ireland’s elected leaders. Ireland’s aggressive stance was prompted by release of an official report on allegations of rampant abuse in the diocese of Cloyne between 1996 and 2009. The government maintains that church officials were less than helpful, and that a 1997 letter had at least the effect of discouraging cooperation with authorities.

Kenny, for one, directed much of his ire at what he termed the “dysfunction, the disconnection, the elitism that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day.’’ His attack was scathing enough that some people began to speculate that he was trying to protect Irish bishops by redirecting blame toward church leaders in Rome. Yet the government’s statements also capture a broader public anger, and the church’s defensive and, to some eyes, legalistic responses have not quieted the controversy.

Contrast that with efforts by Cardinal Sean O’Malley to repair the damage that the scandal has caused in the Boston archdiocese. His recent decision to releasen the names of priests accused of abuse acknowledged the public’s desire for displays of contrition that are genuine and substantive, rather than grudging.

The continued demand for further information and greater accountability in Boston underscores how much further church leaders must go to restore trust.

The diplomatic dispute with Ireland suggests that the Vatican is still focusing too much on its own institutional concerns and not enough on mending broken spirits.

NEXT WEEK………………a bit of humor looking toward Halloween ……as we take a more detailed  look at ecclesiastical fashions for Autumn.

Wisdom from Sarah Palin about Church Reform


For the record I have consistently and conscientiously not resonated with

Sarah Palin’s politics, rhetoric, or gun-toting lifestyle.

Last weekend ata Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa, however, Sarah Palin made three observations that
go to the heart of our contemporary Roman Catholic leadership problem….from Rome to NewYork.

First of all she stressed that the United States is now governed by a permanent political class, drawn from both parties, that is cut off from the concerns of regular people. Hmmm I thought….just like our bishops.

Secondly Ms Palin  said both major political parties have allied themselves with big business to their own advantage in an arrangement of “corporate crony capitalism.”

Thirdly, and here especially her observations reflect the current Church scenario. Palin stressed that the real political divide in the United States is no longer between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).

YES INDEED ………….Vast, remote, and unaccountable institutions…………..

They listen best to their own voices.

In Austria: The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Protest


Where are the voices of American priests?

According to Tom Heneghan reporting today for Reuters, “dissident Austrian priests” defying their archbishop with calls for married clergy, women priests, and other reforms are gaining increased support among Austrian Catholics.

Three-quarters of the people polled have backed an Austrian priests’  “Call to Disobedience,” a manifesto that Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn compares to a football team refusing to play by the rules.

The Call to Disobedience, openly supported now by about 400 priests, threatens a split in the Austrian Church weeks before Pope Benedict’s September 22 to 25 visit to neighboring Germany. Pope Benedict, 84, grew up in Bavarian villages close to the Austrian border.

Rather than simply appealing for reforms, the Austrian priests declared they will bypass Church rules by giving communion to Protestants and remarried divorced Catholics; and they will allow lay people to preach and head parishes..

Schoenborn — who many believe could succeed Pope Benedict —  has hinted they would be disciplined if they do not back down in the coming weeks. “This cannot go on,” he told the Vienna daily Der Standard. “If someone has decided to go down the path of dissent, that has consequences.”

Call to Disobedience leader Fr. Helmut Schueller, who as Vienna vicar general was Cardinal Schoenborn’s deputy from 1995 to 1999 and who once led the Austrian chapter of the international Catholic charity Caritas, has said he has no intention of giving up. Schueller says many priests are already quietly breaking the rules anyway, often with the knowledge of their bishops, and his campaign aims to force the hierarchy to agree to change. About eight per cent of Austrian priests have supported his movement.

Reformist Austrian Catholics have repeatedly challenged the conservative policies of Pope Benedict and his predecessor Pope John Paul, creating grassroots protest movements and advocating changes the Vatican refuses to make.

A survey published this week by the Oekonsult polling group showed 76 per cent of ,Austrians queried supported Schueller and his colleagues. Some 85 per cent said the Church should not do anything to drive away its reform-minded members. Schueller is now a parish priest and university chaplain in Vienna. If he is dismissed, 97 per cent of those polled said, a “very large wave” of people leaving the Church would follow.

A record 87,000 Austrians left the Church in 2010, many in reaction to sexual abuse scandals there.

+++++

This side of the Atlantic, The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) has issued its strong support for the Austrain reform movement. 

ARCC  president Patrick Edgar has issued the following statement:

The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) stands in solidarity with the right of the priests of Austria to strongly voice what they believe are the needs of the people of the church regarding married clergy, women priests, Eucharistic hospitality, and other reforms.

These priests are prepared to face the consequences of the decisions they have made in conscience. The needs they express are echoed around the world. Rather than strict penalties being imposed, a response of open discussion and loving action is called for.

We encourage all faithful Catholics to think deeply on these matters, and to call their pastors and bishops to a responsive action which goes to the heart of true need.

For more information, contact

Patrick Edgar, DPA, President

Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC)

3150 Newgate Drive   —   Florissant, MO 63033

Phone: 1-877-700-ARCC (2722)

Fax: 1-877-700-2722

Email: arcc@arccsites.org

Mirror Mirror the Wall: Who’s the Best Catholic of All


How to become a GOOD CATHOLIC

Essential Changes in Catholic Behavior

 One of my more cantankerous Catholic friends sent me an angry email. One those emails that screeches across cyber space and slams into your laptop. You run to see if your modem is smoking. TELL ME he screamed JUST WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CHURCH REFORM!

It is all rather easily described. Doing is the difficult part.

I want to see a dramatic change in Catholic lifestyle…..for everyone from brother Ben in Rome to Pete and Marylou down the street.

I want to see some major behavior changes. I want to see people shift toward a better way of life.

ESSENTIAL CHANGES :

(1) From living in the past (the current Roman fad and fashion) to engaging with the present and thinking creatively about tomorrow.

(2) From practicing religion to living the Faith

(3) From rigid ritual to consciously-incarnational life

(4) From boxed-in religious ideology to open-ended theology

(5) From self-protective bureaucratic hierarchies to courageous apostolic networks

(6) From religious arrogance to cross-cultural, cross-religion collaboration

(7) From having the all the truth to continually searching  for the truth

(8) From being protective temple-builders to being traveling pilgrims pitching their tents along journey

(9) From schooling professionals to mentoring leaders

(10) From seeing the world as our enemy to appreciating the world as the real place where we live and encounter the Divine

(11) From parishes that are impersonal large congregations to parishes that are intimate small size communities

(12) From following church celebrities to encountering real saints

 

 

 

 

 

Curse and Affliction Upon the Church


Theologians can be a “curse and affliction upon the church,” according Capuchin Fr. Thomas Weinandy, Executive Director of the USCCB Secretariat for Doctrine.

Thomas Weinandy remember is director of the  bishops’ committee that recently condemned Sr. Elizabeth Johnson’s book on the Trinity, Quest for the Living God: Mapping Frontiers in the Theology of God. Weinandy’s committee said Elizabeth Johnson’s book “completely undermines the Gospel and the faith of those who believe in the Gospel.” Strange talk from a fellow who is supposed to know what theology is all about.

The Board of Directors for the Catholic Theological Society of America responded to the USCCB Committee’s critique by noting that Weinandy’s committee demonstrated a “deficient” reading of Professor Johnson’s work as well as a “narrow understanding” of the work of theologians.

In their statement the board of directors stressed, what any good theologian should know and understand:

Theologians throughout history have promulgated the riches of the Catholic tradition by venturing new ways to imagine and express the mystery of God and the economy of salvation revealed in Scripture and Tradition. This is a Catholic style of theological reflection that very many Catholic theologians continue to practice today. The teaching of the Second Vatican Council in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) is especially eloquent on this responsibility:

“From the beginning of its history [the church] has learned to express Christ’s message in the concepts and languages of various peoples, and it has also tried to throw light on it through the wisdom of philosophers, aiming so far as was proper to suit the gospel to the grasp of everyone as well as to the expectations of the wise. This adaptation in preaching the revealed word should remain the law of all evangelisation.… It is for God’s people as a whole, with the help of the holy Spirit, and especially for pastors and theologians, to listen to the various voices of our day, discerning them and interpreting them, and to evaluate them in the light of the divine word, so that the revealed truth can be increasingly appropriated, better understood and more suitably expressed.” (#44)

USCCB theologian Weinandy, on the other hand, sees  theologians as propagandists for the institutional church. Their responsibility, says Weinandy is one of “promoting, advancing and defending” philosophical and theological truth as taught by the church.

In fact…..ever since Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), Catholic theologians have clearly understood the theological task as one of “Faith seeking understanding.”

If Thomas Weinandy and his committee were my students I would send them all back to school: for remedial theological education.

Papal Mystique and World Youth Days in Spain


 

His bags are packed and he’s ready to go……

Pope Benedict XVI is eager to meet crowds of young people who are gathering in Madrid for World Youth Days, which begin on August 16th.

The Pope himself will arrive on the evening of Thursday, August 18th. He will then preside at a total of nine events with young people over the next four days, culminating in a Sunday morning Mass at the city’s Cuatro Vientos airport.

The upcoming papal days in Spain are a special time of grace for re-examining the contemporary mystique of the papacy.

 

Since he was five years old, and fell in love with the Archbishop of Munich’s fancy threads, Joseph Ratzinger has been fascinated by the pompous trappings  of the medieval Catholic Church. Today in fact, his papal entourage looks more  like a medieval royal court than the plainly dressed community of those who followed Jesus of Nazareth.

The contemporary papacy is sign and symbol of what has been happening in the Catholic Church since Pope John Paul II became the Bishop of Rome on October 16, 1978. Pope Benedict calls it the “reform of the reform.” The rest of us see it, however, for what it is:  “restorationism,” the carefully planned dismantling of the theology, ecclesiology, and pastoral vision of the Second Vatican Council (October 11, 1962 — December 8, 1965).

What the Polish Pope launched in the 1970s the Bavarian Pope has now shifted into high speed motion: a carefully orchestrated plan to restore an earlier and more controllable nineteenth century triumphalist model of the Church. A clerical empire.

Through an increasingly centralized Vatican power structure, everything in the life of the Church is now controlled through a network of Vatican congregations led by right-wing cardinals who ensure strict compliance with what they deem to be “orthodox.” Those who do not comply face censure and punishment. Without explanation.

When Pope Benedict last visited Spain in early November 2010, he condemned what he called the “aggressive secularism” that had also been rampant in Spain in the 1930s….leaving the strong impression that he supported the right-wing Catholic,  Generalisimo Don Francisco Franco (1892-1975) who, in 1936, became “Caudillo de España, por la gracia de Dios,” meaning “Leader of Spain, by the Grace of God.” (That happened of course because Franco had the backing of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.)

In any event, and from wherever he is, the Generalisimo must be smiling at Pope Benedict. The contemporary power mystique of the papacy is Benedict’s particular talent. Any hint of critique or any questioning of his policies, his way of thinking, his antiquated theology, his exercise of authority, etc. is equated with disloyalty. Because of this Ratzinger papal mystique, unquestioning obedience to the pope is now  required as a sign of the ethos and fidelity of a true Catholic.

And……thanks to Pope Benedict’s reform of the reform, the Pope’s authority has now been intentionally extended to the Vatican Curia.

Today we are told that unquestioning obedience to the very human opinions offered by Curial departments and cardinals  — about a whole range of human life and Church disciplinary issues — has become the mark of one’s fidelity as a Catholic. Anything less is interpreted as being disloyal to the Pope and therefore, we are led to believe, unfaithful to Christ.

It comes as no surprise that Pope Benedict is now greatly looking forward to his days in Spain with crowds of young Catholics. He needs their enthusiasm and cheerful support…….Older Catholics have now begun to realize what he is really up to…….

When People Worship Ideology


Anders Behring Breivik, the right-wing extremist who shot and killed at least 85 people at a youth camp in Norway, laughed, cheered, and shouted “you all must die” as he sprayed the young men and women  with bullets. He did it to protect and save civilization…as he sees it.

The United States is on the verge of an epic financial collapse …….. because the Tea Party is unwilling to compromise, even a little bit. They will not compromise because they fear cuts and losses in their comfortable lifestyles. They argue of course that they are only defending authentic American values.

Contemporary Roman Catholic leadership, from Rome to Philadelphia (with places like New York, Chicago and Detroit thrown in for good measure) has surrendered to an ideological god.

Bishops on both sides of the Atlantic are working feverishly to return the Catholic Church to a nineteenth century self-centered and self-serving clerical empire. They denigrate and condemn all who stand in their way. And they pontificate and decree, decked out in medieval costumes and jewelry, that they are defending authentic Christian faith and morality.

Around the world, the new ideologues have enthroned their false gods on civic and religious ideological altars. They are today’s new fundamentalists.

These contemporary fundamentalists place such a high priority on their ideological gods and their conformity and obedience to doctrinaire spokespersons that they sacrifice values that are basic to the world’s great democracies and the world’s great religious traditions. Those values of course are: love, compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and caring.

In their overwhelming seriousness about their ideological gods, today’s fundamentalists do not hesitate to intervene in political and social process to ensure that society is forced to conform to the values and behaviors of their fundamentalist world views.

Today’s fundamentalists are dangerous people.

Fundamentalists justify hatred of one group of people for another, because they believe God hates those who do not conform to their fundamentalist worldview.

Fundamentalism is a dangerous movement.

Fundamentalism excuses people from honest self-examination: it justifies their prejudices, zealotry, intolerance, and hatefulness.

So what do we do about fundamentalism?

I don’t think we go out and bomb them and shoot their kids.

•    The best way to confront the kind of ignorance that  nourishes fundamentalism is through real education that emphasizes open access to information and critical, analytical thinking skills.

•    Real education teaches the importance of gathering evidence and then proceeding to conclusions. Fundamentalists work in opposite fashion.

•    We need to establish channels for dialogue and institutions that promote multi-cultural knowledge, dialogue, and understanding.

•    We need to practice a genuine kind of humility that enables us to see — with open eyes and open minds — the lives and worlds of other peoples and their
traditions…..not just our own.

•    We need to translate our vision-gained-from-humility into concrete and achievable local, national, and international actions and strategies.

Roman Catholic Seismic Event


The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland, Enda Kenny spoke to the Dail

(the Irish Parliament) on Wednesday 20 July

This may be a truly historic moment for the contemporary Roman Catholic Church

The revelations of the Cloyne report have brought the Government, Irish Catholics and the Vatican to an unprecedented juncture.

It’s fair to say that after the Ryan and Murphy Reports Ireland is, perhaps, unshockable when it comes to the abuse of children. But Cloyne has proved to be of a different order.

Because for the first time in Ireland, a report into child sexual-abuse exposes an attempt by the Holy See, to frustrate an Inquiry in a sovereign, democratic republic…as little as three years ago, not three decades ago. And in doing so, the Cloyne Report excavates the dysfunction, disconnection, elitism….the narcissism …….that dominate the culture of the Vatican to this day. The rape and torture of children were downplayed or ‘managed’ to uphold instead, the primacy of the institution, its power, standing and ‘reputation’.

Far from listening to evidence of humiliation and betrayal with St Benedict’s “ear of the heart”……the Vatican’s reaction was to parse and analyse it with the gimlet eye of a canon lawyer.

This calculated, withering position being the polar opposite of the radicalism, humility and compassion upon which the Roman Church was founded. The radicalism, humility and compassion which are the very essence of its foundation and purpose. The behaviour being a case of Roma locuta est: causa finita est.

Except in this instance, nothing could be further from the truth.

Cloyne’s revelations are heart-breaking. It describes how many victims continued to live in the small towns and parishes in which they were reared and in which they were abused… Their abuser often still in the area and still held in high regard by their families and the community. The abusers continued to officiate at family weddings and funerals… In one case, the abuser even officiated at the victim’s own wedding…

There is little I or anyone else in this House can say to comfort that victim or others, however much we want to. But we can and do recognise the bravery of all of the victims who told their stories to the Commission.

While it will take a long time for Cloyne to recover from the horrors uncovered, it could take the victims and their families a lifetime to pick up the pieces of their shattered existence.

A day post-publication, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade met with the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza. The Tánaiste left the Archbishop clear on two things: The gravity of the actions and attitude of the Holy See. And Ireland’s complete rejection and abhorrence of same.

The Papal Nuncio undertook to present the Cloyne Report to the Vatican.

The Government awaits the considered response of the Holy See.

I believe that the Irish people, including the very many faithful Catholics who – like me – have been shocked and dismayed by the repeated failings of Church authorities to face up to what is required, deserve and require confirmation from the Vatican that they do accept, endorse and require compliance by all Church authorities here with, the obligations to report all cases of suspected abuse, whether current or historical, to the State’s authorities in line with the Children First National Guidance which will have the force of law.

Clericalism has rendered some of Ireland’s brightest, most privileged and powerful men, either unwilling or unable to address the horrors cited in the Ryan and Murphy Reports. This Roman Clericalism must be devastating for good priests…. some of them old… others struggling to keep their humanity….even their sanity……..as they work so hard…..to be the keepers of the Church’s light and goodness within their parishes…… communities… the human heart.

But thankfully for them, and for us, this is not Rome. Nor is it industrial-school or Magdalene Ireland, where the swish of a soutane smothered conscience and humanity and the swing of a thurible ruled the Irish-Catholic world.

This is the ‘Republic’ of Ireland 2011. A Republic of laws…..of rights and responsibilities….of proper civic order….. where the delinquency and arrogance of a particular version….. of
a particular kind of ‘morality’….. will no longer be tolerated or ignored.

As a practising Catholic, I don’t say any of this easily. Growing up, many of us in here learned we were part of a pilgrim Church. Today, that Church needs to be a penitent Church. A church, truly and deeply penitent for the horrors it perpetrated, hid and denied.

In the name of God. But for the good of the institution. When I say that through our legislation….. through our Government’s action to put Children First…….those who have been abused can take some small comfort in knowing that they belong to a nation…..to a democracy where humanity, power, rights, responsibility, are enshrined and enacted …..always….always…. for their good.

Where the law – their law – as citizens of this country, will always supercede canon laws that have neither legitimacy nor place in the affairs of this country.

This report tells us a tale of a frankly brazen disregard for protecting children. If we do not respond swiftly and appropriately as a State, we will have to prepare ourselves for more reports like this. I agree with Archbishop Martin that the Church needs to publish any other and all other reports like this as soon as possible.

I must note the Commission is very positive about the work of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, established by the Church to oversee the operation by Dioceses and religious orders. The Commission notes that all Church authorities were required to sign a contract with the National Board agreeing to implement the relevant standards and that those refusing to sign would be named in the Board’s Annual Report. Progress has been in no small measure to the commitment of Ian Elliott and others.

There is some small comfort to be drawn by the people of Cloyne from the fact that the Commission is complimentary of the efforts made by the Diocese since 2008, in training, in vetting personnel and in the risk management of Priests against whom allegations have been made.

Nevertheless, the behaviour of Bishop Magee and Monsignor O’Callaghan show how fragile even good standards and policies are to the weakness and willful disregard of those
who fail to give the right priority to safeguarding our children.

But if the Vatican needs to get its house in order, so does this State.

The Report of the Commission is rightly critical of the entirely unsatisfactory position which the last Government allowed to persist over many years. The unseemly bickering between the Minister for Children and the HSE over the statutory powers to deal with extra-familial abuse, the failure to produce legislation to enable the exchange of soft information as promised after the Ferns Enquiry, and the long period of confusion and disjointed responsibility for child protection within the HSE, as reported by the Commission, are simply not acceptable in a society which values children and their safety.

For too long Ireland has neglected its children.

Just last week we saw a case of the torture of children, within the family, come before the courts. Just two days ago, we were repulsed by the case of a Donegal registered sex offender…and school caretaker…

Children and young adults reduced to human wreckage. Raising questions and issues of serious import for State agencies.

We are set to embark on a course of action to ensure the State is doing all it can to safeguard our children.

Minister Shatter is bringing forward two pieces of legislation – firstly, to make it an offence to withhold information relating to crimes against children and vulnerable adults; and secondly, at long last, to allow for the exchange of ‘soft information’ on abusers.

As Taoiseach, I want to do all I can to protect the sacred space of childhood and to restore its innocence. Especially our young teenagers, whom I believe to be children. Because regardless of our current economic crisis, the children of this country are, and always will be, our most precious possession of all. Safeguarding their integrity and innocence must be a national priority. This is why I undertook to create a Cabinet ministry for Children and Youth Affairs.

The legislation ‘Children First’ proposes to give our children maximum protection and security without intruding on the hectic, magical business of being a child.

Cardinal Josef Ratzinger said “Standards of conduct appropriate to civil society or the workings of a democracy cannot be purely and simply applied to the Church.”

As the Holy See prepares its considered response to the Cloyne Report, as Taoiseach, I am making it absolutely clear, that when it comes to the protection of the children of this State, the standards of conduct which the Church deems appropriate to itself, cannot and will not, be applied to the workings of democracy and civil society in this republic.

Not purely, or simply or otherwise.

CHILDREN…. FIRST.

THE CATHOLIC HOUR


THE BELLS ARE RINGING — IN ROME,  DUBLIN, PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON AND
BRUSSELS……AND RIGHT HERE IN RIVER CITY

IT’S THE CATHOLIC HOUR

AND TODAY’S PROBLEM

AND YESTERDAY’S PROBLEM

AND LAST YEAR’S PROBLEM IS THE  SIN OF ABSOLUTE AND ABUSIVE POWER.

Catholic institutional sin, like cancer, starts small;  but it grows and flourishes as it penetrates and generates supportive networks. Destructive little devils, they invade the
body and then disrupt and destroy. Today’s – and yesterday’s —  Roman Catholic sin is ABUSIVE POWER.

Part of this sin-laden condition comes from our human situation….what we call original sin. The specifically Roman Catholic institutional sin of abusive power, however, is something our institutional leaders picked up early the life of our church. An inheritance from Imperial Rome.

Over the centuries, popes and bishops and some “lower clergy” have enjoyed and glorified power, and self-righteously glorified themselves as holders of power.

Abusive Power — THE Roman Catholic institutional sin — reinforces power-brokers at every level in the church: from the Vatican on high to the aberrant rectory resident on the other side of town.

Abusive power rapes little boys and girls, promotes arrogant bullying, justifies bishops who lie publicly and privately, and it flourishes in an institutional climate of secrecy and deception. Abusive power creates qualitative classes of people: superior people who control inferior people. The inferiors — women, gays, the children of gays, the divorced and
separated, for example —  must of course be controlled and put down. They raise uncomfortable thoughts and ask uncomfortable questions. They challenge and threaten the self-serving world of the power-holders.

Where there is sin, there must follow confession and repentance.

Where there is confession and repentance, there must be conversion, penitential reform and rebuilding of the institution – at all levels.

This indeed is our contemporary Roman Catholic challenge.

 

 

A MEDITATION ABOUT CURRENT EVENTS

A CONTEMPORARY ROMAN CATHOLIC CASE STUDY

THE SITUATION IN CLOYNE……

Bishop John Magee: Case Study — Catholic Power Abuse

This summer in Ireland, on 13 July, the Cloyne Report was issued. The Cloyne Report scrutinizes how both the Catholic Church and Irish State authorities handled allegations of sexual abuse against 19 priests and the local bishop and vicar general in the County Cork Diocese of Cloyne.

The Irish Voice of the Faithful responded immediately to the report by asking: “How can Catholics ever trust these lying bishops again?” It’s a good question.  It painfully goes to the heart of our contemporary Catholic malaise.

The Cloyne Report confirms that Bishop John Magee, former Bishop of Cloyne (who resigned his episcopal seat on 24 March 2010)  lied to survivors and lied to the Irish National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church. Bishop Magee also lied to public authorities investigating child safety in his diocese and he lied to his people. The Bishop of Cloyne deliberately misled another inquiry, and his own advisors, by creating two different accounts of a meeting with a priest-suspect:  one for the Vatican and another for diocesan files.

John Magee has a colorful Vatican history. In 1969 he was appointed secretary to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in Rome, and was chosen by Pope Paul VI to be one of his private secretaries. On Pope Paul’s death, he remained in service as a private secretary to his successor, Pope John Paul I, and also to Pope John Paul II. As private secretary to three Popes, Magee is the only man to hold such a position in Vatican history

The former Bishop of Cloyne relied on his vicar general, Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan,  to handle virtually all aspects of sexual abuse of children by priests in his diocese. The vicar general considered the national guidelines promulgated by the Church and State in Ireland to be misguided, and he substituted his own poorly documented and ad hoc procedures in their place.

As a result of the actions of Magee and O’Callaghan, and others who colluded with them, sexual abuse perpetrators have gone unprosecuted, victims have gone unsupported; and the people have been left bewildered and angry.

The actions of the former Bishop of Cloyne and his collaborators between 1996 and 2009 are an outrage. Bishop John Magee and Monsignor Denis O’Callaghan acted only to protect what they saw as the interests of the Church.

These men acted as they did because they belong to a power structure that does not value transparency and accountability. They thought they knew better than everyone else what was in the interests of the Church in Cloyne. There was no one who was in a position to contradict them.

Absolute power and absolute abuse. The contemporary Catholic problem…….

******

 

THE UPSIDE-DOWN PYRAMID

Mark 10:42-45

Jesus called His disciples said to them, “You know, those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them. Their great ones exercise authority over them. Nevertheless — it shall not be so among you.

“Whoever desires to become great among you must become your servant. Whoever  desires to be first namong you must  be the slave of all. Not even the Son of Man came  to be served. He came  to serve. To give his life for others.”