James di Benedetto is driven round the bend by the latest from the bishops of the American Catholic Church:
The Eleven Day Empire: Utter Contempt: ...The Roman Catholic bishop of Arlington has told a local priest that he will be permanently suspended from the diocese for obeying a subpoena to testify in a civil lawsuit about another priest's adultery with a parishioner's wife. Bishop Paul S. Loverde informed the Rev. James R. Haley in an Oct. 28 formal notice that he is being removed for violating a gag order a year ago, which barred him from disclosing wrongdoing by priests in order "to avoid scandal, to maintain ecclesiastical discipline and to protect the reputation and privacy of both the faithful and priests of this diocese."
Apparently the Church feels that it can simply ignore both harm done by priests to parishioners and the community; and the law as well...
It does feel as though we are watching a medieval morality play:
ACT I
Enter a Cardinal...
Cardinal: Another pederast priest? Blast! Hush it up! You--tell the parents it must be kept secret for the good of the church. Assure the parents that he will be dealt with and it won't happen again. Transfer him to this other parish--and let not a whisper of the scandal get out. What?! He's done it again at the new parish. That's not my fault, that's God's will--I relied on the advice of my advisors, whom I picked to give me the kind of advice that I like to hear. My motives are pure. Have I sinned? If I have, I'm forgiven. I've done my penance: fifteen Hail Marys, and I'm washed white in the Blood of the Lamb. God forgives Cardinals easily with little penance. It's those feminists whose sins are mortal and unforgiven. Resign? Why should I resign? I am an unjust ecclesiastical magistrate. I fear not God. I fear not man. I regard not Justice. I regard not Morals.
Enter a Bishop...
Bishop: Can you believe it? This priest of mine had the gall to obey a subpoena! He had the gall to obey the law, and tell what he knew about how I winked at priests' adultery with married parishioners! I had forbidden him to speak: it is much more important to avoid scandal, to maintain ecclesiastical discipline, and to protect the reputation of the priests than to obey the Law or to do what is Just. He will be punished. The crimes and misdeeds of the clergy must be secret! Secret! Secret! Swift and severe be the punishment of any who reveals them! For I am an unjust ecclesiastical magistrate. I fear not God. I fear not man. I regard not Justice. I regard not Morals.
Enter a College of Bishops...
College of Bishops: Oh, some priests have been bad! It is horrible that they have sinned. But much more horrible is that all this is now public! And much more horrible is that people use this scandal to say that there is something wrong with us bishops! Nothing is wrong! We have done nothing deserving of censure! It's those false prophets who say that women should be priests--who say that if bishops were mothers they would not have winked at pederasts--it's those false prophets who are the true sinners! God has already forgiven us of any sins we may or may not have committed! But God will never forgive them! Never! We are proud and happy in our eminence, responsible to nobody save the Pope--and he's too old to do anything. We are unjust ecclesiastical magistrates. We fear not God. We fear not man. We regard not Justice. We regard not Law.
I must confess that I am looking forward to the end of Act III. It will include some really great special effects:
Seated, a College of Bishops. A Great Pit opens at their feet. A cloud of Fire and Brimstone. Enter Satan...
Satan: FOOLS! God is never mocked! True repentance is no outward public show, no "ego te absolvo" from a friendly priest well-greased with gold, and a few Hail Marys. You could have dealt with this scandle by truly repenting of your sins. But that would have meant changing who you are and how you live: becoming honest and upright men who feared God, eschewed evil, and sought justice.
College of Bishops: [confused murmurs]
Satan: But you did not. Now your time is up! God remarks not your words but your deeds! You are mine!
Enter Demons with whips who scourge the Bishops, and drive them into the pit of Hell...
Posted by DeLong at November 16, 2002 08:33 AM | Trackback
Paul of Tarsus didn't dodge any subpoenas.
Posted by: Alan K. Henderson on November 16, 2002 10:39 PMThese are the same people who burned Giordano Bruno and kept Galileo's work on the index for 200 years. The people who, in response to the obvious dwindling of Vatican power as the Italian state was constituted in the late 1800's responded by promulgating the doctrine of papal infallability. The same people who fight contraception tooth and nail, even though they have no answer to the question of how poor countries (or for that matter rich ones) are supposed to deal with the many problems of over population.
Why anyone thinks they're the good guys is beyond me.
Posted by: Maynard Handley on November 17, 2002 12:47 PMI can't see how the priests aldultery with a parishioner is a crime against the parish. Granted, adultery a sin, but that's not a crime against the parish. It may be a transgression against one particular parishioner - the husband - but not against other parishioners.
The November 3rd readings for mass(http://www.easterbrooks.com/cgi-bin/Cathcal.cgi?20021103) were about what is to be expected from the clergy, and I found them especially pertinent and reasonable. The main point is that priests are people, they sin like everybody else, and should be taken as fallible people. That doesn't mean they should be allowed to get away with molesting children, but it does mean that someone having an affair should not be a public scandal.
This is from the readings of that particular Sunday: (Matthew 23:1-5)
Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
Anyway, calling the man a pederast (Websters: one that practices anal intercourse esp. with a boy) for having an affair with a married woman is not what I'd call reasonable or constructive.
Also "These are the same people who burned Giordano Bruno and kept Galileo's work on the index for 200 years" seems to be an overly liberal interpretation of the promise of eternal life for my taste.
Posted by: Bjarki on November 18, 2002 05:57 AM>>Why anyone thinks they're the good guys is beyond me.<<
I don't have much respect for the Papacy and its historical record but collective damnation of a whole religious organization (and thus all its members by extension) does not seem to me to be morally acceptable. And yet, I have heard an amazing number of anti-catholic comments in the US.
I'm longing to understand why. Is it because it is Latinos who are mostly Catholics in the US? And so, the WASP and the rest of the mainstream can't help but lash out at their cult? Or is it that the idea that a cult that has its HQ outside the US, is anathema to most Americans? (Comments welcome - this is obviously armchair theorizing...)
Don't get me wrong. I can understand how Rome wants to defend religious autonomy but NOT on issues like sexual abuse of children. The only decent explanation I can think of is that this has been a centralizing (and highly conservative) Papacy that has consistenly undone all previous efforts at adapting the Catholic cult to various cultures.
Posted by: Jean-Philippe Stijns on November 19, 2002 08:31 AM"I have heard an amazing number of anti-catholic comments in the US.
I'm longing to understand why."
I don't think there is any deep reservoir of anti-Catholic sentiment in the US--I think what you are reading as anti-Catholicsm is instead anger and frustration at the insensitivity and arrogance of the heirarchy, most notably in sexual abuse cases--although the fact that the heirarchy is far more to the right on social issues than most Americans, or even most Catholics, also doesn't help.
Many years ago, I was a stringer for a national Catholic newspaper. I cynically observed that priests protected priests and were more than willing to give the folks in the pews the short end of the stick. Yet, I would have been outraged had anyone suggested that child molesting priests would be protected by their ordained brethren. The very idea would have seemed preposterous--and even an indulgence in anti-Catholic bigotry. It turns out that I vastly underestimated the problem. The organizational structure of the Catholic Church is inherently evil. It cannot be saved because it lacks adequate checks and balances over the power of the clergy.
Posted by: David Thomson on November 21, 2002 05:45 AM