THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

I find it significant that Catholic News Service, the news agency of the USCCB, is taking this tack on the McCarrick scandal - though they really have no choice now but to join in the universal censure for McCarrick, but also all those other prelates who knew about his sexual indulgences and chose to keep silent about it. Such as Cardinal O'Malley, who is supposed to be Bergoglio's pointman on 'zero tolerance' for clerical/episcopal sex abuse but who made the lame disclaimer that a letter sent to him three years back about McCarrick's misconduct was considered only on 'staff level' where it was deemed 'not within the purview of the Archdiocese of Boston' and therefore effectively dismissed. But obviously the letter was not sent to him because he is Archbishop of Boston but because he is the pope's front man on these issues.


Details of second letter sent
by a priest to Cardinal O’Malley
describing McCarrick misconduct
by Rhina Guidos
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON, August 14, 2018 (CNS) -- In a June 2015 letter to Boston's Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley obtained by Catholic News Service, a New York priest tells the prelate about "sexual abuse/harassment/intimidation" allegations he had heard concerning then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick and asks that if the matter doesn't fall under his purview, to forward it to the "proper agency in the Vatican."

The letter "has taken me years to write and send," writes Father Boniface Ramsey, pastor of St. Joseph's Church Yorkville in New York City, who made the letter available to CNS in early August. But it was the second time he had attempted to tell church officials in writing.

In it, he describes for Cardinal O'Malley conversations with the rector of a seminary in New Jersey about trips then-Archbishop McCarrick, as head of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, would take with seminarians to a beach house.

During the time period he mentions in the letter, 1986 to 1996, he says he was teaching at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He writes of the accounts he'd heard of Archbishop McCarrick's repeated trips to a New Jersey beach house where, after too many seminarians were invited for too few beds, "the extra seminarian was then told that he could share the archbishop's bed."

"Some of these stories were not presented to me as mere rumors but were told me by persons directly involved," he wrote.

In an Aug. 13 phone interview with CNS, Father Ramsey said he didn't know any sexual acts were taking place, "but I thought his (McCarrick's) behavior was extremely inappropriate at the least." He said he was careful about what he wrote in the letter to Cardinal O'Malley because he didn't want to be spreading rumors he'd heard, but he had concerns about the bed-sharing after hearing that it weighed on one of his friends who was tasked with finding seminarians for the archbishop's beach visits.

"I'd never heard of any adult who had sex with McCarrick," he said, but felt the constant bed sharing he'd often heard about was "something he shouldn't have been doing."

The letter dated June 17, 2015, was sent just shortly after the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, headed by Cardinal O'Malley, received its statutes in May 2015. Father Ramsey said he sent it then because he had heard of the formation of the commission and had recently been at the funeral for New York Cardinal Edward M. Egan, who died in March 2015, and saw Cardinal McCarrick there. At that point the prelate was the retired archbishop of Washington.

"I was angry," Father Ramsey told Catholic News Service. "I said 'this guy is still out and about.'"

Father Ramsey said it made him "upset" to see that Cardinal McCarrick, after "this long history which so many people knew about, he could continue to show his face."

He had written a letter about his concerns more than a decade before, in 2000, [TO WHOM???] and it didn't seem to go anywhere, but his new motivation came about when he saw Cardinal McCarrick and "wanted this stuff to stop with the seminarians," he said in the interview. So, he sat down to write a letter -- again.

"The matter does not have to do with the abuse of minors, but it does have to do with a form of sexual abuse/harassment/intimidation or maybe simply high-jinks as practiced by Theodore Cardinal McCarrick with his seminarians and perhaps other young men when he was the Archbishop of Newark," writes Father Ramsey to Cardinal O'Malley.

In a July statement, Cardinal O'Malley said he did not "personally" receive the letter but the statement said "at the staff level the letter was reviewed and determined that the matters presented did not fall under the purview of the Commission or the Archdiocese of Boston..." However, the response from the cardinal's office did not say whether it had been forwarded to the proper agency, as Father Ramsey had requested. [AND THAT SORT OF DISMISSIVENESS IS WHAT BERGOGLIO AND O'MALLEY MEAN BY 'ZERO TOLERANCE'???]

"I never received any acknowledgement, although I have certain knowledge that the letter was received, and that the information was forwarded to somewhere in the Vatican."

In the letter to Cardinal O'Malley, Father Ramsey says that he had in the past told Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly of Louisville, who died in December 2011, about his concerns. Archbishop Kelly told him that "stories about Archbishop McCarrick had been circulating among the American bishops," the letter says, and that Archbishop Kelly mentioned to him a story involving a flight attendant.

In the interview with CNS, Father Ramsey said the story was about a male flight attendant whom Archbishop McCarrick "picked up" on a flight, telling him that perhaps he had a vocation, and ended up enrolling him in a seminary, but there seemed to be reasons other than religious for wanting him there. The flight-attendant-turned seminarian was later kicked out of the seminary.

Father Ramsey writes in the letter that after Archbishop McCarrick was appointed to the Archdiocese of Washington in 2000, he tried to speak to the apostolic nuncio in Washington, who was then Gabriel Montalvo Higuera, about what he knew. The nuncio told him to write him a letter, which Father Ramsey said he sent. He told a priest friend about the letter and that friend tried to dissuade him from sending it, telling him it could hurt him.

"I never received any acknowledgement, although I have certain knowledge that the letter was received, and that the information was forwarded to somewhere in the Vatican," he wrote Cardinal O'Malley.

The writing of the letter didn't seem to hurt Father Ramsey, as his friend had feared. But its revelations also didn't seem to hurt Archbishop McCarrick.

"I found it shocking at the time that Archbishop McCarrick was ever advanced to the Archdiocese of Washington, since I have little doubt that many persons in the Vatican were aware of his proclivities before he was named," he wrote in the letter to Cardinal O'Malley. "And then, of course, on to the cardinalate, which was to be expected for the archbishop of Washington, but still distressing."

Mentioning cases of high-ranking officials disgraced because of sexual misbehavior, he said in the letter that "it seems bizarre to me that Cardinal McCarrick is out and about, a conspicuous presence at religious (including papal) events, being interviewed, giving speeches, serving on committees and the like. Was not what he did at the very least highly questionable? Was it not taking advantage of young men who did not know how to say no to their archbishop? Has it not, for the many laity and clergy who were aware of his actions, contributed to cynicism about the church and the hierarchy?"

Father Ramsey said he did not keep a letter of the one sent in 2000 to the nuncio, but in between the first and the second letter he sent, he said tried to speak with others, including Cardinal Egan, about stopping then-Archbishop McCarrick.

"He (Cardinal Egan) didn't want to hear about it," Father Ramsey said to CNS.

The following article serves to remind us all that the conjunction of so many evil things happening to the Church today is not just about clerical sex abuse, and abuse of power by bishops and other prelates, and the reigning pope's overweening hubris in setting out to show he is an improvement on Christ himself, but a massive failure of faith on the part of the above sinners as well as the great majority of the world's Catholics whom they have brought willynilly under their sway.

No matter how bad you think
the filth in the Church is,
reality is bound to be even worse
by Peter Kwasniewski

August 15, 2018

A long-time observer of the modern ecclesiastical scene wrote to me to share his perspective on the broader significance of the McCarrick scandal. With his permission, I here publish his thoughts, which have been slightly edited for publication.

---

Most commentators do not begin to understand the true nature of the problem.

The ring of criminal Nancy Boys is the same ring that has been sedulously working for decades to undermine the integrity of the doctrinal, moral, sacramental, liturgical Church.

These men – McCarrick, McElroy, Wuerl, O’Malley, Mahony, Cupich, Tobin, Farrell, Lynch, Weakland, Paglia, Maradiaga, their lovable mouthpiece James Martin, Thomas Rosica, and far too many others, including ones who have passed on to their eternal fate, such as Lyons, Boland, Brom – are the same ones who have destabilized and adulterated catechesis, theology, liturgy, and most obviously the Church’s commitment to the unchanging moral law, as we saw in the Amoris Laetitia debacle and all that surrounded and succeeded it.

We must connect the dots and not pretend to be shocked when we see, for example, attempts under way to “re-interpret” Humanae Vitae through a false teaching on conscience, or to do away with clerical celibacy, or to introduce female deacons.

To treat the sins of this ring of conspirators as nothing more than a recrudescence of the sex scandals of the past would be to lose sight of their real enormity. These are not just men of bad moral character; they are apostates, and they are trying to remake the Church in the image of their own apostasy. [Thank you, Mr. Unnamed Observer, for using the term I find to be far more accurate to describe what these faith-wreckers led by Bergoglio have been doing.]

The Church has been smashed up in front of our eyes in slow motion for decades and few can even begin to admit that we are now faced with a Church in actual smithereens. The Nancy Boys have conducted their campaign of demolition with a kind of imperial sway. It is not this or that aspect of the Church that is corrupt; the rot is now everywhere. It is a rot on which the McCarrick Ring still sups, like maggots feasting on a corpse.

For this reason, to hear well meaning people say Bergoglio must impanel some investigative body to set things right is Alice in Wonderland lunacy. It’s like putting Himmler in charge of Nuremberg.

We do not need bishops engaging in public penance (although it’s a good idea for their souls and long overdue); we do not need episcopal investigations; we do not need new procedures and new policies. These are all cries for exculpation.

Bishops beating their breasts and then going back to doing nothing about the manifest apostasy at the very heart of the Church will not solve matters.
- We need the apostates identified, denounced, and removed.
- We need a reaffirmation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Faith.
- To clean up this mess, we have to clean up more than the scandal of homosexuality, with all of its attendant horrors.
- We have to denounce and reject the apostasy that powerful and influential homosexuals and their friends have insinuated into the Church over decades.

Take one example that can stand for many others: Rembert Weakland. The man who paid half a million dollars to a former male partner in litigation, who said sexual abuse reporters were “squealing,” who shredded reports about such abuse and claimed in his autobiography that he did not know that abuse of children is a crime – this was the same man who worked against traditional sacred music (chant and polyphony), calling for modern styles and liturgical dancing; who, according to a source living in Rome at the time, induced a hesitating Paul VI to push forward the Novus Ordo Missae; who criticized the CDF’s document Dominus Jesus that reaffirmed Catholic dogma on the necessity of faith in Christ and membership in the Church for salvation; and who utterly devastated the historic cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee with a wreckovation that can be described only as satanic.

It is a package deal. This, above all, is what people need to see. The moral depravity, the doctrinal heresy, the liturgical devastation – all of it goes together. If you have the courage to follow each thread, you will find that any attack on one part of the Church, one aspect of her life, one component of her tradition, already is or will soon be bound up with an attack on the other parts, too. The real “seamless garment” is Catholicism taken in its totality. Either you have the whole or you can’t have any.

Living the devout life – the life of grace enjoined by Christ – is not a mere “option” for the Catholic faithful, even less for Catholic clergy. Living the devout life is a solemn obligation before Almighty God, before the Church, and before one’s own conscience. Those who reject or seek to travesty that life will necessarily fall into apostasy. All of us will, not just the homosexuals.

The difference with the clerical sodomites is that they become professional apostates. It is not enough for them not to believe in the sacraments; they must make others not believe in them as well. They will not stop twisting and mutilating the Church until she blesses their sin, along with many other sins. To achieve their goals, they must wreak havoc on every last aspect of the Church.

This is what the faithful must stop – forget about the contemptible bureaucracy of the USCCB with its well heeled lawyers and slick marketeers. We begin to stop the havoc by calling its source by its real name. McCarrick was not just a predatory sodomite, but an apostate, and all of his “brother bishops” who knew about the double life and still got their pictures taken with him, laughing away at the latest wool pulled over the people’s eyes – you know, the ones who are putting out videos about how unfortunate this is, what a mess, and, you know, it isn’t as bad as people are making it out to be – these are all apostates, too. They’re company men with company cars, driving in a long line to their own burials at the ecumenical cemetery.

One would think the collaborationist bishops would think twice before leaving their bunkers. Yet, as recent tweets, videos, and articles have demonstrated, they are oddly reckless – proof that they underestimate the extent to which their “narratives” (such as they are) no longer persuade or even matter. The tide is turning against the privileged clerical elite and their lavish lavender lifestyles.

One has to marvel at the farcical tenacity of so much denial on so many sides, and the ridiculous lengths to which people will go in the attempt to explain away obvious problems.
- When did Catholics become so delusive, so resistant to reality, so willing to do anything rather than look at the wreckage staring them in the face?
- Why do so many of us have a problem with calling a spade a spade? The only solution is when heads roll, many heads, rolling freely. Let the filth be mucked out, and let fresh air and sunlight in.

The Catholic Church is being rocked to its foundations by a scandal of Modernist apostasy of staggering proportions. We are in “2+2 = 5” territory, and the “conservative” apologists have no real response to that, which is why they insist on treating the McCarrick business as a sex scandal.

They are more concerned about a mendacious, ramshackle, unaccountable episcopate than they are about the deposit of the faith under daily assault, as it has been ever since the progressive European bishops maneuvered into control of the Second Vatican Council, strewing ambiguities and half-truths in its documents and dominating its implementation, particularly in the liturgical sphere – all of which has led us straight into the cesspool of iniquity and heresy in which we are stewing.

We have a colossal problem on our hands, yes, but it is not insurmountable. The above analysis may seem hopeless, but I am not one of those who believe that ecclesial doom is just around the corner.
- The papacy can be set right with a worthy pope.
- The episcopacy can be strengthened if that worthy pope takes action to depose and defrock bishops across the globe and replace them with men worthy of their offices.
- The seminaries can be reformed.
- The Mass of Ages can be restored.
- Catholic education can be revived.
- Catechesis can be regenerated (but not, needless to say, with the latest version of the Catechism).

You may well say: All this, any of this, would be a miracle, heaps of miracles! And I say: Yes, that’s right. Miracles do happen, and we need them now more than ever. With man, it is impossible; with God, nothing is impossible – not even the reform of the papacy, the episcopacy, and the college of cardinals.

Reform begins where it always does in the history of the Church through the ages: with faithful laity, faithful priests and deacons, faithful religious brothers and sisters, faithful bishops – men and women absolutely committed to Our Lord and to the Catholic Faith He has given us, in all of its doctrinal integrity, moral strength, and liturgical fullness.

I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem – and so should you, and every layman, religious, and cleric whom God in His Providence has put into the world at exactly this time, so that we can be part of the solution. No one needs to strut off into permanent opposition or lock down in motionless despondency. It is time to pray for divine intervention like never before, and work with all our strength and skill to make ready the coming of the Lord.

But if God means this time of extreme trial for his Church as a lesson and punishment for faithless man - a metaphysical and metaphorical Great Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah visited on us for our sins - in terms of actual time, what would correspond to the 40 days and 40 nights of the Great Flood before we can make a new beginning? The Great Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah had the great virtue of eradicating all the men who were evil. What would be the contemporary equivalent for achieving that tabula rasa?

The abuse crisis casts doubt
on the whole post-Vatican II settlement
Since 1968, Church leaders have tried to preserve a fragile truce.
But repeated compromises have fostered a culture of deceit
by Matthew Schmitz

August 16, 2018

After the allegations against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, Cardinal Donald Wuerl told an interviewer: “I don’t think this is some massive, massive crisis.” Bishop Robert Barron has said that describing the priesthood as a “cesspool” would be “deeply unjust”.

Such claims miss the point. Men at the highest levels of the Church knew the rumours about McCarrick and took no action. As a result, the allegations have gravely damaged the credibility of the whole hierarchy. If bishops expect to be taken seriously as witnesses to Christ, the crisis is massive indeed – as the revelations from Pennsylvania underline.

Bishop Barron also cautioned against what he called an “ideological” response. According to the bishop, those who raise concerns about Humanae Vitae, priestly celibacy, or “rampant homosexuality in the Church” may be riding a “hobby horse” and causing a “distraction”.

No one cares for the endless Catholic culture wars, but we should be wary of attempts to shut down frank discussion of how we got here. Bishop Barron’s list of taboo topics suggests that he – like most bishops – is keen to preserve the settlement of 1968.

In that year, Pope Paul VI famously reaffirmed Catholic teaching on birth control in Humanae Vitae, but then declined to discipline the many bishops and priests who rejected that teaching. The result was an uneasy truce: the teaching was formally upheld, but obedience to it was not demanded.

The same dynamic played out in 2005, when the Vatican decided that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should be barred from the priesthood. Countless bishops ignore this guidance; some even tolerate discreet romances. They only require that the priests not openly challenge Church teaching.

Both traditional and liberal Catholics are unhappy with this settlement. Under it, holiness and truth are sacrificed for a superficial peace. This arrangement is fair neither to the people who want to live by Church teaching, nor to those who would rather do without it.

Maintaining this truce makes sense if one is convinced that the post-Vatican II settlement is worth preserving. The McCarrick affair suggests that it is not.

Yes, conditions have improved in American seminaries. Yes, McCarrick’s reported offences occurred years ago.
- But they were known in 2000, when a delegation travelled to Rome to warn John Paul II of McCarrick’s crimes.
- They were known in 2002, when the American bishops put him forward as their spokesman on sex abuse.
- They were known when he retired to the grounds of a seminary, where he was attended by a string of young men.
Whatever one’s view of the underlying moral matter, we must do away with the compromise that established this culture of lies.

We will not be able to begin real reform until we admit that the triumphalist narratives pushed by Catholic flacks are false. Depending on whom you ask, the Catholic Church is in the midst of either a new springtime of evangelisation, initiated by St John Paul II, or a fresh paradigm of pastoral accompaniment, brought about by Pope Francis. The most skilful will explain that we are in the midst of both, and they wonderfully complement each other.

But for people in the pews, things don’t look so great. In 1955, nearly 75 per cent of American Catholics went weekly to Mass. Today, only 39 percent do. Outside of a few Latin Mass and “reform of the reform” enclaves, Mass-going Catholics suffer wrecked sanctuaries, botched liturgies and moral confusion. The springtime is hard to find.

In recent months, I have attended a Mass at which Christ was assigned gender-neutral pronouns, and one at which the homilist proposed that he may have had biological brothers and sisters. (So much for Mary’s perpetual virginity.) At another, I was invited to join a ministry that openly rejects Christian teaching on sex.

Such is the new era of evangelisation, the wondrous paradigm of pastoral accompaniment preserved by the fragile truce of 1968. Speaking as a member of what is called the JPII generation, I no longer think it is worth preserving.

Upholding Catholic teaching on paper but not in reality has led to widespread corruption and contempt for authority. Preserving the peace has required a culture of lies. This is the culture that allowed men like McCarrick to flourish. One way or another, we must sweep it away.

[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/08/2018 01:22]