A Church in turmoil
Is this the biggest upheaval since the Reformation?
by James Schall SJ
by Sept. 3, 2018
A few illiterate or sequestered folks in distant corners of the world may not have heard of the internal problems of the Catholic Church. Both those who hate her and those who love her have opinions about the matter. And well they should.
The Church has been almost the last living connection with our distant human past, as well as the one institution that has insisted that truth is possible, objective, and a central good for all civilizations.
The range of dismay within the Church over its own scandals is wide and articulate. No doubt the uproar is much larger within than without it because Church members are closer to the hearts, goods, and duties that people live by.
When Pope Francis went to Ireland recently to address a world meeting on families, one writer called it simply a “fiasco”. The Pope’s message of sorrow for the victims rang hollow for many because he did not address most of the concerns of real families.
The Pope had promised to clean things up within the Church but, in fact, they seemed to most people to have become steadily worse. William Kilpatrick notes the relative silence of the Pope about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.
Publicly, as of now, the Pope has chosen to follow his policy of remaining silent when fundamental questions are addressed to him. Other people, however, think
part of a pope’s job description is to clarify and decide on major issues that affect the Church itself.
The Attorney General of Pennsylvania’s report makes the issue something beyond internal Church policies. The Pope himself often calls for what is called transparency. Cardinal Cupich, however, maintains that the Pope is concerned with greater things like environmentalism and immigration.
What are we to make of these astonishing events? A friend of mine thinks that we have seen nothing like this since the Reformation, if then. The Renaissance popes were sometimes high livers, but there were few intimations of heresy surrounding them.
Catholics have long been warned from Scripture itself of their own sins. They were also told that they could expect to be hated by the world. The late Cardinal George of Chicago once famously predicted that his successor would be put in jail and the one following him would be a martyr. Catholic League President, Bill Donohue, sees the devil at work in all of this controversy.
But in Scripture this recurring hatred of the world for the Church was thought to be directed, not at the believers’ own sins, but at their virtues. They were most persecuted when they were most believing, not when they were lax.
In both the Old and New Testaments, we do find many warnings of unworthy shepherds, meaning priests, bishops, and popes. From this point of this view, today we are not really witnessing something new or totally unexpected.
In the Old Testament, when things went bad for the Hebrews, it was usually seen to be a result of their own sins. The solution was usually imposed by outside powers in the name of Yahweh. In today’s world, the concern is with those Catholics who simply do not follow the basic tenets of their own faith.
In an article on PowerLine, Steven Hayward wrote that he often considered joining the Catholic Church. Ultimately, he decided against it.
Among the reasons I decided against becoming a Catholic was my worry that someday they might elect a pope like… Francis. I loved John Paul II and Benedict XVI. My fears are that what has come to pass has come to pass. It’s bad enough that Francis is a left-wing liberationist theologian (liberation theology being merely Marxism with salsa), but there is credible testimony that he has covered up for pedophiles among priests, bishops, and cardinals.
By now, it is well attested that the central problem is not pedophilia. It is rather the life and practice of adult males seeking relations with younger males both under age and of age. This issue involves more than just the Catholic Church.
What makes this fact especially interesting is that the culture itself has accepted relations between consenting males to be a “right”. If there is nothing wrong with this male-male relationship as such other than age, there should be no problem. The effort to normalize the relation of male to male in their sexual relations has succeeded in public opinion.
The result is that the Catholic Church is caught in both ways.
It finds its male abusers paying enormous fines for what would otherwise be a “right” for adults in the civil order. Other institutions, like the public schools or business enterprises, that have much the same problems, are usually bypassed or dealt with on an individual basis.
Many have rightly dubbed this a “cultural war”, because at bottom the issue really has to do with the purpose of sex and its relation to marriage and children — is it natural with its own norms and duties or something we can create of our own will to look like we want it to look?
Meanwhile, many people call the Pope to resign. Ross Douthat, in the New York Times has argued that, even if Francis is guilty of this cover-up surrounding the Cardinal McCarrick case, the Church cannot afford another resigned pope in one century. Francis should stay and clean up the house as he promised. In general, those advocating that Francis remain in office are now largely those belonging to the political left.
As most people recognize, Francis has espoused most of the left social agenda. Even on things like abortion, which he opposes, Francis has downgraded the intensity with which its correction ought to be pursued. His famous remark on his return trip from Rio, when asked a question concerning a male-male relationships, was: “Who am I to judge?” It is fair to say that the general public, rightly or wrongly, took this statement as a sign of tolerance, if not approval.
Looking at this most upsetting morass that the Church seems to have gotten herself into with the election of Pope Francis, a friend of mine said that, in a hundred years, historians would look back on this era as a cleansing period, that, in fact, things were working themselves out in God’s providence. We can hope this is true.
Others see this situation as the end times that are pictured in Scripture when God has had enough and decides finally to judge all of us and be done with it. We hear of people who stop giving money to Church institutions or attending Mass. Recent converts who came into the Church to escape the liberalizing tendencies of their own sects are now having second thoughts about the wisdom of their conversion. Still others think that it is a tempest in a teapot and wish that it would just evaporate and go away.
This panorama of issues in the Church is spelled out here because what happens to the Church affects everyone, even those who disagree with it or hate it. Nor is it a Christian virtue to minimize the scope of the problem facing the Church itself.
What is new, as I have tried to sketch here, is the fact that many of these problems are not threats from the outside but from personal disorders arising inside the Church itself.
The Church, indeed, exists to forgive sins. It has never taught that its members, clergy included, were untouched by sin, though it did demand that they avoid it. It recognized the need for penance, repentance, forgiveness, principles, grace, and virtue, none of which can be ignored.
Many think that the Church can no longer reform itself. The issue can no longer be set aside. Few want it to be. The one thing the Church in turmoil brings to the attention of everyone is the question of how he lives. If we are without sin, we are free to cast the first stone, to recall a famous passage in Scripture
(John 8:7).
That being said, we are, no doubt, witnessing a drama unique in world history, the end of which none of us can see clearly.
A leaven in the world:
Why I accuse the pope
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
September 3, 2018
For many years now, it has become quite common for priests to be treated as if they have do not have a conscience. They have been led to corrupt the sacraments without their consent and now it is being directed from the top.
Some years ago I was stationed by the Navy in Florida. A woman came to the chapel with a child to ask about Baptism for an infant. Her visit led to one of the greatest crises of my naval career, perhaps of my priesthood.
You know the tale: Adult wants Baptism for a child, adult hasn’t been attending Mass, adult is in mortal sin and scandalizing the child or children as well as unable to raise them in the faith. Adult needs to return to regular Sunday Mass first. After Confession.
Establishing a reasonable hope that a child will be raised in the faith, which the Church requires for infant Baptism, has always been understood by me to mean that, at a minimum, the child should be educated in the faith and enabled to practice his or her faith by at least attending Sunday Mass, depending upon the help of an adult to get there until he or she is old enough to drive.
Out of compassion in such situations most priests probably, as I did, launch into a nuanced explanation leading to the conclusion that Baptism is for the purpose of going to Heaven, we go to Heaven by cooperating with the grace of Baptism and loving God, we love God by keeping the Commandments, to include keeping the Lord’s Day holy through Mass, and we cannot reasonably assume we are going to Heaven if we choose not to do so of our own free will.
I usually also offer the information that a grave reason excuses from the grave obligation to keep the Third Commandment and ask the adult if he or she has indeed omitted to attend Mass for such a reason.
Well, the mother left my office and lodged a complaint. Word came back that the military archbishop was going to pull my endorsement. The reason was that he had been led to believe that I told the woman “she was going to Hell in front of her six-year-old daughter.” It didn’t matter that it was a lie.
For a military chaplain, losing an endorsement means you’re out of the service in 24 hours: no retirement, all one’s years of active duty lost. Disaster.
The Navy chief of chaplains at the time convinced the archbishop to look into the matter with the help of a senior chaplain who would meet with me and discuss the accusation. We did, and I told him that I had never said those words to the woman and had, in fact, never said them to anyone. How do I know where someone is going after they die? Impossible, for anyone, including a priest, as well as irrational. But also, as I would later write in a letter to the archbishop, I consider such behavior a pastoral abuse. If I had indeed done such a thing it should be treated with the utmost seriousness.
The archbishop also said it was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” because there had been other complaints previously. In my defense I made it known that no one from the archdiocese had ever informed me that was the case. [Thankfully] The story ended with me finishing out my term of active duty, after affiliating with the Reserves, and retiring last year. Unscathed.
It is true I was known to preach about
Humanae Vitae and other taboo topics and otherwise upset the carefully balanced apple cart in
the Catholic chaplain world at the time, then documented in other places as a holding tank for errant clergy.
The senior chaplain interceding on my behalf offered a solution by saying “baptize them all.” That’s not what the Church says. And that’s where the conscience of the priest comes into play.
The Church says that the priest must establish a reasonable hope that the child will be raised in the faith. The priest must ascertain the facts and, if such is not the case, work to bring it about. But he cannot do it without the cooperation of the parents. He must follow his conscience and deny Baptism if the parents reject the faith by refusing to practice it.
The corruption of the sacraments is the greatest threat to the faithful in the pews. Yes, they will fight you tooth and nail to try to get grace under false circumstances, but priests and faithful Catholics must strive mightily to give them salvation in true love. Priests have often become mindless sacramental machines to give our sacraments unthinkingly like candy to every comer.
The Archbishop Viganò Letter currently causing a furor in the Catholic world is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back with Pope Francis.
We have been steadily subjected to more and more abuse of the sacraments and of the faithful like frogs in steadily increasing hot water. It is logically a short distance from corrupting Communion by giving the Lord sacramentally to fornicators or adulterers, as called for by Amoris Laetitia, to allowing a homosexual predator cardinal back into circulation after the previous Pope attempted to protect the faithful by sanctioning him.
This is what it appears was done by Francis in the case of former cardinal Theodore McCarrick with knowledge of his crimes. Regardless, Francis is the Pope and as such it is his job to know. I choose to believe Archbishop Viganò when he writes that he gave the Pope every opportunity to learn of McCarrick’s crimes before he put him back into circulation.
These are pastoral abuses:
- Silence, when speaking would dispel confusion.
- Propagating error instead of Catholic doctrine.
- Restoring sanctioned reprobate clergy back into good standing. - - Appointing homosexualist bishops and cardinals to meetings.
All priests have consciences like every Catholic and also a right and duty to speak out. To all our priests I plead: You owe your flock courage and clear leadership.
- Be silent no more.
- Form and follow your [informed Catholic] consciences.
- Refuse to corrupt the sacraments and betray souls, for we who are priests betray our own salvation if we do thus.
Let’s at least not lie to ourselves: The Viganò testimony is merely the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The evidence is already in and it is abundant. Guilty as charged. Any reasonable person would expect a priest or bishop who has abused his flock to be deposed.
Pope Francis is continuing his course of destruction by disastrous episcopal appointments to Newark, Chicago, and San Diego with prelates in his image who mock our intelligence with their nonsensical prattle and pro-homosexualist ideology.
If we do not speak our consciences we jeopardize our own salvation as well as those we betray also by our silence.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
I have even less respect now for this Bergoglio cardinal who is 'stupid' enough to claim he was edited out of context in a videotaped TV interview brief enough not to allow the possibility of an out-of-context remark. Worse, he has asked that his absurd excuse for a most insensitive remark downplaying the Vigano expose in favor of 'more important things' for Bergoglio to attend to, be read at Mass throughout the archdiocese of Chicago. Fine with me, though, if he wished to further advertise his 'stupidity' in this self-serving way that has nothing to do with serving Christ.
Cardinal Cupich orders priests
to address disputed TV report at Mass
By Mitchell Armentrout
September 2, 2018
Cardinal Blase Cupich has instructed Chicago-area priests to deliver a statement at Mass this weekend slamming a local TV news report that he calls “misleading,” saying it was edited to suggest he and Pope Francis were downplaying the ongoing clergy sex abuse scandal.
The clip came toward the end of a two-minute segment that aired Aug. 27 on NBC5 about the Archdiocese of Chicago cooperating with Illinois Attorney Gen. Lisa Madigan’s review of abuse allegations across the state. Since the interview aired, Cupich has been castigated across the internet for being seemingly insensitive to the sex abuse crisis.
“Our story on the interview with Cardinal Cupich was accurate,” NBC5 station manager Frank Whittaker said in an email. “The story is posted on our website along with the full unedited interview for anyone to see.”
In the TV report Cupich disputes, reporter Mary Ann Ahern paraphrases Cupich’s claim of a small group of church insurgents upset with the pope’s direction, followed by the cardinal on screen saying:
“He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the church. We’re not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.”
In a statement issued Wednesday,
Cupich claimed the clip “was edited in such a way that gave the false impression that Pope Francis and I consider the protection of children to be less important than other issues, such as the environment or immigration. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Cupich said he was referring to the recent letter from former high-level Vatican official Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, “not the crime of clergy sexual abuse.”
Vigano claimed last week that Pope Francis knew for years about misconduct claims against disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick — and also that McCarrick was instrumental in getting Cupich and other U.S. Church leaders appointed by the pope. Cupich has said he doesn’t know whether McCarrick went to bat for him with the pope to get appointed to the top Church job in Chicago.
NBC5 defended its story in a statement on its website.
“We believe our story to be accurate in that Cardinal Cupich was referring to the memo about sexual abuse allegations in question,” the station said. “The cardinal was making a point that until accusations are verified, the Pope shouldn’t respond.”
Now, parishioners can expect to hear about the contested quote at Mass this weekend — a highly unusual move for the archdiocese, the local arm of the Catholic Church. .
“Priests have been asked to read the Cardinal’s statement regarding the NBC5 report during Mass this week,” archdiocese spokeswoman Anne Maselli said in an email, declining further comment.
Cupich has been on a seminary retreat in Mundelein, though it wasn’t clear if he’d be speaking there about the sex abuse crisis that’s stretching from the seminaries to the highest rungs of the Catholic Church.
Stonewalling silence = Complicity with sex abuse
By ROD DREHER
September 1, 2018
Credit where credit is due:
The New York Times called every curial cardinal accused by Vigano in his letter, asking them for comment. Here’s what happened:
Following the pope’s lead, the Vatican has gone on lockdown.
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, whom Archbishop Viganò also accused in the letter of covering up sexual misconduct by Cardinal McCarrick, rushed a reporter off the phone on Thursday evening.
“Look, I’m not in my office. Good night. Good night," he said. And he was the most talkative.
The Times reached out to every cardinal and bishop said by Archbishop Viganò to have known about the alleged sanctions on Cardinal McCarrick by Benedict. More than a dozen of them declined or did not answer requests for comment.
[Did, say, John Allen or Michael Sean Winters bother to do that at all?] Remember what Francis said about the Vigano letter on the plane earlier this week, speaking to journalists?:
I will not say a single word about this. I believe the statement speaks for itself. And you have the journalistic capacity to draw your own conclusions. It’s an act of faith. When some time passes and you have drawn your conclusions, I may speak. But, I would like your professional maturity to do the work for you. It will be good for you. That’s good.
But he is not doing the one thing he could do to help journalists do the work he says he wants them to do: tell the cardinals to answer journalists’ questions.
The Catholic philosopher Francis Beckwith, who returned to the Roman church after many years as an Evangelical, writes about the current mess:
But when given the opportunity to stem the tide of confusion — to offer a word of solace, comfort and hope to the long-suffering Catholics he is obligated by his office to shepherd — Pope Francis announced, in response to a question from the press, that he had taken a vow of silence on these matters, though nevertheless encouraging the press to investigate for themselves and to make up their own minds.
Because I have never been a bishop, let alone a pope, I have no idea whether this sort of answer is wise or foolish. But from the vantage point of a layman who has only been back in the Church for a mere 11 years, the Holy Father’s answer seemed tantamount to saying, “Who am I to ‘pope’?”
Yet, after some reflection, I am willing to give the Holy Father the benefit of the doubt that he isn’t abdicating his fatherly role to lead the flock through this challenging time. For in order for members of the press to do their jobs and investigate these matters — to confirm or disconfirm the claims in Archbishop Viganò’s testimony — they must have complete and total access to the evidence mentioned in the letter’s lone footnote: “All the memos, letters and other documentation mentioned here are available at the Secretariat of State of the Holy See or at the apostolic nunciature in Washington, D.C.”
As we know from the Pennsylvania attorney general’s report as well as the McCarrick scandals, the Vatican has the power, if ordered by the Pope, to lift any veils of secrecy that do not permit the press to view these materials.
Consequently, if the media make the request to examine the documents and memos cited in Archbishop Viganò’s testimony, the Holy Father cannot refuse without undermining his credibility and by default his papacy. Even the Pope knows that a “Who am I to ‘pope’?” answer will not suffice when the hope and faith of millions hangs in the balance.
[Has any reporter, in fact, taken the initiative to look into the documents Vigano cites?]
Meanwhile, the Catholic actress Patricia Heaton tears into one of Francis’s more clericalist courtiers:
That is the kind of courage that is eventually going to force the truth out of this stonewalling pope and hierarchy.
The stone-cold nerve of these men, thinking they don’t have to be accountable for their behavior, which has cost the Catholic Church in the US over $3 billion, and immeasurable sums of moral authority. These lords of the manor prey on the children of the laity — including their sons in seminaries — and cover up for each other when they’re caught.
If this pope, and these cardinals, are not guilty of Vigano’s charges, then why can’t they come forward and say so? Why are they afraid of the truth? Is it that they are afraid to lie, because they don’t know which documents Vigano has in reserve that will show them up to be frauds?
The Kim Davis distraction
By Phil Lawler
September 3, 2018
Pope Francis asked journalists to investigate the charges in the Vigano testimony, and draw their own conclusions. That’s fair enough —
although it’s certainly surprising that the Vicar of Christ would not at least deny participating in what would amount to a repudiation of his own professed principles.
The Pope’s most aggressive allies, however, have done their best to discourage reporters from following up on the Vigano charges, instead offering a menu of potential distractions:
- Was Archbishop Vigano allied with the Pope’s conservative critics?
- Was he a disgruntled former employee?
- Did he engage in a cover-up himself?
- Was he at odds with his siblings?
- Was he unkind to the family pets? (And wasn’t someone recently warning against going down rabbit-holes?)
Now the acidic Father Rosica, the most ferocious critic of the Pope’s critics, has latched onto an ideal distraction: Kim Davis. If Archbishop Vigano can be linked with Davis — a woman who was mercilessly criticized by the American secular media — then maybe reporters will run away with that story-line, forgetting the original content of the Vigano testimony.
So Father Rosica, joined by the former papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi, have told the world that Pope Francis was unhappy with Archbishop Vigano for arranging a meeting with Davis.
But wait.
Fathers Rosica and Lombardi do not say (as others have claimed) that the Davis meeting was a surprise for the Pontiff. On the contrary, they report that the Pope had been briefed, and knew who Davis was. The Pope’s complaint, they say, is that Archbishop Vigano had not reported on Davis’s own marital history: her four husbands.
But again, wait.
Why should the Holy Father be dismayed about meeting a woman who has had four husbands? Isn’t this the Pontiff that encourages us all to “accompany” the people in irregular marital situations?
Secular reporters found it very easy to take pot shots at Kim Davis, mocking her accent and her looks and her marital history and her Appalachian background. If they take the hint from Fathers Rosica and Lombardi, they can now run with the story that Archbishop Vigano is an ally of Kim Davis, and forget about the substance of his charges.
But let’s not forget: Kim Davis was savaged in the mainstream media — and then suggested by Archbishop Vigano as a candidate for papal support — because she refused to put her name on a document that she believed to be false. If Catholic bishops showed the same determination not to betray the truth, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
And, for the record. a new statement from the legal firm that represents Kim Davis..
Vatican spokesmen admit lying
about Kim Davis's meeting with the pope
LIBERTY COUNSEL
Sept 3, 2018
After lying and hiding the truth about the private meeting of Pope Francis and Kim Davis in 2015, Vatican officials now admit Pope Francis and his high-ranking officials knew who Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis was and approved a private meeting with her during his 2015 visit to the United States.
Federico Lombardi, S.J., former director of the Holy See Press Office, has now "recalled that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had spoken the night before the Davis meeting with Pope Francis and his collaborators and obtained their consensus," as reported in the America magazine.
Yesterday, the Associated Press received a statement from Lombardi in which he now admits "Vatican officials approved" of the meeting with Davis. Yet, in 2015, Lombardi said the opposite of his 2018 admission. Davis is the Kentucky clerk jailed for not granting marriage licenses after the Supreme Court opinion.
This is not the first time the Vatican has changed its story about Kim Davis. Back in 2015, Fr. Thomas Rosica, an English-language assistant to the Holy See, stated that "the only real audience granted by the pope at the Nunciature was with one of his former students and his family," which included a homosexual man and his partner, according to The Washington Post.
However, off-record they said there was a meeting: "Privately, Vatican officials told CNN and other news outlets that the meeting with Kim David [sic] irked Pope Francis, saying that he didn't know the specifics of Davis' situation before the meeting," CNN reported.
In 2015, Lombardi and Rosica lied about the private meeting with the Pope. Now Lombardi and Rosica admit there was a private meeting and that Vatican officials approved the meeting. The Vatican only changed its story to admit the private meeting was approved after Archbishop Vigano released several documents that detailed how top officials, including the Pope, knew about Kim Davis through a memo that Vigano provided to them. These leaders vetted her and even received legal advice regarding the situation before approving the private meeting with her.
In contrast to the disinformation and spin coming out of Rome, the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops gave the Nuncio, Archbishop Vigano, two standing ovations at an event following the Pope’s visit in 2015.
To counter the misrepresentations of Lombardi and Rosica, in 2015 Liberty Counsel released a detailed description of the events before, during, and after the meeting with Pope Francis. This description matches perfectly with the recent statement of Archbishop Vigano about the meeting.
Exactly three years ago, Davis, was in jail because of her religious belief to not place her name, title, and authority on same-sex marriage licenses in Kentucky. Liberty Counsel successfully obtained her release six days later and continues to represent her.
After his election as governor, Matt Bevin issued an executive order accommodating her religious beliefs. In April 2016, the Kentucky legislature unanimously passed a law to accommodate the religious beliefs of all Kentucky clerks.
In 2015, Kim Davis was invited to the private meeting with the Pope after her release from jail. She attended and followed every instruction given to her about the meeting. Liberty Counsel held the public release about the meeting until it was authorized to release after the Pope finished his visit to the United States.
As a result of lies about the meeting coming from Lombardi and Rosica, Kim Davis and Liberty Counsel were ridiculed and maligned, because some media, relying upon the disinformation and spin of the Holy See Press Office, which is directly under the authority of Pope Francis, denied that a private meeting occurred.
This meeting occurred during the papal visit to Washington, DC on September 24, 2015, and within two weeks of the Synod on the Family in which some factions within the Catholic church sought to alter the church’s teaching on homosexuality. The private meeting with Kim Davis apparently ran counter to the narrative of some factions within the Catholic church, and, as a result, the Holy See Press Office lied about the meeting.
"For the first time in three years, the same Press Office officials of the Holy See, who lied about the private meeting, have now confirmed what Liberty Counsel has been stating: there was a private meeting with Kim Davis that was approved by the Pope who was aware of her religious stance regarding her refusal to issue marriage licenses that conflicted with God’s definition of marriage," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel.
"Efforts to downplay or distort the truth have been coming from the Vatican and continue about the private meeting between Pope Francis and Kim Davis. We are grateful that Archbishop Vigano has set forth the truth about the meeting. Attempts to discredit or attack him personally regarding this meeting have only served to reveal who was lying and who was telling the truth. It is disturbing that the Holy See Press Office, which had to include the Pope, sided with certain factions within the Catholic church seeking to change the church’s teachings and they were willing to lie about the meeting and malign an innocent person when the meeting was pre-approved," said Staver.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 05/09/2018 11:09]