And thanks to Beatrice from her site www.benoit-et-moi.fr/2018, this commentary from a veteran Spanish journalist, who, among other things, underscores the phoniness of Bergoglio's concern for victims of clerical sex abuse...
Why I have not read
the pope's letter on abuse
by Carlos Esteban
Translated from
infovaticana.com
August 21, 2018
I shall make a confession unworthy of a journalist- a statement that would justify taking away my press card if I ever had one in my 30 years as a journalist. Which is that I have not read the pope’s letter in response to the scandals disclosed by a Pennsylvania grand jury.
I know – it’s terrible: a newsman must always go to the primary source, and in religious news, there can be no stronger source than the words of the Holy Father himself, especially if it has to do with a topic on the news as redhot as that which concerns us now.
But no, I did not read the letter. I find I am unable to. I have ‘opened’ it, have had it before my eyes, skimmed it and took note of the words it did not contain, and I felt incapable of reading a text that is so obligatory and predictable.
In short:
When, in the face of a scandal that is perhaps the worst that the Church has suffered in centuries, the reaction from the Holy See consists only of words, then I confess I am not interested in those words. Any PR outfit worth its salt could have produced a marvelous document of this sort that would bring tears to everyone.
But any and all reactions that do not include an announcement of dismissals, of a radical change that would extirpate the homosexual subculture that has taken root in many seminaries and diocesan curias, is nothing more than an attempt at damage control, something which is routinely done by any organization that suffers from bad publicity.
“We showed no care for the little ones. We abandoned them,” the pope writes. Yet when those ‘little ones’, in the person of the victims of the Chilean pedophile priest Fernando Karadima, asked him to remove his appointee Bishop Barros, a Karadima protégé who witnessed his abuses without protest, the pope called their accusations ‘calumny’, though he later apologized after much pressure
[especially the pressure of truth uncovered by his own investigators!].
And when another group of ‘little ones’, 48 seminarians from the major seminary of Tegucigalpa, wrote an open letter denouncing the regime of homosexual intimidation there, the pope’s righthand man, the coordinator of his most exclusive council of nine cardinal advisers, the powerful Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, called them liars and accused of aligning against ‘the church’.
Those ‘little ones’ are those who suffered abuses that led the Chilean government to investigate the most prominent members of the Chilean hierarchy including Cardinal Errazuriz, who is on his Council of 9, and the current Archbishop of Santiago, Riccardo Ezzati, whom he made a cardinal.
And he has just named as deputy Secretary of State the Venezuelan bishop Edgar Pena Parra who had lobbied for Juan Jose Pineda to be named auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa (and deputy to Maradiaga) and who has now been forced to resign following plausible accusations of sexual and financial misconduct. Likewise he has named to head the Vatican Archives a Portuguese priest whom he has consecrated a bishop, who notoriously claimed Jesus didn’t “establish rules” and who promotes the theology of a dissenting nun who defends the legalization of abortion and homosexual “marriage.”
It is not just that Bergoglio’s Vatican first chose to say nothing about the current US clerical-episcopal abuse scandal until it became not just impossible but even dangerous not to do so, but that – as we keep seeing – there is a frustrating disconnect between this pope’s most sanguine messages and his concrete actions, the measures he really takes.
His ‘zero tolerance’ for clerical sex abuse turned out to be a fiction. Just as his so called ‘poor church for the poor’ because for all his constant calls to welcome and care for ‘refugees’, he has not dismantled APSA (the Church’s central repository of its numerous real estate holdings and other liquid assets). Demagoguery?
And the mercy he always pays lip service to, and for which the whole world praises him, has proven to be extraordinarily selective.
Those who benefit are those who sin in ways the pope does not consider sinful, and those who exaggerate the ideological lines which this pope does not even bother to dissimulate, such as the former Brazilian president jailed for corruption. Whereas others, those who meet Christ closer in the ‘traditional’ ways, like the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, have only seen the other face of Bergoglio which is implacable and unappealable.
A World Meeting of Families takes place this week in Dublin under the aegis of His Holiness, and organized by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, who was a personal friend, roommate, collaborator and protégé of Theodore McCarrick when the latter was Archbishop of Washington, DC; which will have homosexualist Jesuit James Martin SJ in a starring role; and from which two American cardinals, O’Malley and Wuerl, decided to withdraw though they were supposed to chair two important committees and their respective discussions.
Even as it has become very obvious that homosexuality in the clergy and episcopacy is the very nucleus itself of a situation that has caused ‘wounds that will never heal’, the Dublin event is seen as a way to ‘soften’ the position of the Church on homosexuality
[as is the coming ‘youth synod’].
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke has said, “It is significant that the pope refers to the abuses as crimes, not just as sins”. Well, yes, because those abuses were investigated as crimes by the Pennsylvania grand jury!
Vatican News, which is well on the way to being the Bergoglian Pravda, also quotes Burke as saying, “The Pope underscores that the wounds will never disappear”. What exactly does that mean?M After Benedict XVI had laicized the pederast priest Mauro Inzoli, Bergoglio reinstated him, only to laicize him again after he was convicted by a criminal court. So, for Bergoglio, wounds may never disappear but crimes can?
How about this plausible expose about Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, and to some extent, Cardinal Timothy Dolan? It's literally creepy and queasy, to say the least, to find new reports (or old reports finally coming to light) about the degree and reach of the homosexual subculture in the Church, and not knowing who next will be exposed...
https://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/episcopal-sodomy-exposing-cdl.-edwin-obrien
There are only 2 things
an American bishop can say now...
By Phil Lawler
catholicculture.org
August 22, 2018
The Pennsylvania grand-jury report was released on the very day that I had chosen (long beforehand) to begin a week-long vacation. I had vowed that it would be a real vacation—that I wouldn’t hop back to post news items on this site—and I held to that vow. Still I could not escape the news; everyone I met wanted to hear my take on the scandal.
So I told people what I have been telling people since 2002:
that the Dallas Charter addressed only one part of a three-part scandal; that our bishops have still not recognized the depth of the problem; that the crisis will continue until Church leaders demand true reform.
This new outcropping of the scandal has roused much, much more anger than the earlier revelations of the “Long Lent” in 2002. And whereas sixteen years ago the public was shocked primarily by the loathsome activities of predatory priests, this year the focus is — quite rightly —on the bishops.
Our shepherds failed us. They misled us. They told us that they had fixed the problem, and they hadn’t. They told us that there would be no more cover-ups, but there were. They told us that they now understood the problem, but they didn’t. And I’m afraid that, as a group, they still don’t.
If the American bishops understood the depth and breadth of the rage that is mounting among the Catholic laity — and is most evident among the most loyal, the most active, the most prayerful Catholics — they would follow the example of their Chilean counterparts and resign en masse.
Against this background it was refreshing, on my first full day back on the job, to go to morning Mass and hear the reading from Ezekiel (34: 1-11):
The word of the LORD came to me:
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord GOD: Ho, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep?
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.
The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the crippled you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them.
So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the wild beasts.
My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.
“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
As I live, says the Lord GOD, because my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep;
therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my sheep at their hand, and put a stop to their feeding the sheep; no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.
“For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.
Dozens of bishops have released public statements about the scandal in the past few weeks.
- Some of these statements have been hard to credit: prelates claiming that they did not know what so many people around them knew, that they did not hear what they had been told.
- Others have been lawyerly and bureaucratic: mistakes were made, committees will be formed, procedures will be instituted.
- Most, to be fair, have been solid statements, full of apologies, recognizing a need for corrective action, promising reform.
Unfortunately we have heard the apologies and the promises before. The time for strongly worded statements has passed. It is time for action. Urgent action.
Last week a young Catholic woman asked me what our bishops are likely to do. “They’ll meet in November,” I began - and she interrupted with a shout: “In November??!!” She could not believe that, in the midst of this crisis, Church leaders would be content to wait several weeks before doing… anything. I share her frustration. I think Ezekiel shares it, too.
I said above that the time for statements has passed, but that was a slight exaggeration.
There are two sorts of statements that a bishop could issue to catch my attention and earn my respect:
- “I recognize that I have betrayed my people and irreparably damaged my credibility as a pastor of souls and a teacher of the faith. I resign.”
- “I have done my best, despite my failings, to fulfill my episcopal duties. But my colleagues, [here supply names], have betrayed their people and irreparably damaged their credibility as pastors of souls and teachers of the faith. I call upon them to resign.
New statements, new policies, new committees, new procedures cannot resolve this problem. If our bishops cannot institute serious reform, then we need new bishops. [Problem is, at the moment, only YOU-KNOW-WHO can name new bishops, and where will that leave us all? Almost certainly, worse off than ever!]
Epic Fail: Fr. James Martin
at the World Meeting of Families
by Jim Russell
ChurchMilitant.com
August 23, 2018
Homosexualist Jesuit Fr. James Martin spoke on Aug. 23 to about 1,200 pilgrims at the much-touted and Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families (WMOF) held this year in Dublin, Ireland. His talk? "Showing Welcome and Respect in our Parishes for 'LGBT' People and their Families." The talk was immediately published at the America magazine website.
For this longtime observer of the harm Martin has done to the Church — and in keeping with all things "LGBTQIA" — his effort at the "WMOF" was "MOTS" or "SSDD": more of the same; or same stuff, different day.
For anyone who knows the "both/and" that the Church expects regarding the truth about homosexuality and orthodox pastoral outreach to those with same-sex attraction, Martin's slippery prose amounted to an epic failure to give the faithful, the so-deeply-wounded People of God, what is truly needed at this moment of crisis.
It cannot be stated too strongly that
Martin is a wolf in shepherd's clothing. That's not an attack on him as a person, either — it's merely a fair description of what takes place when he merely opens his mouth to speak.
His words are well-crafted — deliberately and deftly sleek and calculated to dance artistically through the minefield of truths that he so assiduously avoids. He wants zero to do with these truths — the core reality — of the homosexual condition. And like a pied piper, he wants everyone who catches earshot of his lilting tune to follow along, not much caring, it seems, whether his followers ever experience the fullness of truth regarding that reality, despite the fact that death can come either physically or spiritually to those who remain ignorant to the landmines Martin has them dancing around.
Martin speaks the politically correct LGBT-speak of secular culture. He relies upon secular psychology — which long ago declared homosexuality to be "normal" — to trump Church teaching regarding the disordered reality of the homosexual inclination. Instead, he fully assumes that which ought to be proven first: namely, that there exists a massive bias against "LGBT people" in Catholic parishes everywhere.
That one obvious misstep in this pied piper's dance is based upon a further set of assumptions: 1) "gay is okay" (not in need of healing); 2) "coming out" is healthy and necessary; and 3) if you "come out" and people respond negatively, you're being "excluded" and "marginalized" by "homophobia".
That is what Martin assumes as his starting point for his talk to families — families — attending this major event.
Not a single utterance about how being "LGBT" is itself a particular cross borne by so many, a cross of harm and suffering. No, the "LGBT" person and community are both ship-shape and in need of nothing except complete, utter and unmitigated acceptance.
But, wait — shouldn't we warn them of the danger involved both in their experience of the homosexual inclination as well as acting on that inclination? Yeah, if you want to be a bigot or homophobe, go ahead.
I trust that readers can read his speech for themselves, if they wish. If anyone is looking for actual Catholic teaching, however, look elsewhere, as you'll find virtually none. What you will find are the correct buzzwords Martin uses to shape the narrative: unwelcome, scandal, cruel, excluded, lepers, etc.
But haven't Catholic parishes had enough of this twisted landscape in which truth goes unnoticed, submerged in the dung heap that results when half-truths and outright lies get piled upon it? For decades, haven't Catholic parishes been accused precisely of being "unwelcome" to "gays" merely by clearly teaching the truth about homosexuality and by clearly expecting that its parishioners would all be willing to not identify themselves by their personal crosses, regardless of what their particular crosses really were? No "gay sex" community, no "adulterer" community, no "embezzler" community and so on.
This all-too-brief summation of Martin's oily spiel foisted upon people of faith gathered in Dublin will never shine full light on the corruption just under the surface of what seems at first blush to be sympathetic.
Martin wants to normalize everything that comes prior to this act of emergence of an "LGBT person" into any parish — he wants to normalize the condition. He wants to normalize "coming out" as a public acclamation of the okayness of the condition. After which Martin then stands ready to accuse parish communities of being "cruel" unless they offer two holy thumbs-up signs to the those seeking to have their own acceptance of "gay" identity, in turn, unquestioningly accepted by that parish community.
This all-too-brief summation of Martin's oily spiel foisted upon people of faith gathered in Dublin will never shine full light on the corruption just under the surface of what seems at first blush to be sympathetic — even "respectful, compassionate and sensitive." But at least one more example can suffice to expose the rot at the core of Martin's vacuously sentimental approach to this issue. Do you know which parish is Martin's hope-filled beacon of "LGBT welcome" in this world?
Martin: "My own Jesuit community in New York is next to a church called St. Paul the Apostle, which has one of the most active LGBT outreach programs in the world. The ministry is called Out at St. Paul and sponsors retreats, Bible study groups, speaking engagements and social events for the parish's large LGBT community. ...
And I just learned that two members of that group are entering religious orders this year."
If that last sentence spoken by the pied piper of Dublin doesn't immediately send chills up your spine, it should. If it doesn't, I highly recommend that you check out something I wrote about "Out at St. Paul" and its pet project "Owning Our Faith" back in 2015.
God help us if the best the Church can offer the world regarding homosexuality and how parishes can be more welcoming to "LGBT people" — at an event meant to encourage and strengthen families — is the worm-tongued eloquence of Fr. James Martin.
AND WHAT ABOUT THIS?
'Exhaustive'? That unrelievedly platitudinous and ultimately meaningless letter? It's an idiot-generated PR ploy that is lightyears away in substance and sincerity from Benedict XVI's letter to the Catholics of Ireland!
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 24/08/2018 14:53]