Now, I must make up for the backlog of reactions to the recent catastrophe that was the annual fall meeting of the USCCB...
The Pope fiddles,
the bishops fumble, and the laity fume
No, it’s not clear that the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously. And the USCCB isn’t helping matters.
by Carl E. Olson
Editorial
November 14, 2018
I haven’t written an editorial since late July, in part because of the heavy and unceasing flood of news — most of it bad and some of it terrible — within the Church. In my last editorial, posted on July 23rd, not long after news broke about McCarrick and related matters, I wrote:
It is true, without doubt, that many of the bishops and cardinals are good men who are trying to do the right thing. But the rot in the Church cannot be covered by good intentions, the corruption in the Body of Christ cannot be treated like a PR problem, and the righteous anger of the laity cannot be placated by soothing sound bites.
Put simply, the current course — which has all too often been a wearying combination of tweaks, spins, deflections, and obfuscations — has deeply damaged trust in the leadership of the Church. Not in the Church — One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic — but in her current leadership as a whole, which often seems to think the laity are either stupid or not able to handle the truth.
Now, as the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore wraps up, where are we? While I tend to list to the cynical side, I harbored cautious hopes that the bishops would make a push to at least present a unified and somewhat determined face in addressing the nightmarish McCarrick situation and the tangled web of secrecy, stonewalling, and straight-up evil involved.
And it appears the bishops also wanted to push forward in some way, having put forward two proposals for vote: one would establish (or at least outline) a new code of conduct for bishops, and the second would create a lay-led investigative body with the ability to investigate bishops credibly accused of misconduct.
Pope Francis, however, had other plans in mind. Or, at least, he didn’t care for the plan on the table (even though he praised the French bishops a week ago for establishing an independent commission to investigate their hierarchy’s response to abuse).
And so, on Monday morning, at the very start of the assembly, a rather distraught Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the USCCB, informed the bishops that he had been told late Sunday to set the proposals aside. Most everyone was surprised, except for Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, known both for his rapid rise in the episcopal ranks (with the direct blessing of Francis) and the low amount of esteem he holds among his fellow bishops, who immediately took the microphone. With a flat but clearly planned delivery, he stated, without the least suggestion of irony: “It is clear the the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously.”
NO, IT'S NOT!
What is clear is that Pope Francis has surrounded himself with men, including Cupich, who are either seriously compromised or who openly lust after ecclesial power.
- It’s not just that they show little regard for doctrine or truth, but how they act as entitled sycophants whose disregard for their fellow bishops is matched only by their disdain for the orthodox faithful.
- It’s also evident that Francis does not want any sort of investigation into McCarrick or related matters to be outside of his control.
One need not be well-versed in canon law (I’m not) or sympathetic to the various claims made by Archbishop Viganó (I am) to connect the huge and proliferating dots.
Cupich, while emphasizing (again, without any sense of irony) the “urgency” of the matter at hand, suggested a non-binding resolution ballot and then a March 2019 meeting to follow a special February meeting with Pope Francis, which raised many other questions, including,
“How many meetings does it take”?
It later came out that the directive to DiNardo had not come directly from Pope Francis but from the Congregation for Bishops, which includes two American prelates: the increasingly omniscient Cardinal Cupich and the retired-but-going-nowhere Cardinal Donald Wuerl. (There were some, via social media, who wondered
if Pope Francis knew about the directive, which does not speak well of social media. He knew. He called it. Period.)
There was much debate and conversation yesterday but it was already evident that little or nothing would come of it, even if some of the bishops made good points and issued exhortations worthy of consideration.
The assembly was essentially dead in the water, or dead even before it got to the water. Things certainly couldn’t get worse, right?
Not so fast. Earlier today [last day of the 3-day assembly],
the bishops spent some time debating a resolution that would, as CNA reported, ‘encourage’ the Holy See to release all documents on the allegations of sexual misconduct against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick. After about a half hour of debate, objections that the resolution was redundant and ambiguous won out, and it was voted down by a clicker vote of 83-137, with three abstaining.”
Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, who had originally proposed the text, acknowledged, “This is not going to solve everything…” At least, it appears, it might have sent a modest signal to the Vatican that the U.S. bishops weren’t entirely pleased with being hung out to dry. But even that was too much, perhaps in part because
the waters have been so poisoned with the notion that questioning or critiquing any statements or actions of Francis indicate an “anti-papal” sentiment.
Bishop Liam Cary of Baker, Oregon, made a cogent point in asking, “If McCarrick were to come to this microphone would he be allowed to speak?”, while he noted, as reported by CNA, “that there was no open microphone for his victims.”
In a CWR interview last week, Bishop Cary spoke of “apostolic betrayal” in referencing McCarrick, stating:
“The diabolical aspect of his betrayal is crucial. It goes beyond human frailty, it is a deep-seated evil, and a betrayal of the Son of God.” (Are you surprised that Cary is in eastern Oregon and not northeastern Illinois?)
Meanwhile, in an earlier session,
Cardinal Cupich opined that in examining “those offenses against minors as opposed to adults, I would strongly urge that they be be separate. It’s a different discipline because, uh, in some of the cases with adults involving clerics, it could be consensual sex … There’s a whole different set of circumstances.”
Again, nary a hint of irony could be detected in his delivery, even though
his parsing of the particulars of canon law (as opposed to criminal law) when it comes to sinful, shameful acts bears a strong resemblance to the “teachers of the law” so often denounced by Pope Francis.
However, most striking, in reading accounts and watching video of the proceedings, was the contrast between parliamentary bickering and the huge stakes involved. Unlike some, I still do believe that many of the bishops are very good and holy men.
There is a real sense in which they are held hostage by the nature of the Conference, which has shown itself to be mostly worthless if not worse. There is undoubtedly a lot of pressure being applied by the Vatican to conform and toe the line.
But that’s not good enough. Not now. As I wrote back in July:
-The Catholic faithful do not want “easy”; they want the hard truth.
- They do not want therapists and counsellors; they want faithful men of God.
- They do not pine for happy talk, but for the joy found in the word of God, preached by servants of Christ in and out of season.
- they do not easily trust those who do not vigorously proclaim and live the truth.
And, again,
it’s not clear that the Holy See is taking the abuse crisis seriously. [If any right-minded person who follows Church news still thinks otherwise, he can only be an unregenerate Bergogliac.] But that’s a topic for another day.
My PC was attacked by the virus in the middle of posting the following analysis by Chris Altieri, who was among the first to react to the opening-day bombshell from the Vatican that reduced the US bishops' annual meeting to a shambles and a travesty...
Why has Pope Francis hamstrung the U.S. bishops?
Francis appears more concerned with making sure everyone understands
that he’s in charge, than he is with actually governing.
Analysis
by Christopher R. Altieri
November 12, 2018
Pope Francis has ordered the Catholic Bishops of the United States to refrain from voting on a code of conduct and a lay-led oversight body to investigate bishops accused of misconduct. The President of the USCCB, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, told prelates of the Pope’s instruction as they were gathered for the opening session of their highly anticipated Fall Meeting in Baltimore.
The reason given for the delay is that the Holy See desires the US bishops’ action be informed by the discussions scheduled to take place among the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences in February at the Vatican.
Upon hearing the announcement, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago immediately took the floor to suggest the bishops stick to their agenda, and take a resolution ballot in lieu of a binding vote. “As you [Cardinal DiNardo] are our representative going to that meeting, we need to be very clear with you where we stand,” Cupich said, “and we need to tell our people where we stand.”
Cardinal Cupich also said,
“It is clear that the Holy See is taking seriously the abuse crisis in the Church, seeing it as a watershed moment, not just for the Church in this country, but around the world, in putting so much emphasis on the February meeting.” [So seriously the pope would put off any action until then - almost five months from the time he made his announcement! Meanwhile, everyone is supposed to hold their horses and sit on their asses, twiddling their thumbs till the pope himself tells them what to do about a crisis affecting the entire US Church - and other churches in a similar position, though perhaps not quite as grave??? Whatever happened to 'synodality' - obviously just another meaningless Bergoglian catchword - and to subsidiarity, the longtime principle whereby the Church intends problems to be solved at the lowest local level first and foremost?]
The Vatican announced the February meeting in September, at the end of a three-day gathering of the paralyzed and scandal-ridden C9 Council of Cardinal Advisers — the Pope’s hand-picked “kitchen cabinet” tasked with drawing up the blueprint for reform of the Roman Curia — in the wake of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s dossier alleging systemic corruption and rot in the Curia, including a cover-up of the disgraced former Archbishop of Washington, DC, Theodore Edgar “Uncle Ted” McCarrick, that stretches back at least twenty years and involves three popes and three secretaries of state, as well as a host of other more-or-less senior Curial officials.
The Holy See has not published a list of those officially invited to the meeting — though it is supposed to involve all the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences —
nor has the Holy See said which dicastery is principally responsible for organizing the meeting. There is no agenda, nor is there any specific mandate.
When the C9 Cardinals announced February meeting, this Vatican watcher had the distinct impression
they had to twist the Holy Father’s arm to get him to agree to do anything at all with regard to the burgeoning crisis.
The Holy See apparently did not have similar scruples when it came to action on the part of French bishops, who last week voted to establish an independent commission to investigate their hierarchy’s response to abuse since 1950, and make reform recommendations. In a message to the French bishops sent through his Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis called on the French hierarchical leadership to continue their efforts at reform, News.va reported last week:
The Pope encourages the [French] Bishops to persevere in the fight against pedophilia, urging them to continue in their implementation of a “zero tolerance” stance against sexual abuse committed by certain members of the Church, without ever forgetting, he says, “to recognize and support the humble fidelity lived in daily life, with the grace of God, by so many priests, men and women religious, consecrated and lay faithful.”... (He also) stresses the importance of listening to the victims whose wounds, he adds, will never be healed by a prescription.
[In other words, the Bergoglio diktat for the US Church was yet another capricious exercise of his dictatorial power, since he praises similar initiatives by the French bishops. He is so consistent in his inconsistencies!]
It remains to be seen whether the Holy See will intrude on the Italian bishops, who are slated to consider similar proposals at their own extraordinary assembly, which also opened Monday in the Vatican.
Addressing the US bishops on Monday morning in Baltimore, shortly after they had received news of the Vatican order, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, said,
There may be a temptation on the part of some to relinquish responsibility for reform to others than ourselves, as if we were no longer capable of reforming or trusting ourselves, as if the deposit of trust should be transferred to other institutions entirely...
Assistance is both welcome and necessary, and surely collaboration with the laity is essential. However, the responsibility as bishops of this Catholic Church is ours — to live with, to suffer with, and to exercise properly.
[What a bootlicking flunky this Nuncio is! One wonders, if Vigano were still Nuncio, would he have agreed to say such things, or would he have resigned on the spot rather than being part of the bombshell?]
The laity, in other words, are welcome to pray, and will foot the bill for the bishops’ incompetence, negligence, and wickedness, but have no say otherwise.
Whether the US Department of Justice will see it quite that way, or any of the more than a dozen states currently conducting or considering whether to open their own criminal probes into the conduct of senior US Church leadership, remains to be seen.
After the nuncio’s remarks, Cardinal DiNardo announced his intention to lead the US bishops in discussion of their proposals.
“We remain committed to the specific program of greater episcopal accountability,” he said near the top of his presidential address. “Consultations will take place,” he continued. “Votes will not be [cast] this week, but we will prepare ourselves to move forward for action.” Cardinal DiNardo went on to say, “Whether we will be regarded as guardians of the abused or the abuser, will be determined by our actions.”
When the Executive Committee leadership of the USCCB met with Pope Francis in September, and asked him to authorize a special investigation — an Apostolic Visitation — into the rise of McCarrick, Pope Francis refused. Though the Holy See never gave a reason for the refusal — never actually said the Pope had refused —
the general picture that emerged in the wake of the meeting was one in which the blunderbuss procedure of USCCB leadership in announcing their intention in mid-August to request the Apostolic Visitation before talking things over with the Holy See, coupled with Archbishop Viganò’s highly publicized J’accuse! toward the end of that month, led to Pope Francis feeling unduly pressured, not to say painted into a corner.
McCarrick is credibly accused of abusing at least one minor in St. Patrick’s Cathedral and alleged to have subjected the boy who was the first child he baptized as a priest to a decade and more of sexual violence. McCarrick, now known also for his serial abuse and harassment of seminarians, nevertheless advanced to the rank of Cardinal before Francis was forced by circumstance to have his hat.
Francis also suggested the bishops forego their Fall gathering entirely, in favor of a spiritual retreat. [He never wanted them to be in any position to do something about McCarrick as a body. As it turns out, the fact that twice as many bishops voted against a simple resolution simply 'encouraging' the Holy See to release its documentation on McCarrick was an action to aid and abet Bergoglio's obstructionism on exposing the whole truth about McCarrick - an obstructionism that can only mean fear of incriminating himself by confirming Mons Vigano's allegations about who knew in the Vatican and when, and what they knew, about McCarrick.]
Just to be clear: expectations from the US bishops’ Fall meeting were generally low already. The proposals on the table amounted to things the bishops admit they should have been doing all along — indeed, things that no morally competent individual or group could fail to do as a matter of course.
The measures were a code of conduct that CNA’s editor-in-chief, JD Flynn, described as “a seven-page document in which bishops promise to do things they’re mostly obliged already to do,” and a reporting mechanism that had no real teeth and no real funding mechanism.
It also would have involved the apostolic nuncio as de facto referee. The reporting mechanism would have to report to the nuncio. If the Pope’s defenders will urge that it does not appear entirely unreasonable to demand the US bishops not foist the arrangement upon the Holy See, it is at least equally reasonable to urge in response that the nuncio is already responsible for knowing what the bishops are doing in the country to which he is appointed.
If the Holy See wants to contend that the responsibility for making sure the bishops the Pope appoints do not rape, assault, abuse, harass, or otherwise mistreat any member of their flock, or condone, allow, wink at, or otherwise tolerate any mistreatment or malfeasance of any kind, should somehow be placed under terms or subject to negotiation, let the Holy See say so in words.
In any case, the nuts and bolts of the arrangement — which the US bishops’ administrative committee approved on September 19 — are the sort of thing the USCCB leadership and the competent curial officials could have worked out together, either in the run-up to the Baltimore gathering, or during the three days of sessions, themselves, or even subsequent to the vote
The measures would at any rate have been likely to offer precious little in the way of direct address of
the core problem: not so much the bishops’ failure to police their own ranks with respect to the abuse of minors and the cover-up of said abuse — appalling and egregious as that failure is — as the bishops’ dereliction of their duty to foster a sane moral culture among the clergy, high and low.
Here’s the point on which the whole thing hangs:
Neither Cardinal DiNardo, who in his presidential allocution said of himself and his fellows, “In our weakness, we fell asleep,” nor Pope Francis, who has called the February meeting around the theme of “safeguarding minors” or “minors and vulnerable adults,” comes close to acknowledging either the nature or the scope of the crisis.
The bishops were not merely negligent: many of them were complicit. As a body, they are widely viewed as untrustworthy. Francis appears more concerned with making sure everyone understands that he’s in charge, than he is with actually governing.
We’re winning -
Don't let them silence us
by Steve Skojec
November 15, 2018
This week, we saw two astonishing failures in ecclesiastical leadership as regards the clerical sex abuse crisis.
- First was the Vatican’s direct intervention in the U.S. Bishops’ fall meeting, stopping them from holding a vote on accountability measures. We heard about “shock” and “surprise” and “anger” from the bishops after the interference from Rome.
- But then, when the time came for the bishops to vote on a measure to ask Rome to release all pertinent files on the McCarrick case, the measure failed by nearly a two-to-one vote. 83 in favor. 137 against. 3 abstentions.
This was not a controversial resolution. Its wording was careful to the point of being anodyne:
“Be it resolved that the bishops of the USCCB encourage the Holy Father to release all the documentation that can be released consistent with canon and civil law regarding the misconduct of Archbishop McCarrick.”
Still, the bishops bickered over the thing until they managed to strangle it to death.
Earlier today, someone asked me what I thought about the latest Pew Research data showing a drop in Pope Francis’s approval ratings here in the states. Not having seen anything from Pew, I took a stab in the dark. “I don’t think anyone knows why for sure, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s his handling of abuse crisis. It’s the one thing that derails even his most progressive allies.”
I said that there had been an aggregated effect. Barros. McCarrick. The Pennsylvania Grand Jury report. Vigano. What just happened in Baltimore at the bishops meeting – and the intervention from Rome to keep anything of substance from moving forward.
All of these stories were percolating up out of the alternative Catholic media and into the public consciousness. They were beginning to register on the mainstream media’s radar. As canonist and Catholic journalist Ed Condon wrote earlier this week, “At a stroke, Pope Francis has made himself the face of the sexual abuse crisis in the United States and taken personal ownership of the church’s response, or nonresponse, to it.” [Remarkable for Condon who usually bends over backwards to give Bergoglio the benefit of the doubt!] And America sees him that way too.
When I had a chance, I did some research. As it turns out, the latest Pew data was published over a month ago. And the headline was clear: “Confidence in Pope Francis Down Sharply in U.S.: By a two-to-one margin, American Catholics now give Francis negative marks for his handling of the sex abuse scandal.”
After years, the collective efforts of publications like 1P5, compounded by the almost unimaginable mishandling of this newly reinvigorated abuse crisis, has finally shifted the balance.
And yet, for some reason, the people running the Catholic Church are still doing the same things. Still obfuscating. Still acting like they have total impunity. They apparently think they’re going to keep getting away with it.
For the first time, though, we’re seeing evidence that they are afraid. They’re worried about how alternative Catholic media is turning the tables on their agenda.
Which is why they are trying to find a way to silence us.
During the Youth Synod last month in Rome, a discussion was had about how the Vatican might sanction Catholic outlets it trusts. This attempt — which I’ve taken to referring to as “The Index of Forbidden Blogs” — made an appearance in paragraph 146 of the final synod document. A translation of which was provided by Twitter powerhouse @Catholicsat a couple of weeks ago:
146. The Synod hopes that in the Church appropriate official bodies for digital culture and evangelization are established at appropriate levels, which, with the indispensable contribution of young people, promote ecclesial action and reflection in this environment. Among their functions, in addition to promoting the exchange and dissemination of good practices at a personal and community level, and to develop adequate tools for digital education and evangelization, could also manage certification systems of Catholic sites, to counter the spread of fake news regarding the Church, and looking for ways to persuade public authorities to promote increasingly stringent policies and tools for the protection of minors on the web.
[I went back to check the Vatican's vote tally and this Prop 146 actually got 234 YES votes and only SIX AGAINST! The most charitable interpretation I can make of this is that the 6 NO votes came from the only participants who actually read through the proposition and understood it. I must find out who they were - because if it turns out that none of the were named either Sarah or Chaput or Barron, then it means that bishops we might have expected to see the absurdity of the proposed 'certification' of Catholic sites were among those who, by the time the voting got to Prop 146 out of a total 167, were already braindead from sheer exhaustion and tedium that they probably voted YES like programmed automatons. And what does that say of them?]
This week, Church Militant got their hands on a proposed list of approved sites from one of the pope’s most notorious sycophants, Fr. Thomas Rosica, Vatican spokesman and head of Canada’s Salt and Light TV. Rosica, who alternates between threatening to sue bloggers he doesn’t like and committing blasphemous pope worship, put some names on paper that will have you rolling out of your seat:
Every single source on that list is in the tank for the Francis camp.
You’ll notice nothing about 1P5, LifesiteNews, Church Militant, or even Catholic News Agency, the National Catholic Register, or EWTN.
They want desperately to shut anyone up who is telling the truth about what they’re doing.
With your help, that isn’t going to work.
At the beginning of 2018, I told you I sensed the beginning of the end for Francis and friends. As we approach the final month of 2018, it seems that prediction was more prescient than I could have believed. One thunderous blow after another has rocked that kakistocracy that has seized possession of Holy Mother Church. Their corrupt bastions are tottering; we must continue to press until they fall.
This is why, now, more than ever, we need your support. We have reached a moment where the advantage is shifting to our side. We must seize the high ground and press the attack if we want our Church back.
Half way through the month of November, we are at only 40% of our monthly fundraising goal. We need your help... [Skojec proceeds with his fundraising appeal.]
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 17/11/2018 03:16]