Fr Weinandy said it best last week: If the February summit of episcopal conference presidents tackles the problem of homosexuality in the clergy, the pope is serious about resolving the Present Crisis. If not, then he is not. Well, more and more, it looks like the pope is totally un-serious, despite all the seeming hustle and bustle about preparing for that meeting.
- Start with the fact that the PRESENT CRISIS came to a head in June with the first public disclosure of McCarrick's sexual misconduct (June 20), aggravated by the long-awaited Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report released August 14. And what did Bergoglio do?
- The pope chose to write a platitudinous and very generic 4-page letter to'The People of God' many days after the Pennsylvania expose, about which Vatican said it was his 'exhaustive' response to the crisis and that nothing more should be expected from the Vatican. I felt then that hardly anyone reacted to that summary ploy to "forget about it - it's over".
- Then came Mons. Vigano's first Testimony on August 27 - which the pope decided he was not going to answer at all. Nothing formal, of course, but there followed a barrage of indirect attacks at Vigano, mostly through a sacrilegious use of the pope's morning homilies at Casa Santa Marta. The homily is part of the liturgy, and to use it to promote a negative personal agenda is sacrilegious.
Besides, all he had to do was say - yes or no, did Vigano talk to him about McCarrick's misconduct when they met one on one in June 2013 and he, the pope, had opened the subject himself by asking Vigano what he thought of McCarrick! That he could not even do that means either that he cannot deny it because it is true, or that even he has compunctions about denying it in public outright if it is true - because think of the many lies, big and small, that he has publicly said without having to account for them, except perhaps to his confessor, if at all!
- Meanwhile, all the pope's men concentrated their fire on discrediting Vigano while still not giving any answers to the questions he raised.
- Vigano came out with a second testimony in which he challenged the Prefect of Bishops, Marc Ouellet, to publicly disclose what he knew of the McCarrick case from his congregation's own files.
- The Vatican promptly used Ouellet as a willing tool, 'with the poep's permission', to answer Vigano - but it boomeranged, of course, because Ouellet confirmed much of what Vigano alleged about McCarrick, but lamely dismissed the main question of Vigano's June 2013 meeting with the pope by claiming that the latter could not be expected to remember everything he discusses with persons he receives in private audience. That's a real hooter, and I am surprised someone with Ouellet's brains agreed to field that one.
- Indeed, it was not until September 12, obviously on the prompting of the pope's Crown Council of cardinal advisers, that they announced the pope was calling a meeting in late February 2019 of all the heads of episcopal conferences "to discuss preventing clergy abuse and protecting children". This was one month since the publication of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report, and Bergoglio had to be arm-twisted into it by his cardinal advisers.
Meanwhile, what did Bergoglio do in response to the urgent demand for a full-scale investigation of the McCarrick case both from the US bishops and from the US faithful, so the public could know the extent of his misconduct - and how he managed to carry it on for decades as one of the Church's most prominent men and in the last 5 years, as one of Bergoglio's closest advisers and agents?
- He delayed for a full month the US bishops' request to meet with him on how to deal with the crisis.
- When they did meet, he rejected their request for an apostolic visitation that alone would be able to unearth all the relevant documents and interview all the relevant witnesses about the McCarrick case.
- He announced instead on October 6 (15 weeks after McCarrick was first publicly exposed) that the Vatican itself would review its own files on McCarrick.
- When the US bishops decided they would devote their fall meeting this year to discussing the plans they had drawn up to deal with the crisis, he blocks them at the last minute from doing that, claiming they should wait until after the February meeting.
In one fell swoop of an astonishing display of autocratic dictatorship - goodbye subsidiarity, goodbye synodality, and a full welcome to the church of deceit, dishonesty and sheer bad faith, in every sense of this term. No one, other than Coupich and his ilk, and the media that remain 'loyal' to Bergoglio, right or wrong, had anything good to say about this move. And we thought Bergoglio couldn't possibly top that outrage, though by now, we ought to know this man is capable of anything, no matter how stupid, to get his way, by hook or by crook.
With Cupich as organizer,
February conference in Rome
will do little but try for damage control
By Phil Lawler
November 27, 1018
If you held out any hope that the Vatican might finally respond effectively to the sex-abuse scandal — that the February meeting could possibly prompt some real action — those hopes should have been shattered by the stunning announcement that Pope Francis had appointed Cardinal Blase Cupich to the organizing committee for that February event.
This is the same Cardinal Cupich who said, regarding the latest eruption of the scandal, that
the Pope was “not going to go down a rabbit hole on this.” If you want to start a serious discussion of the abuse question among the world’s top Catholic prelates, you need to get past the gatekeeper. And at least one gatekeeper for this February meeting thinks that if you go through that gate, you’ll be headed down a rabbit hole. Good luck.
You’d like to think that in February, the presidents of the world’s episcopal conference will recognize that they are dealing with a scandal of immense proportions, a scandal that threatens the evangelical mission of the Church. But again,
Cardinal Cupich told a TV interviewer that the issue shouldn’t be overemphasized. “The Pope has a bigger agenda,” he said, and as a first example of those “bigger” issues he mentioned “talking about the environment.”
Ordinarily, if you’re planning a conference, you’d choose organizers who take a special interest in the subject at hand. Cardinal Cupich has made it abundantly clear that he does not regard the sex-abuse scandal as a matter of paramount importance. Yet the Pope chose him to help organize this conference. Why?
To answer that question, let’s look at the second reason why the selection of Cardinal Cupich is astonishing.
The scandal that erupted this summer, and prompted the Pontiff to schedule this meeting for February, involved three issues:
- sexual abuse by clerics (as illustrated by the Pennsylvania grand-jury report),
- the unmasking and forced resignation of former cardinal McCarrick, and
- the testimony of Archbishop Vigano that Vatican officials, including Pope Francis himself, were previously aware of McCarrick’s perfidy.
Only one of those issues — sexual abuse by priests — is on the agenda for the February meeting.
But the subject for the meeting [going by its formal title], is
“The Protection of Minors”. Period. There is no mention — at least not in the Vatican’s announcement of the event —o f homosexual activity among the clergy, of homosexual influence in the hierarchy, of how McCarrick rose to ecclesial power, or of the Vigano testimony.
Some bishops would like to see the scope of the Vatican inquiry expanded to include those other topics. To be specific, more than 80 American bishops have called for a formal Vatican inquiry that might clear up the questions raised by the Vigano testimony.
Cardinal Cupich is not one of those prelates. On the contrary, he has dismissed the Vigano testimony. So it’s fair to assume that as an organizer of the February conference, he will work assiduously to keep a tight focus on “the protection of minors.” And that, I suggest, is the reason why he was appointed to the organizing committee.
But I’m not finished yet. In his eye-opening testimony, Archbishop Vigano said that Cardinal Cupich is one of the American prelates whose rise through the ranks can be traced to the influence of the disgraced McCarrick. True, that charge is
unproven, but neither is it disproven. [Does anyone really need court-standard proof of this other than common sense and the fact that no one has denied it????]
Any serious Vatican inquiry would be forced to weigh the truth of Vigano’s claim. But now the cardinal who should be under a microscope is instead sitting on the organizing committee — in an ideal position to block uncomfortable questions about his own possible involvement in the scandal.
If the February conference is intended as an exercise in damage control, the Cupich appointment makes sense. If the conference is intended to prompt reform, the appointment makes no sense at all. So I conclude that
this meeting — which one scarred veteran of the Vatican battles has described as the “last chance” for Vatican credibility —
will produce nothing more than “enthusiastic words” about the fight against sexual abuse.
At this point, why should we expect more?
- For most of five years, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has been working in these same vineyards, with little to show for it.
- The Commission strongly recommended a special tribunal to hold bishops accountable; that proposal was formally approved, then quietly shelved.
- Commission members have complained that their work is opposed by other offices within the Roman Curia, and ignored by many of the world’s episcopal conferences.
Pope Francis could have given this existing Commission the clout that it needs to produce real reform. He could have summoned the leaders of the world’s episcopal conferences, and instructed them to carry out the suggestions of the Pontifical Commission.
Or, as just a small step in that direction,
the Pope could have named Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the chairman of that Commission, to the organizing committee for the February meeting. He did not. While Cardinal O’Malley insists that he still has the Pope’s full confidence, and he will take part in the February meeting by virtue of his position on the Commission, it is still noteworthy that he is not on the organizing committee.
Think about it:
- The February conference is dedicated to the protection of minors. - The Vatican already has an office devoted to precisely that topic. - But that office will not be in charge of organizing the meeting. - The Commission that has already spent months speaking with victims, and devising plans to protect them, is not setting the agenda.
Since the pressure for Vatican action this year has come primarily from the United States, it is fitting that at least one prominent American prelate should have been involved in the planning. If not Cardinal O’Malley, why not Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the US bishops’ conference?
Once again an explanation is close at hand, and it is not encouraging. Cardinal DiNardo led an American delegation to Rome this summer, to urge the Pope to conduct an inquiry into the McCarrick scandal and the Vigano charges. The Pope declined. If Cardinal DiNardo were placed on the organizing committee, he might be tempted to look for another way to jump-start that broader investigation.
Whereas Cardinal Cupich, when asked about the McCarrick/Vigano mess, replied that “this is not on the Pope’s plate to fix. This is on us.”
- Cardinal Cupich knows the Pope’s thinking.
- And Pope Francis knows full well what Cardinal Cupich will contribute to the task of organizing the February meeting.
- For Cupich, the sex-abuse scandal as seen through American eyes — the scandal that includes McCarrick and homosexual influence and Vatican complicity — is “not on the Pope’s plate to fix.”
Look for more headlines on this issue in February, but do not expect any substantial movement. Help is not on the way.
The stench from 'Cupich church'
November 25, 2018
The winds of scandal whipping around the Church’s gay pederasty problem are not dissipating but picking up speed. This is foiling the devious plans of Pope Francis, who deliberately scheduled his “abuse summit” six months out in the hopes that few would care about it by then.
News of that quickie gathering of bishops scheduled for next February commanded little respect from the laity before this week, but even less now that its primary American organizer has been announced — Blase Cupich, who owes his elevation in large part, according to Archbishop Carlo Viganò, to the very molester, Theodore McCarrick, whose scandal the summit will supposedly address.
It was McCarrick who whispered in the pope’s ear about appointing the relatively obscure Cupich to the immensely important archdiocese of Chicago. Overnight this appointment turned the nebbishy Cupich into the most powerful cardinal in America. In Baltimore at the fall bishops’ conference, Cupich was revelling in this status, playing with his cufflinks as he held court before awed staffers.
Cupich is of course the least credible American figure to address the abuse crisis. His resolve to purge the mini-McCarricks who populate the priesthood and hierarchy from the Church is nil. To the critical question — Should the Church continue to ordain homosexuals? — Cupich’s answer is a resounding yes. This, along with his left-wing politics, has turned him into a media darling. Notice that
all of the media’s recent take-downs of derelict leadership steer clear of Chicago.
Cupich has famously vowed not to follow Viganò down his “rabbit hole” and says he will focus instead on the promotion of the pope’s enviro-socialist political program. At the Baltimore conference, Cupich was running interference for double-living prelates, urging his colleagues to see such misconduct as “consensual” and thus not worthy of strict regulation.
Cardinal Oswald Garcia of Mumbai, by the way, is also on the abuse summit’s organizing committee.
He is the Cupich of India, so brainwashed by the pope’s moral relativism that he has taken to telling socially conservative Indians that they need to lighten up about LGBT rights. Garcia has also been known to censor out of his priests’ homilies any “offensive” references to the sinfulness of homosexual behavior.
Not a single McCarrick crony has been demoted under Pope Francis.
One of them, Paterson (New Jersey) Bishop Arthur Serratelli, presides over an openly corrupt diocese. A wispy protégé of McCarrick’s, Serratelli is known for, among other acts of astonishing corruption, making Fr. Hernan Arias, a credibly accused gay predator, his vocations director.
Arias no longer holds that post, but he remains pastor of St. Margaret of Scotland despite the fact that he is under Vatican investigation for an allegation of sexual assault against a college student who was thinking about becoming a priest. Serratelli knew about this charge before he made Arias vocations director, according to a source close to the Paterson chancery.
Arias is so close to Serratelli that people in the know in the diocese refer to him as “Mrs. Serratelli” or the “First Lady,” said this source. “Serratelli, Arias, and Edgar Rivera (the current vocations director) go on vacation every year together to the Dominican Republic,” added this source. The whereabouts of Arias are not known, even though on paper he remains St. Margaret’s pastor.
Another corrupt Paterson priest on the run is Fr. Patrick Ryan, who (I’m told by well-placed Paterson sources) is under state investigation for embezzling money from St. James of the Marches parish to finance his gay lifestyle. “He has been ripping off the second collection for years, and with some of that money bought a house for his gay lover,” according to a chancery-connected source.
When I saw Serratelli in Baltimore, I asked him about the status of Ryan. Is he under investigation for embezzlement? Serratelli refused to answer. When I asked him about Ryan’s checkered background — sexual misconduct charges dogged him during a previous posting in Albany — Serratelli visibly winced and started babbling about how “lawyers had checked everything out.”
Why did Ryan leave Albany for Paterson? Speculation abounds. “He used to cruise parks up there,” says one priest. Another source suspects that Ryan got to Paterson on a “prisoner exchange” — a trade of deviant priests undertaken by former bishops of Paterson and Albany designed to keep inquiring cops at bay.
Staffers at Ryan’s parish decline to answer any questions about him. Parishioners have been told that he is on leave for “health reasons.” It is the same template Serratelli used to explain Arias’s disappearance from his post: “Due to the stress he has been experiencing, Father Arias has requested and received time away from his parish, St. Margaret of Scotland in Morristown, for health reasons.”
“Health reasons” is becoming as hackneyed a departing explanation for the Church’s nabbed deviants as “the need to spend more time with family” is for vanishing pols.
Cupich claims that the upcoming abuse summit will put such a culture of evasion behind the Church. It is far more likely to cement official lies in place. High among those lies is that the abuse scandal revolves around “children,” Cupich’s carefully chosen word, even as case after almost every case involves male teenagers.
The scandal is one of homosexual indulgence, precisely the McCarrick problem that the beneficiaries of his sinister
influence and dirty money have no interest in solving.
To paraphrase a Victorian poet's line about homosexual love - 'the love that dare not speak its name' - homosexual activity is 'the sin of which the Bergoglio Vatican dare not speak its name'. They call it 'clericalism' instead in a blatant misdirection. How can you possibly confront a problem with a view to resolving it if you don't even acknowledge what it is?
I find the following article undermined by the fact that the sin of 'heresy' that the writer attributes to Fr James Martin can be attributed in far greater measure to the reigning pope himself - especially about partially quoting the Catechism - because the pope habitually edits Jesus's words to fit his own purpose! So if Fr. Kusick calls on bishops to ban Martin from their dioceses for this what should they do about the pope who is a worse offender???? And it all falls under what Cusick describes as 'exploiting uncatechized Catholics', and worse, in the pope's case, catechizing them wrongly because he is catechizing them about the church of Bergoglio, not about the one true Church of Christ!
BISHOPS: BAN JESUIT FR. JAMES MARTIN NOW
'He exploits uncatechized Catholics'
By Fr. Kevin M. Cusick
November 25, 2018
The bishops in Baltimore were stymied in their attempt to pass meaningful and effective measures to impose their own sexual morality guidelines on themselves. The Holy Father shot down their planned votes on two measures to police themselves by asking them not to act.
Stephen P. White in
The Catholic Thing makes the point that the Pope, in effect, humiliated our bishops, and I'm inclined to agree.
He also says the Pope may be angered by their lack of support for him in reaction to the explosive charges levied by Abp. Carlo Viganò. It is true that they have rightly called for an investigation of Viganò in connection with the McCarrick malfeasance. Their call to Rome for releasing all documents in connection with McCarrick was voted down. I think we can be certain that
Pope Francis doesn't want anybody who believes Viganò to get their hands on any documents at all.
Recognizing the connection between homosexuality and preying upon minors is something the bishops can act on without permission from Rome. They can begin by shutting down the James Martin, S.J. road show.
You may remember that Martin was disinvited from speaking at the Theological College. The authorities there denied that the decision had anything to do with his subversive message, but stated instead that they wish to avoid controversy. It was a small victory.
Martin spreads confusion about Catholic teaching in his books and talks, telling a homosexual man, for example, that he looks forward to the day when he and his "partner" can kiss each other during the "Sign of Peace" at Mass. This is clearly an acknowledgment and approval of the sodomitic relationship two such men share.
This is clearly in violation of the teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, our Church's application of Scriptures and Tradition to faith and morals. He partly quotes those portions of the Catechism he can twist to his evil purposes. Such a deception helps him to maintain credibility among the more gullible.
Martin's heresy is the worst sort imaginable.
His partial quotations of the Catechism only to undermine its teaching is not pastoral or compassionate.
[Bergoglio's 'heresy' is even worse - because it is Jesus himself he partially quotes or even edits to falsely support his personal and papal agenda.]
Everything Cusick writes from here on really ought to be addressed to the reigning pope, not just to Martin and the other bishops besides the Bishop of Rome:
The Church's mission is not to accommodate to the world and penultimate agendas. The Church's mandated mission imposed by her divine founder is to lead souls to Heaven, to make saints. Encouraging mortal sin does the opposite. This is why Martin needs to be restricted by every bishop.
Until the bishops unite behind a common mission to teach faith and morals, clearly and univocally in each diocese, we cannot begin to make the Church safe for the vulnerable of any age. The sexual abuse of any person is a violation of Church teaching on chastity. Every vocation demands chastity.
No permission from the Pope is ever needed to teach faith and morals. It is the charge from Christ Himself to Peter, the first pope, and every other bishop thereafter to "Teach them all I have commanded you" in connection with the mandate to baptize all nations with the invocation of the Trinity.
Christ taught by His own example of holiness and affirmation of the Ten Commandments that God's teaching on marriage between one man-husband and one woman-wife cannot be changed. He said not one jot or tittle of the law will be changed until it all comes true. He intended this above all in regard to the Decalogue, the Sixth Commandment, which says that no violation of the vows between husband and wife can under any circumstances be violated without sinning.
This is intended for those within marriage, who share an exclusive relationship. By the same token, it is intended for those outside of any marriage for whom all genital expression is forbidden with others, married or unmarried.
The sexual faculty is given for the generation of children within the expression of the married love of man and woman alone. No one else may share in the gift no matter how their errant attractions may unfortunately tempt them. God's grace is enough, for "with God all things are possible." The hope with which each one of us lives each day is inspired by the promise of God that we can all share in His life now and forever by loving His truth. No matter how we fail or fall short, He is always ready to welcome us back and does so through nothing less than a sacrament, that of confession.
We cannot love what we do not pursue. Thus, the task for each of us is to know the truth and to make it the operating principle of our lives. We just need to be authentic: to live what we believe.
Martin can never speak for God's love or serve the true good of others until he reorients his life around Jesus Christ and His truth — all of it. Truth is inconvenient and may sometimes be uncomfortable on our way to Heaven. We enter into the combat of holiness for the eternal reward no matter the cost. True courage is required.
Joseph Sciambra is working very hard to help our bishops speak out and stop Martin. He is on Twitter, among other venues, tracking Martin's heretical teachings and opposing them with the truth of faith. Sciambra once lost his soul in the homosexual "lifestyle" and then rejected that lifestyle for the sake of truth. At josephsciambra.com, he says Martin is not "compassionate" or "sensitive," but rather the opposite:
In his recently published book, Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity, Martin repeatedly applauds "The Catechism" for bolding stating that homosexuals must be treated with "respect, compassion and sensitivity and that 'every sign of unjust discrimination'" must be avoided.
Yet, he also denounces the same Catechism for being "needlessly hurtful" toward homosexuals because, in his words, the Church describes "one of the deepest parts of a person — the part that gives and receives love" as "objectively disordered."
James Martin is full of nonsense:
- The part of every human being that gives and receives love is not contained in his or her sexual organs, but in the intellect and will, which give and receive love independently of the physical operation of the body.
- We all know individuals who are permanently disabled and unable to experience marital genital expression because of war injuries, disease or accident. Will we tell them they cannot love their spouse as a result? Everyone can easily see what an insult this would be.
A most damning indictment tweeted by Sciambra:
"I gave up on the bishops long ago. I recall the day — a certain AB doesn't listen; except to whining LGBT advocates. I confronted his secretary at a public event. He laughed after I told him that openly partnered gay dissidents held (paid) positions of authority at a local parish."
Martin exploits the uncatechized portion of the Catholic Church and enables those who hate the Faith and seek only to undermine the body of Christ.
- Call on your bishop to permanently ban him from any speaking engagements and reject his books and other writings. James Martin opposes the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
- Any bishop who does not ban him now is guilty of undermining the faith of the Church by cooperation in the sin of heresy and immorality.
- Any bishop who betrays his divine mandate to protect and save the flock cannot be saved.
He, for example, and to begin with???
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 29/11/2018 23:28]