Papal Smoke Screen
The Habitation Of Devils, And The Hold Of Every Foul Spirit, And A Cage Of Every Unclean And Hateful Bird
Catholic Church Child Abuse Claims Sweep Across Europe
How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning....
(Rev. 18:7-9)
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her,
shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning... (Rev. 18:7-9).
Catholic Church Child Abuse Claims Sweep Across Europe
March 13, 2010
Catholic Church Child Abuse Claims Sweep Across Europe
By Shawn Pocatchnik-AP
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/13/catholic-church-child-abu_n_497942.html
DUBLIN — It often starts as a voice in the wilderness, but can swell into an entire nation's demand for truth. From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons. Ireland was the first in Europe to confront the church's worldwide custom of shielding pedophile priests from the law and public scandal. Now that legacy of suppressed childhood horror is being confronted in other parts of the Continent – nowhere more poignantly than in Germany, the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI.
The recent spread of claims into the Netherlands, Austria and Italy has analysts and churchmen wondering how deep the scandal runs, which nation will be affected next, and whether a tide of lawsuits will force European dioceses to declare bankruptcy like their American cousins. "You have to presume that the cover-up of abuse exists everywhere, to one extent or another. A new case could appear in a new country tomorrow," said David Quinn, director of a Christian think tank, the Iona Institute, that seeks to promote family values in an Ireland increasingly cool to Catholicism.
Quinn noted that stories of systemic physical, sexual and emotional abuse circulated privately in Irish society for decades, but only moved aboveground in the mid-1990s when former altar boy Andrew Madden and orphanage survivor Christine Buckley went public with lawsuits and exposes of how priests and nuns tormented them with impunity. Floodgates opened for Irish complaints that have topped 15,000 in this country of 4 million. Three government-ordered investigations have shocked and disgusted the nation, which has footed most of the bill to settle legal claims topping euro1 billion (nearly $1.5 billion).
"A lot comes down to: When does that first victim gather the courage to come forward into the spotlight?" Quinn said. "It seems to take that trigger event, the lone voice who says what so many kept silent so long. That's basically happening now in Germany. It could happen next in Spain, Poland, anywhere." In January, an elite Jesuit school in Berlin declared it was aware of seven child-abuse cases in its past and appointed an outside investigator, Ursula Raue, to seek testimony. Within weeks, she had gathered stories of long-suppressed woe from more than 100 ex-students abused by their Jesuit masters, and from 60 molested by parish priests.
"I always thought that at some point the wave would reach us," said Petra Dorsch-Jungsberger, a commentator on Catholic affairs and retired University of Munich communications professor. She credited heavy German media coverage of the latest Irish abuse scandal – a November report into decades of cover-up in the Dublin Archdiocese involving approximately 170 priests – with inspiring similar soul-searching in Germany. "Once the door had been opened, then many others felt they were able to step up and say: That happened to us too," she said.
In recent weeks, new German abuse claims have surfaced on a near-daily basis and spread to Pope Benedict's Bavarian heartland and the Regensberg boys' choir long directed by the pope's brother. Benedict was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich from 1977 to 1982, and questions now focus on what role, if any, the pontiff, played in handing pedophile priests to new parishes rather than to the law. A Swiss abbot said in an interview published Saturday that 60 people have reported being victims of abuse by Catholic priests in Switzerland. Abbot Martin Werlen of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln told Swiss daily Aargauer Zeitung that the allegations were reported to the Swiss Bishops Conference, which is investigating them.
The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland, and contended he has long confronted abuse cases with courage. In separate interviews, both the Holy See's spokesman and its prosecutor for sex abuse of minors by clergy sought to defend the pope. "It's rather clear that in the last days, there have been those who have tried, with a certain aggressive persistence, in Regensburg and Munich, to look for elements to personally involve the Holy Father in the matter of abuses," Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio.
It's inevitable that all bishops of the day, including Ratzinger, handled abuse complaints against priests in-house, said the Rev. Fergus O'Donoghue, editor of the Irish Jesuit journal Studies. "The pope was no different to any other bishop at time. The church policy was to keep it all quiet – to help people, but to avoid scandal. Avoiding scandal was a huge issue for the church," he said. "Of course there was cover-up," he added. But worse was "the systematic lack of concern for the victims."
In the Netherlands, a former Catholic boarding-school abuse victim is leading a campaign for accountability. Bert Smeets, 58, has formed Mea Culpa, a victims group that has collected testimony from hundreds of abuse victims and is mulling a class-action lawsuit against the Dutch church. The church has apologized to the victims and set up an inquiry headed by a former government minister, a Protestant. Smeets dismisses that effort as "a typical Vatican cover-up." He said the pressure on the church came from aggressive investigations into abuse in Ireland and the U.S.
Quinn, the Dublin think-tank director, noted that a few Irish dioceses are openly warning that they're struggling to pay bills stemming from abuse claims. In the southeast diocese of Kells, the archbishop's house has had to be remortgaged. "The church is asset-rich but cash-poor," Quinn said, noting that it's the biggest property owner in Ireland but has comparatively little cash in the bank. He said the Vatican, too, has less money on tap than resides in the endowment fund of a typical top-tier U.S. university. Associated Press Writers Melissa Eddy in Berlin, Ciaran Giles in Madrid, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed to this report.
Celibacy Partly To Blame For Clerical Sex Abuse
March 12, 2010
Cardinal Schönborn says celibacy partly to blame for clerical sex abuse
By Richard Owen, Rome, and Ruth Gledhill The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7058065.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=2015164
Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;
Forbidding to marry (Celibacy),
and commanding to abstain from meats (Fish Fridays),
which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth (I Tim. 4:1-3).
A senior cardinal has called for priestly celibacy to be re-examined in the light of sex scandals sweeping the Roman Catholic Church. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, conservative Archbishop of Vienna and a protégé of the Pope, shocked the Vatican by suggesting that it should carry out an “unflinching examination” of causes of the scandal. These included “the issue of priests’ training,” he wrote in his archdiocese magazine, “the question of priest celibacy and the question of personality development. It requires a great deal of honesty, both on the part of the Church and of society as a whole.” (Read God's word, it says Catholic doctrine is the doctrine of devils)
The Vatican said the remarks had been misinterpreted. “Priestly celibacy is a gift of the Holy Spirit,” (...giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry (Celibacy) Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, said at a theological convention on priestly fidelity. Cardinal Schönborn’s spokesman, Erich Leitenberger, issued a clarification later claiming that the cardinal was not “in any way seeking to question the Catholic Church’s celibacy rule.” Sources in Rome said he had been obliged to issue his “clarification” (see the Bible for any true clarification) under pressure from the Holy See.
The cardinal, a respected conservative theologian, has a history of sparking controversy. He is an ordinary — or bishop — to Austria’s Eastern Rite Catholics, whose priests are allowed to marry, just as priests in the new Anglican Ordinariates being set up around the world for ex-Anglican clergy will be allowed to marry. Last year in Rome, Cardinal Schönborn, who has always been close to the Pope, presented a petition signed by leading Austrian lay Catholics calling for the abolition of the requirement for priestly celibacy. Cardinal Schönborn told Vatican Radio last year that he did not agree with the petition’s conclusions, which also included a demand for women deacons, but added: “It is important for someone in Rome to know what some of our lay people are thinking about the problems of the Church.”
Despite calls by a number of theologians and lay Catholic organizations for priestly celibacy to be abolished or made optional, it has been repeatedly reaffirmed by successive Popes, including Pope Benedict XVI. However, Cardinal Hummes, from Brazil, once observed that celibacy was “not dogma.” The celibacy rule for priests was not part of the early Christian Church but was introduced in the Middle Ages. A number of early Church fathers were married, including St Peter himself, according to St Mark’s Gospel. In his article, Cardinal Schönborn said he could understand the frustration of many of the faithful over the paedophilia scandals. “Enough is enough. That’s what many people are saying and thinking.”
The Pope is due to issue a pastoral letter to the faithful in Ireland on the sex abuse issue after meeting Irish bishops last month. The scandal has come closer to the pontiff after it emerged that a former chorister in Regensburg — where the Pope once taught — had claimed he was abused while he was a member of the Cathedral choir, which was led for three decades by Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s older brother. Monsignor Ratzinger this week admitted he had “slapped” choirboys but said he knew nothing of sexual abuse. Today the Pope is to meet Robert Zollitsch, head of the German bishops’ conference, to discuss the growing crisis over clerical sex abuse in several countries including the Pope’s native Germany. Archbishop Zollitsch has described clerical abuse as “outrageous” and asked the victims for forgiveness, but has denied any link between sex abuse and celibacy.
An article in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, by the historian Lucetta Scaraffia, suggested that having more women in high-level decision-making bodies would have helped to lift the “veil of masculine secrecy” over clerical sex-abuse cases. This week the dissident theologian Father Hans Küng, who was stripped of his license to teach Catholic theology in 1979 after he rejected the doctrine of Papal infallibility, said in The Tablet that denials of any link between abuse and celibacy were “erroneous.” He said celibacy was not the only cause of the misconduct but described it as “the most important and structurally the most decisive” expression of the Church’s repressive attitude to sex. Last November the Vatican said its new rules allowing the conversion of Anglicans, including married Anglican priests, did not “signify any change” in its rules for priestly celibacy.
"Papal Whitewash"
March 10, 2010
Abuse scandal may be Pope Benedict's defining moment
Times Online
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/world_agenda/article7056688.ece
"Papal Whitewash" ran one headline in the Irish press after Pope Benedict’s encounter with the Irish bishops. No bishops were sacked, no abuse victims were heard, and the Pope — who is to visit Britain in September — announced no plans to visit Ireland to apologize and to mend fences. Vatican officials appear bemused by widespread media coverage this week of the admission by Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, the Pope’s older brother, that he "slapped" choirboys at a Regensburg boarding school where pupils suffered sex abuse at the hands of a "sadistic" headmaster. "This is irrelevant," one said.
But even though Monsignor Ratzinger claimed not to have been aware of the sexual — as opposed to physical — abuse at the school, his remarks opened a window onto the climate of fear, secrecy, repression, hypocrisy and cover ups in which sexual abuse took place in Catholic institutions. The Vatican has only slowly — and reluctantly — moved from refusal to face the problem of clerical sex abuse to attempts to deal with it publicly as the scandals and lawsuits multiply. The Pope’s spokesman argued defensively this week that the problem was wider than the Church, and even claimed the Church had acted "decisively and swiftly."
Roman Catholic bishops in a number of the affected countries have adopted new guidelines to protect children from abuse, including better co-operation with the police and civil authorities. The Vatican has come a long way since the US abuse crisis of 2002, when many senior Vatican officials dismissed the problem of paedophile priests as largely confined to a minority of clerics in the Anglophone world. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the Brazilian head of the Congregation for the Clergy, recently admitted sexual abuse was "extremely serious and criminal."
The Pope himself called it "not only a heinous crime but also a grave sin which offends God," an echo of Pope John Paul II’s 2002 definition of clerical sex abuse as ’delictum gravius’ — or a grave sin. On his 2008 visit to the United States Pope Benedict admitted that he was "deeply ashamed" of the scandal. Yet it was Pope Benedict himself who as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — the successor to the Inquisition — who imposed secrecy on sex abuse cases in 2001, making them subject to "papal confidentiality" in a document called "Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela" or Safeguarding the Sanctity of the Sacraments (doctrine of devils). The suspicion lingers in the Vatican that the crisis is all part of an anti-Catholic plot to undermine the Church — or as the Pope’s brother put it this week, to foster "a spirit of animosity" towards it. (The Catholic Church undermines itself, people just have a little common sense is all, and know trash when they see it).
The Church, Vatican officials maintain, is being singled out unfairly. Last year the Holy See stated that "in the last 50 years somewhere between 1.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases," (that has been reported) adding that the figure was comparable to that of other groups and denominations. Then there is the argument — advanced by Monsignor Ratzinger among others — that attitudes and mores have changed over the years. As Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, pointed out recently, "Our understanding of this problem has evolved... In those days, years ago, decades ago, people didn’t realize how serious this was (yeah, the pope hid it pretty well back then), and so rather than pulling people out of the ministry directly and fully, they were moved."
To the wider public however this all sounds like evasion and self-justification, not contrition. The Pope’s brothers revelations have brought the sex abuse problem uncomfortably close to home — and many are now wondering how long it will be before sex abuse cases come to light in the archdiocese of Munich, where the Pope was Archbishop from 1977 to 1982. Even in the short time since he summoned the Irish bishops to Rome, a flood of sex abuse cases has emerged in Berlin, Hamburg, Bonn and other German cities. "An immense tragedy is becoming apparent," said Father Stefan Dartmann, head of the Jesuit order in Germany.
How he responds to that tragedy could be the defining moment of Pope Benedict’s pontificate. The pastoral letter he is due to issue to the faithful in Ireland on the sex abuse crisis will be closely scrutinized for evidence that the Pontiff can confront the scale of the crisis. "Sexual abuses of minors by representatives of the clergy are criminal acts, shameful, inadmissible mortal sins, ignoble actions, among the darkest of the Church," Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Council for Christian Unity, said this week. "There needs to be a serious house cleaning in our Church. The Pope is not just going to stand by and watch." (The pope will whitewash it like all the popes before him. God will do the housecleaning by sending the "church" to hell where she, the bride of Satan belongs).
Morality
A devastating work by A. S. Guimarães
VATICAN II, HOMOSEXUALITY, AND PEDOPHILIA
Until now, the scandal of homosexuality and pedophilia in the Church has hit
priests, Bishops and Cardinals.
In this book, Guimarães shoots higher and denounces the present day Vatican as an accomplice, and raises serious suspicions about the moral behavior of a post-conciliar Pope.Why is all this immorality flooding the Church? Because Vatican II opened the dike, Guimarães answers, and gives the evidence. The work also sets out Catholic tradition regarding homosexuality, quoting Scriptures, Popes, Saints, and Church law. It analyzes post-conciliar documents that assumed a new tolerant moral approach conflicting with the prior Magisterium. "This book is dynamite!" - Courageous, frank, thorough.
And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies (Rev. 18:2-3).
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