If you familiarize yourself with the Church approved apparitions at Quito, Ecuador (Our Lady of Good Success) and Atika, Japan, all of this was foretold to us.
The actual rate of abuse in the Catholic Church is however, no more than any other religious group and considerably less than the public school system. Being the most visible opponent to pop culture's debauchery, Hollywood and the mainstream media exaggerate these incidents to give the perception the rate is considerably higher. This is no excuse as the Church holds itself to a higher standard.
There's a television show on the Discovery Channel called Mayday. Each episode is about a serious plane (sometimes train) crash. What I find interesting about these crashes is the amount and degree of human error. Even when the cause is identified as mechanical, the investigators often uncover negligence in the manufacturer of whatever component failed. It's also common for not one mistake to have been made in the crash but several.
This is how I see the sex-abuse crisis in the Church. There wasn't one definitive cause but several combined (to include celibacy is both absurd and an insult to the vast majority of priests and religious who honour their vow). No matter what the cause the bottom line is humans committed sin, grave sin, thus the crisis is man-made.
As Satan and his minions wander through the world seeking the ruin of souls I believe they don't waste their time on the tepid. Strategically, I expect the forces of evil concentrate on those most inclined to do good helping many souls avoid eternal damnation; the priesthood is under constant attack. We are formed in God's image - perfection - thus the influences of the material world tempt us away from God's natural order.
There is the opinion that any organization with children will have sexual predators trying to get in. Although the Church in the U.S. has taken significant measures to prevent even a single incident, some say it's impossible. That may well be, but what cannot ever happen again is the cover-up. Perhaps bishops were following the advice of the psychological community and naively believed a sex abuser could be treated/cured but that excuse is now gone. How the Church ever came to trust such a faux profession is beyond me.
The American bishops most notorious for pedophiles in their midst have a few things in common. The first is they were appointed by Archbishop Jean Jadot. I'm not familiar with him but anyone who the Tablet and National catholic Reporter sings the praises of I immediately cast with suspicion. The Tablet's article is noteworthy for one reason: Jadot was the only nuncio to American to never become a cardinal. If the Vatican is an 'ol boys network' then such a slight speaks volumes.
Another thing these shepherds have in common is they are considered 'progressive' with the liturgy. Consider that 'priest facing the people', Communion in the hand, altar girls, etc, were never prescribed by Vatican II nor any pope so how did they become standard in the Ordinary Form today? Two of the Church's most notorious ex-clergy pedophiles in Canada, Barry Glendinning and Raymond Lahey were at times top liturgists. It's impossible to ignore this connection.
Just as with the plane crashes documented in Mayday it is human error that is the root cause of the Church's sex abuse crisis. When beset with failure, successful organizations do a root cause analysis, take corrective action, and monitor outcomes to ensure failure is not repeated. Based on recent appointments to vacant Sees in the U.S.A. I believe this process is firmly under way. Bishops Cordileone, Sample, Morlino, Nienstedt, Aquila, Conley, etc, are very different men than "Jadot's boys". Here's some information on a few of them:
Archbishop Jean Jadot (Papal Nuncio to U.S.A.1973-1980)
"Archbishop Jadot turned what had been a largely ceremonial position into a bully pulpit for the seven years ending in 1980." NY Times
The Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (founded 1980) will present its 2006 Hans Küng Rights of Catholics in the Church Award to Archbishop Jean Jadot of Belgium at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. , Friday, November 17, 2006, at 7:30 P.M.
Cleric who shaped U.S. 'pastoral church' dead at 99 National catholic Reporter
Archbishop Rembert Weakland (Milwaukee)
"Archbishop Weakland admits relationships with several men, questions immorality of homosexual acts" Catholic Culture
He stepped down as Archbishop of Milwaukee in May 2002… one day after a former lover disclosed on the ABC network television show, “Good Morning America,” he had been paid $450,000 to keep quiet about an affair with Weakland in 1980.
Archbishop Weakland's Legacy
by Peter W. Miller
The liberal liturgist's shameful departure
The liberal liturgist's shameful departure
“He was one of the most gifted leaders in the post-Vatican II church in America,” James Martin, S.J.
Bishop Walter Sullivan (Richmond, VA)
(speaking at an ACLU event)
"Near the end of his tenure, Sullivan also drew fire for his handling of the sex abuse crisis, especially a 2002 case in which he reinstated an accused priest without consulting his own advisory panel. Four members resigned in protest." National catholic Reporter
The End of the Cardinal Mahony Era By Tito Edwards
Cardinal Roger Mahony squarely at the center of the sex-abuse scandal By Barbara Jones and Tracy Manzer, Staff Writers
"Mother Angelica said that the document [Card. Mahony's "Guide to Sunday Mass] placed too much emphasis on the community and not nearly enough on the Real Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the consecrated species. In fact, the Jesus Presence par excellence, the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into His Body and Blood, appears to be noted only by numeric reference to a section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is not mentioned directly anywhere in the 30+ page document, an apparent oversight that creates a very confusing picture of the celebration of Jesus' eucharistic sacrifice of His Body and Blood, particularly to the faithful for whom the directive was intended."
Cardinal Roger Mahoney (Los Angeles)
Nuns holding urns of incense at the altar during the consecration of the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California by Cardinal Mahony on September 2, 2002.
Bishop Matthew Clark (Rochester)
"Between 2000 and 2008, Sunday Mass attendance plunged in the Diocese of Rochester by 25%, according to a diocesan newspaper report. During the same time period, the diocese reduced the number of parishes from 161 to 131. Bishop Matthew Clark, now 72, has governed the diocese since 1979 and recently installed a labyrinth in his cathedral.
An analysis of seminarian data by Catholic World Report magazine found that the upstate New York diocese is one of the most “vocation poor” in the nation."
Bishop Howard Hubbard (Albany)
"It is Albany Bp. Howard Hubbard’s responsibility to see to it that the common discipline of the Church is promoted and that all ecclesiastical laws are observed, exercising particular vigilance against abuse of the sacraments and the worship of God. 1983 CIC 392. Unfortunately, Hubbard’s rah-rah inaugurational homilybefore Cuomo and Lee, in which, without admonition for their objectively and publicly sinful status, the prelate seemed to have anointed the pair as his kind of evangelizers in government, and his complicity in the administration of Communion to Cuomo, amounts, in my opinion, to another dereliction of pastoral duty." Dr. Edward Peters, Canon Lawyer
"The Diocese of Albany, New York, has had its share of scandal in the last couple of months, with allegations of a ring of homosexual priests operating in the Diocese, Bishop Howard Hubbard being accused of protecting that ring and engaging in his own sexual shenanigans, and the recent bizarre suicide of a long-time critic of Hubbard, Father John Minkler.
(For a detailed background of this situation, click on the following link:www.cruxnews.com/rose/rose-27feb04.html
In an April 15 story on the website of Albany’s Capital News 9 (www.capitalnews9.com), Jessica Schneider wrote that, “Outspoken attorney John Aretakis continued to press the Albany Diocese on Bishop Howard Hubbard's alleged homosexual relations and is now saying the note left by Father John Minkler before his suicide lashed out at the Bishop." Catholic.org
Albany Bishop Hubbard to celebrate Mass for dissident homosexual group LifeSite News
Archbishop Robert Sanchez (Santa Fe)
"Pope John Paul II has summoned America's cardinals to the Vatican this week to deal with the growing outrage over accusations that some American church leaders, including Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, covered up the problem of pedophile priests and knowingly moved them to unsuspecting parishes. If you think you've heard all this before, you have.
Nine years ago, Mike Wallace reported that Archbishop Robert Sanchez of Santa Fe, N. M., had been doing exactly that. The archbishop even took it a step further. It turned out he had been sexually active himself - with young women. That aside, his parishioners told us that the archbishop had known about pedophile priests for years, but had done nothing to stop them.
The archbishop left New Mexico, and now, nine years later, the church still refuses to reveal where he's gone, but in his wake, the church and its insurance companies have paid out more than $30 million to settle 187 lawsuits brought against the archdiocese of New Mexico." CBS News
Bishop Joseph Ferrario (Honolulu)
"On January 18, 1991, Bishop Joseph Ferrario, the local Ordinary of Honolulu (now deceased), served them [six SSPX priests] a Formal Canonical Warning, threatening them with excommunication. On May 1, 1991, they were formally declared to be excommunicated
In a letter dated June 28, 1993, the USA's Apostolic Pro-Nunico, Archbishop Cacciavillan, declared on Cardinal Ratzinger's behalf:
From the examination of the case, conducted on the basis of the Law of the Church, it did not result that the facts referred to in the above-mentioned decree are formal schismatic acts in the strict sense, as they do not constitute the offense of schism; and therefore the Congregation holds that the Decree of May 1, 1991 lacks foundation and hence validity.
This is a declaration that the automatic (ipso facto) excommunication claimed by Bishop Ferrario for the followers of Archbishop Lefebvre is in fact totally non-existent."
Bishop Joseph Imesch (Joliet)
"If you had a child," the lawyer recalled asking the bishop during the deposition for a civil suit, "wouldn't you be concerned that the priest they were saying mass with had been convicted of sexually molesting children?"
Replied Imesch, "I don't have any children." Chicago Tribune
Cardinal Law (Boston)
Cardinal Bernard Law Fast Facts CNN
“The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.”
St. Athanasius, Council of Nicaea, AD 325
St. Athanasius, Council of Nicaea, AD 325
Thank you for documenting in one place the Jadot work. How many souls have been lost because of him and the shepherds he recommended.
ReplyDeleteLord, have mercy upon us.
They have simply lost the faith and stayed in their positions for the power and the money.
ReplyDeleteThey ignored pervert priests as they ignored the Church's teachings on faith and morals and took the easy route of simply reducing liturgy to a feel good hour.