Pope Benedict XVI Visits America
[Guest post by DRJ]
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in America today for a six day visit, and he answered pre-submitted questions including one about the clerk clergy sex abuse scandal:
“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said. “It is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betray in this way their mission … to these children.”
“I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future,” the pope said.
The leader of the world’s 1 billion Catholics pledged that pedophiles would not be priests in the Roman Catholic Church.
“We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry,” Benedict said, speaking in English. “It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound.”
Absolutely right.
[Edit: I corrected “clerk sex abuse scandal” to “clergy sex abuse scandal.” I’ve been a lawyer way too long. My fingers type legal words no matter what my mind thinks.]
— DRJ
There is a pretty good book on the subject of how the priesthood got so infiltrated with pedophiles and gay seminarians. It’s called Goodbye Good Men and was written about five years ago. Basically, in the 60s the seminaries got taken over by a “pink mafia” that excluded men who did not subscribe to a left wing and socially hedonistic ethos. For example, applicants were screened for seminaries by radical nuns who demanded support for ordination of women to recommend the applicant. Others were dropped from seminaries for political attitudes that did not fit the new theme. The result was a disaster. Many of these men were not even particularly interested in theology. They just wanted to live in a community of men and their politics were pretty far to the red shade.
Personally, I think priests should be allowed to marry. Many former priests of my acquaintance actually married ex-nuns who had left their orders for similar reasons. The Orthodox Church has always had married priests and I have heard no scandals.
Mike K (6d4fc3) — 4/15/2008 @ 12:31 pmWe can all be Episcopalians, only I’d take Pope Benedict over Archbishop Rowan Williams.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/15/2008 @ 12:41 pmI could understand that a priest must be ordained while celebate, but being allowed to marry later in life.IMHO This life-long abstention from marriage throws a queer (pun not intended) light upon the entire population of priests.
paul from fl (47918a) — 4/15/2008 @ 1:34 pmThere was a lot of concubinage in the old days of the priesthood. After all, Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia were the children of Pope Alexander VI. I can’t see why the Church clings to the celibacy rule. Maybe they’re bitter about something.
Also, Andrew Sullivan does want to see any Jews criticizing Christians and their faith.
But [Bill] Kristol is doing something much more pernicious: he is saying that Obama is faking faith, that his very profession of faith is a “mask” that is slipping, and that Kristol is the person to determine whose faith is genuine and who is a fraud.
Mike K (f89cb3) — 4/15/2008 @ 2:19 pmA non-Christian manipulator of Christianity is calling a Christian a liar about his own faith. That’s where they’ve gone to already. And it’s only the middle of April. What are they so scared of?
Is the Pope going to have a word with Cardinal Malhoney ? A man who hide , protected , moved and lied to police about Priest who molested . And to save his own skin sold off Hundreds of thousands of dollors worth of church property to pay off victims. Just askin .
Jack (4ff715) — 4/15/2008 @ 2:20 pmJack’s issue needs to be addressed to his holiness. Bad enough there are pedophile priests in great numbers. The greater tragedy is their protection by the official hierarchy, the failure to deal with them as common criminals, the endangering of greater numbers of innocent children, the lies and cover-ups to protect the (now tarnished) image of the church.
ManlyDad (22e85d) — 4/15/2008 @ 2:56 pmSome of those hierarchy were seminarians in the 60s when this all started. Remember the Chicago Cardinal depicted in The Cardinal Sins was a real person and had a long time mistress to whom he left his possessions when he died. This is a long term problem and will take decades to rid the Church of this. Not the pedophiles who are or should be in prison but the whole culture of moral ambiguity that led to it. “Liberation Theology was part of it. So was the The Vatican Bank Scandal. There are some, like controversial novelist Malachi Martin, a former Jesuit, who blame Pope Paul VI for being too close to the Milan Mafia when he was Archbishop. Then there was the Masonic Lodge Scandal at the same time all the other things were going on. It makes interesting reading with Martin’s novels, one of which postulates that Pope John Paul I was murdered and that is why John Paul II took that name.
[Mike K – I found this in the filter. I think it was bumped because of the links. Sorry about that. — DRJ]
Mike K (6d4fc3) — 4/15/2008 @ 3:55 pmIs the Pope going to have a word with Cardinal Malhoney ? A man who hide , protected , moved and lied to police about Priest who molested . And to save his own skin sold off Hundreds of thousands of dollors worth of church property to pay off victims. Just askin .
Don’t blame Mahoney. He was just following orders from the top.
The Catholic Church is a rigidly hierarchical organization. Their marching orders come from the top. It wasn’t just Mahoney who was following the policy of hiding molester priests by shuffling them from place to place. That kind of parallelism doesn’t happen by accident in the Catholic Church. It was ordered from the top.
Pope John Paul II was the ringleader. He should have been charged with facilitating the offenses against children by shielding rapists from the law and putting them in positions where they could rape again.
Daryl Herbert (4ecd4c) — 4/15/2008 @ 4:30 pmMy priest was transferred to a remote parish in a very poor, sparsely populated area. I went to visit him.
I asked, “Father, how are you getting along here after Chicago?
He said, “It’s hard. If not for my Rosary and two martinis a day, I don’t think I could cope. By the way, would you like a martini?”
I said, “Yes, please”.
He said, “Rosary, a martini for Mr. NK”.
(Stolen from Henny Youngman.)
nk (6b7d4f) — 4/15/2008 @ 6:57 pmDRJ–the original meaning of clerk was clergyman (cleric). You shouldn’t have edited 🙂
kishnevi (1ab50b) — 4/15/2008 @ 7:51 pmYou are informative and kind, Kishnevi. Thanks.
DRJ (a431ca) — 4/15/2008 @ 8:05 pmIt’s not a vow of celibacy, it’s a vow of chastity.
tw (297607) — 4/16/2008 @ 10:31 am“Don’t blame Mahoney. He was just following orders from the top.”
Oh please. While he may have been following orders from the top, he was not following orders from the One who tops the pope.
And therein lies his guilt. Mahoney had many opportunities to willfully prevent children from being absued and to make a brave and honorable stand for righteousness before both man and God.
He chose to save his own skin before that of innocent children. He should have been ‘his brothers’ keeper’, he should have ‘loved his neighbor as himself’, he should have, by the strength of God, chosen to do the right thing for the sake of those he was supposed to selflessly love and serve. He willfully and freely chose not to look out for the needs of others but rather looked out for himself.
There is no free pass for Mahoney with the excuse that he was just obeying orders from the top.
How many Nazis used that very same excuse as they witnessed and particpated in the slaughter of a different group of innocents?
Dana (dcb5d2) — 4/16/2008 @ 7:33 pmwhen did he leave?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????//
shigelgogermire (0cff7e) — 5/5/2008 @ 6:15 am