www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall I've had enough

I am watching the TV report on Cardinal Law, who is a disgrace to Christianity. To churches of all denominations, I hope they institute effect policies to deal with these crimes.

But I want to announce this to the world. Should any information every come my way about such priests, I have no intention of dealing with Church authorities. I will go straight to the police and persue it to the end. An di encourage everyone else to do the same.

Cardinal Law should stay in Rome. I hope the government tells him they will arrest him at the border if he comes home.

Axios

[ 04-19-2002: Message edited by: Axios ]

I don't know all the facts, but I would not rely on TV for my info. The info given in the media is often crafted to give impressions negative to the Church. This is done by presenting some facts (which are truly scandalous and sinful in themselves) but also in order to discredit not so much any given bishop or cardinal in particular but the office of bishop itself. Maybe Cardinal Law should step down for poor judgment in this matter. But I don't think some of his opponents in the media and liberal priests like Fr. Richard McBrien are attacking the cardinal for this issue only, but because of his fidelity to Catholic orthodoxy which they despise. Besides, the primary offenders were the priests themselves who sinned in having sexual relations with children and young men. Some of the bishops for various reasons made poor and foolish choices in response to the problems caused by the priest offenders in the first place. The bishops either made poor judgments or they were deliberately malicious and intended that the offending priests would continue their sinful activities with others. I doubt this was their intention. But even then, some of their decisions were unwise and harmful. Hopefully they will develop prudent policies which would help them to follow a wiser course of action in the future. Kyrie, eleison!

I recommend the following article which can shed a little light on the situation we've been discussing.Although I don't agree with all the things published in this online journal, I think the author brings up some good points. http://www.newsmax.com/commentarchive.shtml?a=2002/3/26/025954 Hope you find it challenging but helpful. Christ is risen!

I listen to Boston radio and the reports I hear are that a large number of Roman Catholics in Boston favor Cardinal Law's resignation.

I don't know all the facts, but it appears that terrible decisions were made in not taking aggressive action to protect children and prosecute the priests who were guilty of crimes.

What would be your advice to Cardinal Law? The Pope?

Yes, lets arrest ALL bishops and cardinals. Thats the agenda of the Liberals and femanists. Then, they will be able to do what no Roman emperor or Communist dictator could do: destroy the Catholic Church. Yes, its a disgrace and those priests who actually have commited crimes should be laicised and arrested. But so should other people. A few years ago US senators were accused of sexual acts with male pages in the Senate building. Not one was arrested. Sen. Kennedy was accused of murder, but not arrested. Michael Jackson was accused of molesting children, and nothing happened. I see a trend.

1) All of the accused are white. No Oriental, Latino or Blacks were accused of sexual deviation. No lay volunteers.
2) Most of the accusers were women: not the accusers themselves. Where are the fathers?

I think most of these women are looking for money. A woman accused Cardinal Mahoney of molesting her. She refused to show her face to the media. But she'll show up at the Chancery Office for that check! I think 99% of these accusations are false. Yes, I think some are true. Statistics say 1-2% of priests are pedaphiles. The same ratio for the general public. Even married men are accused of this crime. So having a married clergy will not solve the problem. There is a woman in jail in Washington State who had 2 children by one of her students. Yes, women pedophiles are rare, but do exist. We have to deal with this problem within the Church. We can't have outsiders telling us what to do. They have an agenda: to destroy the Church. Pray for all envolved.

As noted above: "Yes, lets arrest ALL bishops and cardinals. Thats the agenda of the Liberals and femanists. Then, they will be able to do what no Roman emperor or Communist dictator could do: destroy the Catholic Church."

I am a social liberal, and I like women, and I like to be progressive in things that will help God's people. People with pedophilia or ephebeophilia are in need of serious help and should not be in the ministry- at all. And administrators in the church should be chastised when, if they had knowledge, they did not intervene. It's part of being an adult. With power comes responsibility.

Is this trying to "destroy the Catholic Church"?

Mike C: Nothing was said about arresting all bishops and cardinals. Just saying that where there were bonafide accusations of crimes, the bishops/cardinals should have reported to police.
That is not requiring them to do anything other than what any person should do. By not doing so, in a number of instances, the Church has been harmed.

I agree that the Church has work to do to deal with this crime, however, she does not have the priviledge of dealing with it in secrecy--but rather has the obligation to report crimes to the police.

I'm not too concerned about outsiders destroying the Church. It's been around for a lot of centuries and Jesus said that not even the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. What is more harmful to the Church is the appearance to people that the Church hierarchy knew of these crimes and did not report the priests to the police.

Additionally, I don't look to US senators or Michael Jackson to be examples of holy living. I do look to the clergy. To allow this crime to go on unreported to the police is a grave and possibly a criminal error.

Greetings,

As someone from Boston, in fact I live about 100 yeards from Cardinal Law, things are pretty bad in Boston. Since the 6th of January this has been front page story here in Boston and around the world. There have been 10 tv trucks parked in front of the Cardinal's residence for the last three weeks.

As a seminarian, a former seminainarian for the Boston Archdiocese, and a seminiarian living with all of this stuff going on, some of the news is right, we covered up, we paid hush money, we transfered priests to other parishes as well as to other diocese, and that is morally reprehensible, but there is another problem.

This situation we find ourselves in has give the pulpit to anyone that has an axe to grind with the church. People want ot have a voice in the church, and they think that will make things change, they are holding back donations, and thinking that is going to make the Cardinal resign. Well it is not, and it is only hurting people who need that money, and no it is not going for bail or settlement money, we have insurance for that.

Should Cardinal Law resign, yes, I believe that he should, but the only person who matters in this whole equasion, the Pope, does not want his to resign, so that point is mute. The press is having a field day with this because the church is not speaking out. They have made claims that there are only 12 seminarians, when there are over 100, and that we are all homosexual, and that homosexual activity goes on in the halls, all of this has gone on without any response from the church.

People need to realize that the Roman Catholic church is not a democracy, and we do not get to decide who our Bishops are. We need to look for a solution to this problem, and perhaps that is for the Cardinal to resign, but it might not be, and the Boston Globe is not going to be the one who decides that.

Lets all stop pointing fingers, and work for a solution, and pray for the victims of this terrible thing, and also pray for those who had a part to play in that no matter what that part might have been, and also, please remember those of us who are on the front lines in all of this trying to remember why we came to seminary in the first place.

Peter

I feel the need to respectfully disagree with Mike and Br. Peter and NewsMax.

This problem cannot be blamed on the "liberals", whoever they are. The priests who did these evil acts and the bishops who harbored them are certainly not mostly of what are commonly seen as the liberal school. No one ever called Cardinal Law a liberal. And the priests in question including Fr. Berko were often viewed as conservatives.

I think everyone agrees that the primary evil here is by those priests who were the abusers. But I do not think the secondary wrong committed by some bishops can be overlooked by saying these bishops are the victims of the liberals, femanists, media, women looking for money, or people who are anti-white.

Brother Peter, I am sure you are going through a hard time in Boston and I am sorry. But I think when you say "the only person who matters in this equasion [Law's resignation] is the Pope" you exhibit a view that is part of the problem that has lead to this situation. (I know that sounds harsh, but let me explain). It would be true that the Pope is the only person who can canoncially require Law to resign. That is not the same as saying he is the only person who matters. It does matter that the Archbishop has lost the faith and support of many of the people he is supposed to pastor.

The Church is neither a democracy nor a dicatorship. It is a Christian community. The laity do have rights. They have the right to have a compentent and moral man as their bishop and one who is a good steward and who they can have confidence will not allow their children to be endangered. I don't beleive the people of Boston have that confidence and therefore Law should resign and that Roman Catholics in Boston who agree with this should speak their concerns.

Christians have every right to speak out when they have a bishop who is not worthy of the office. Yes, constant bickering is unChristian. Blow-outs over minor issues or constant carping in not good. But this is an extreme situation of an unworthy bishop.

Telling the laity to keep silent and to keep on financially supporting the church, with the suggestion that church authorities will work this out behind the scenes is exactly what has allowed some young boys in Boston to be raped and abused.

The laity must take this matter into their own hands. I repeat my vow to myself and strong recommendation to others. In the past, parents and lay people have reported these abuses to church authorities which did not take proper action. These authorities claim they are revising their policies. Good for them. But my position is that starting today, the Christian laity should begin reporting these priests to the civil authorities rather than the Church.

Maybe Cardinal Law would like to set up a bail fund and a recommendation as to who these priests should use their one phone call to. But henceforth, I will speak to no bishop or Church authority about their wayward priests. As tehy saying goes "Tell it to the judge".

Axios

[ 04-20-2002: Message edited by: Axios ]

Axios,

I do agree with you, and liek I said I think he needs to go as well. You are right that the people do matter in the equasion, and I miss spoke myself. Please forgive me.

We will rise out of all of this and be stronger. I also feel that we need refrm in the church. I even think we need to elect our Bishops, how radical is that?

Thanks for the dicussion, and lets keep talking.

Peter

Brother Peter,

Thank you for your response. Certainly we all share the pain the Roman Catholic Church in Boston is suffering. It is all very sad.

Axios

Curiously, Britnney Spears had a music video where she was dressed in a catholic school girls outfit with her hair in innocent pony-tails. Wonder why? Adult men have a biological attraction to women - that includes high school girls gone through puberty. I am convinced that if you left a 30 or 40 year old man on an Island alone with a 16 year old girl and came back in a years time chances are she would be pregnant.

Dr John you would of course agree there is something wrong with the fashion industry dressing up 13 year old girls like adult women and then putting them on the covers of magazines for men to look upon in sexual eyes? Doesn't a culture that allows for this sort of thing blurr the line of appropriate sexual behaviour or want?

The Cardinals should not be arrested. And those that are in public office and advocate for the arrest of Cardinals and Bishops are enemies of the Church even if they are Confirmed Catholic, or else they just suffer from ignorance of Church enemies that seek to weaknen the Church at every turn.

I for one advocate that the Bishops do not just hand over their Priests to the secular authorities. This would be very distructive to the Priestly fraternity. A Priest need know he can always go to his Bishops. If a Priest has sex with a child under 14 the Priest should be confined to a monastary for life or close to. If a Priest has sex with a child 14 or over he need not be confined to monastary or even taken away from kids, perhaps from the parish he is in yes, but I see no reason he can't work around children again. For the Children of the rather overly sexualized world of Post-MTV generations if they are 14 and over they need to know they share a responsibilty in not having sex with a Priest - save for a Priest physicaly or violently threatening them or forcing them.

Maximus,

I must say, with respect, that I strongly disagree with you. It is also my intention to report to the civil authorities directly any information that comes my way and encourage others to do the same.

I think the destruction of a priestly fraternity that allows the types of situations as in Boston very much needs to happen or be caused to happen. This is exactly the problem.

Cardinal Law has had his chance to handle these rapes within the Church and has failed. It is now time to turn to the civil authorities. Jail time for these clerics is needed.

The fraternity is the issue. The fraternity has taken priority over every other virtue. This whole situation in Boston has me aghast. As a gay man I have been at meetings of advocacy groups, sometime of a very libertine character. Nevertheless, even the slightest suggestion of a second-degree sympathy for the Man-Boy love movement would have resulted in being shown the door in a nanosecond.

Yet Cardinal Law, poster prelate for the opponents of "liberal dissent" allow a Man-Boy love movement proponent serve as a priest and sends him letters of recommendation for three assignments.

I just don't understand this. I am depressed by it and shocked.

Axios

Maximus: Having sex with a child under 14 or even up to age 16, it considered to be statutory rape in most states. Why do you feel a cleric who engages in this behavior is not to be reported to civil authorities.

Your suggestion of handling this within the Church is the approach that has many people outraged. It's a crime--priest's who prey on children are criminals.