Because The Roman Catholic Church

[Rick]

I think Murph said it first; arrest by civil authorities, have a trial, and if guilty go to prison.

[sunday]

Many consider Robert Sarah as one of the outstanding voices of reason in the RCC.

 

‘As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West’: An interview with Cardinal Sarah

5) You dwell at length on the crisis of the priesthood and argue for priestly celibacy. What do you see as the primary cause in the cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests, and what do you think of the summit that just took place in Rome on this question?

I think that the crisis of the priesthood is one of the main factors in the crisis of the Church. We have taken away priests’ identity. We have made priests believe that they need to be efficient men. But a priest is fundamentally the continuation of Christ’s presence among us. He should not be defined by what he does, but by what he is: ipse Christus, Christ Himself. The discovery of many cases of sexual abuse against minors reveals a profound spiritual crisis, a grave, deep, and tragic rupture between the priest and Christ.

Of course, there are social factors: the crisis of the ‘60s and the sexualization of society, which rebound on the Church. But we must have the courage to go further. The roots of this crisis are spiritual. A priest who does not pray or makes a theatre out of the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, a priest who only confesses rarely and who does not live concretely like another Christ, is cut off from the source of his own being. The result is death. I have dedicated this book to the priests of the whole world because I know that they are suffering. Many of them feel abandoned.

We, the bishops, bear a large share of responsibility for the crisis of the priesthood. Have we been fathers to them? Have we listened to them, understood and guided them? Have we given them an example? Too often dioceses are transformed into administrative structures. There are so many meetings. The bishop should be the model for the priesthood. But we ourselves are far from being the ones most ready to pray in silence, or to chant the Office in our cathedrals. I fear that we lose ourselves in secondary, profane responsibilities.

The place of a priest is on the Cross. When he celebrates Mass, he is at the source of his whole life, namely the Cross. Celibacy is a concrete means that permits us to live this mystery of the Cross in our lives. Celibacy inscribes the Cross in our very flesh. That is why celibacy is intolerable for the modern world. Celibacy is a scandal for modern people, because the Cross is a scandal.

In this book, I want to encourage priests. I want to tell them: love your priesthood! Be proud to be crucified with Christ! Do not fear the world’s hate! I want to express my affection as a father and brother for the priests of the whole world.

6) In a book that has caused quite a stir [in the Closet of the Vatican, by Frédéric Martel], the author explains that there are many homosexual prelates in the Vatican. He lends credibility to Mgr Viganò’s denunciation of the influence of a powerful gay network in the heart of the Curia. What do you think of this? Is there a homosexual problem in the heart of the Church and if so, why is it a taboo?

Today the Church is living with Christ through the outrages of the Passion. The sins of her members come back to her like strikes on the face. Some have tried to instrumentalize these sins in order to put pressure on the bishops. Some want them to adopt the judgments and language of the world. Some bishops have caved in to the pressure. We see them calling for the abandonment of priestly celibacy or making unsound statements about homosexual acts. Should we be surprised? The Apostles themselves turned tail in the Garden of Olives. They abandoned Christ in His most difficult hour.

We must be realistic and concrete. Yes, there are sinners. Yes, there are unfaithful priests, bishops, and even cardinals who fail to observe chastity. But also, and this is also very grave, they fail to hold fast to doctrinal truth! They disorient the Christian faithful by their confusing and ambiguous language. They adulterate and falsify the Word of God, willing to twist and bend it to gain the world’s approval. They are the Judas Iscariots of our time.

Sin should not surprise us. On the other hand, we must have the courage to call it by name. We must not be afraid to rediscover the methods of spiritual combat: prayer, penance, and fasting. We must have the clear-sightedness to punish unfaithfulness. We must find the concrete means to prevent it. I believe that without a common prayer life, without a minimum of common fraternal life between priests, fidelity is an illusion. We must look to the model of the Acts of the Apostles.

With regard to homosexual behaviors, let us not fall into the trap of the manipulators. There is no “homosexual problem” in the Church. There is a problem of sins and infidelity. Let us not perpetuate the vocabulary of LGBT ideology. Homosexuality does not define the identity of persons. It describes certain deviant, sinful, and perverse acts. For these acts, as for other sins, the remedies are known. We must return to Christ, and allow him to convert us. When the fault is public, the penalties provided for by Church law must be applied. Punishment is merciful, an act of charity and fraternal love. Punishment restores the damage done to the common good and permits the guilty party to redeem himself. Punishment is part of the paternal role of bishops. Finally, we must have the courage to clearly apply the norms regarding the acceptance of seminarians. Men whose psychology is deeply and permanently anchored in homosexuality, or who practice duplicity and lying, cannot be accepted as candidates for the priesthood.

7) One chapter is dedicated to the “crisis of the Church.” When precisely do you place the beginning of this crisis and what does it consist in? In particular, how do you relate the “crisis of faith” to the crisis of “moral theology.” Does one precede the other?

The crisis of the Church is above all a crisis of the faith. Some want the Church to be a human and horizontal society; they want it to speak the language of the media. They want to make it popular. They urge it not to speak about God, but to throw itself body and soul into social problems: migration, ecology, dialogue, the culture of encounter, the struggle against poverty, for justice and peace. These are of course important and vital questions before which the Church cannot shut her eyes. But a Church such as this is of interest to no one. The Church is only of interest because she allows us to encounter Jesus. She is only legitimate because she passes on Revelation to us. When the Church becomes overburdened with human structures, it obstructs the light of God shining out in her and through her. We are tempted to think that our action and our ideas will save the Church. It would be better to begin by letting her save herself.

I think we are at a turning point in the history of the Church. The Church needs a profound, radical reform that must begin by a reform of the life of her priests. Priests must be possessed by the desire for holiness, for perfection in God and fidelity to the doctrine of Him who has chosen and sent them. Their whole being and all their activities must be put to the service of sanctity. The Church is holy in herself. Our sins and our worldly concerns prevent her holiness from diffusing itself. It is time to put aside all these burdens and allow the Church finally appear as God made Her. Some believe that the history of the Church is marked by structural reforms. I am sure that it is the saints who change history. The structures follow afterwards, and do nothing other than perpetuate the what the saints brought about.

We need saints who dare to see all things through the eyes of faith, who dare to be enlightened by the light of God. The crisis of moral theology is the consequence of a voluntary blindness. We have refused to look at life through the light of the Faith.

In the conclusion of my book, I speak about a poison from which are all suffering: a virulent atheism. It permeates everything, even our ecclesiastical discourse. It consists in allowing radically pagan and worldly modes of thinking or living to coexist side by side with faith. And we are quite content with this unnatural cohabitation! This shows that our faith has become diluted and inconsistent! The first reform we need is in our hearts. We must no longer compromise with lies. The Faith is both the treasure we have to defend and the power that will permit us to defend it.

8) The second and third parts of your book are about crisis in western societies. The subject is so vast, and you touch on so many important points–from the expansion of the “culture of death” to the problems of consumerism tied to global liberalism, passing through questions of identity, transmission, Islamism, etc.–that it is impossible to address them all. Among these problems, which seem to you to be the most important and what are the principal causes for the decline of the West?

First I would like to explain why I, a son of Africa, allow myself to address the West. The Church is the guardian of civilization. I am convinced that western civilization is passing at present through a mortal crisis. It has reached the extreme of self-destructive hate. As during the fall of Rome, elites are only concerned to increase the luxury of their daily life and the peoples are being anesthetized by ever more vulgar entertainment. As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West! The barbarians are already inside the city. The barbarians are all those who hate human nature, all those who trample upon the sense of the sacred, all those who do not value life, all those who rebel against God the Creator of man and nature. The West is blinded by science, technology, and the thirst for riches. The lure of riches, which liberalism spreads in hearts, has sedated the peoples. At the same time, the silent tragedy of abortion and euthanasia continue and pornography and gender ideology destroy children and adolescents. We are accustomed to barbarism. It doesn’t even surprise us anymore! I want to raise a cry of alarm, which is also a cry of love. I do so with a heart full of filial gratitude for the Western missionaries who died in my land of Africa and who communicated to me the precious gift of faith in Jesus Christ. I want to follow their lead and receive their inheritance!

How could I not emphasize the threat posed by Islamism? Muslims despise the atheistic West. They take refuge in Islamism as a rejection of the consumer society that is offered to them as a religion. Can the West present them the Faith in a clear way? For that it will have to rediscover its Christian roots and identity. To the countries of the third world, the West is held out as a paradise because it is ruled by commercial liberalism. This encourages the flow of migrants, so tragic for the identity of peoples. A West that denies its faith, its history, its roots, and its identity is destined for contempt, for death, and disappearance.

But I would like to point out that everything is prepared for a renewal. I see families, monasteries, and parishes that are like oases in the middle of a desert. It is from these oases of faith, liturgy, beauty, and silence that the West will be reborn.

[Murph]

The African Priests will be the ones who save the Church, much like the Irish did in the Dark Ages, the Africans will come blazing out of the darkness and save the Church from the sins and venality of its current leadership. The decline of the West is real. There are few now standing up against the darkness.

[Murph]

The Pope says Migrants bring riches, tell that to our Texas State Trooper who is fighting for his life right now. Anything to distract from the pederasty scandal engulfing the Church.

[R011]

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

[Murph]

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

Sigh, you are right, Global warming and migrant rights if far more important.

[Jeff]

The African Priests will be the ones who save the Church, much like the Irish did in the Dark Ages, the Africans will come blazing out of the darkness and save the Church from the sins and venality of its current leadership. The decline of the West is real. There are few now standing up against the darkness.

 

They are also the ones trying to save the Anglican/Episcopal church but I fear it's too late for us.

[Panzermann]

Just happened to come across an interview with the Archbishop of Vienna Cardinal Schönborn in german magazine "Stern". He is really after cleaning up the mess with child abuses. He started cleaning up his diocese in 2010 and pushes for church wide prosecution. One point he mae was, that John-Paul II. was actually a hindrance, because JP2 could not imagine a priest doing such vile deeds. But Ratzinger still put a special court in place to persecute this when he was head of the inquisition CDF. so it is not that they did nothing, but there was of course much pushback.

 

 

I guess Murph knows these obstacles from internal affairs.

[Panzermann]

 

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

Sigh, you are right, Global warming and migrant rights if far more important.

 

Hey at least that is still catholic, which excludes some BS. The lutheranians had a "paint your vagina" workshop at the recent German Evangelical Church Assembly. What the fuck has that to do with Jesus? I mean global warming and how to cope with it, because it affects more than 7 billion people you can make a case for. But painting vaginas? Typical feminist drivel concentrating on below the waistline.

 

 

(imagine the outcry, if there was a dick drawing workshop...)

[Ssnake]

Are you sure it was about drawings on paper?

Body painting has become a thing, after all.

Edited April 8, 2019 by Ssnake

[BansheeOne]

Many consider Robert Sarah as one of the outstanding voices of reason in the RCC.

 

As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West: An interview with Cardinal Sarah

 

I have to say I find it hilarious that he defines the enemies of Western civilization as those who "hate human nature", and its defenders as people who aren't lured by riches, adhere to celibacy, and don't mind to be crucified.

Edited April 8, 2019 by BansheeOne

[Stuart Galbraith]

I was listening to a discussion today on the death of Thomas Beckett, and I was interested to note that the point in which he and Henry II fell out was that Henry felt that the Church ought to be subject to his law, whereas the Beckett believed that the Church should be subject to its own laws. Apparently even back then there were numerous case of various crimes, including rape, where the church would investigate, sometimes (sometimes not) defrock the individual concerned, but no further charges would be pressed.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09hp2rm

 

Food for thought is all im saying here.

[DougRichards]

 

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

Sigh, you are right, Global warming and migrant rights if far more important.

 

 

But the bi-millenium is pending, only about ten years away.

[urbanoid]

The Pope says Migrants bring riches, tell that to our Texas State Trooper who is fighting for his life right now. Anything to distract from the pederasty scandal engulfing the Church.

 

Well, unlike his predecessors he's a commie cuckpope, so...

[sunday]

 

Many consider Robert Sarah as one of the outstanding voices of reason in the RCC.

 

As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West: An interview with Cardinal Sarah

I have to say I find it hilarious that he defines the enemies of Western civilization as those who "hate human nature", and its defenders as people who aren't lured by riches, adhere to celibacy, and don't mind to be crucified.

 

I find comfortable that you still have some Bismarckian-Prussian sense of humor. Not a totally defective German!

[Panzermann]

Are you sure it was about drawings on paper?

Body painting has become a thing, after all.

 

Now that you mention it...

[Murph]

 

 

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

Sigh, you are right, Global warming and migrant rights if far more important.

 

Hey at least that is still catholic, which excludes some BS. The lutheranians had a "paint your vagina" workshop at the recent German Evangelical Church Assembly. What the fuck has that to do with Jesus? I mean global warming and how to cope with it, because it affects more than 7 billion people you can make a case for. But painting vaginas? Typical feminist drivel concentrating on below the waistline.

 

 

(imagine the outcry, if there was a dick drawing workshop...)

 

Are you serious? Wow.

[Panzermann]

 

 

 

You have it backwards, Murph. This obcessing over minor stuff like endemic sexual abuse and cover up distracts from important religious work like fighting global warming.

Sigh, you are right, Global warming and migrant rights if far more important.

 

Hey at least that is still catholic, which excludes some BS. The lutheranians had a "paint your vagina" workshop at the recent German Evangelical Church Assembly. What the fuck has that to do with Jesus? I mean global warming and how to cope with it, because it affects more than 7 billion people you can make a case for. But painting vaginas? Typical feminist drivel concentrating on below the waistline.

 

 

(imagine the outcry, if there was a dick drawing workshop...)

 

Are you serious? Wow.

 

 

Yes. I am. Sadly.

 

Organized by the Zentrum Geschlechterwelten (genderworlds centre),

 

https://www.kirchentag.de/index.php?id=17007session/370435101/V.GEN-015 2

 

 

I must correct myself though, they are going to paint vulvas not vaginas and the churchday is in the coming June.

 

 

some of the other workshops have more reasonable titles, like "sexuality and religion: an (im)possible relation?", but considering the organizers, weeellll...

https://www.kirchentag.de/index.php?id=17007topic/11591

[BansheeOne]

I always chuckle when people act like this is an issue of the last few decades, caused by general liberalization of sexual mores in society or something.

 

People like certain ex-popes, for example. Though lost in the general outrage about Benedict blaming society-at-large is that he also points to problems of Church law for prosecuting abusive priests.

 

I had to look up the pedophilia scandal surrounding the founder of the Legion of Christ.

 

Date 11.04.2019

 

Ex-Pope Benedict blames hippies for clerical sex abuse

 

Ex-Pope Benedict XVI says the sexual revolution of the 1960s is to answer for child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The former pope wrote in an essay that "absence of God" was behind acts of pedophilia.

 

Former Pope Benedict XVI has blamed the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal on the 1960s sexual revolution, growing secularization and weak church laws that protected priests in an essay published Thursday.

 

"Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom ... Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of '68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate," he wrote in the 6,000-word essay for Klerusblatt, a German monthly magazine for clergy.

 

"Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God," he wrote, noting failed attempts to include a reference to God in European Union treaties as a negative example of Western secularization

 

Benedict, born in Germany as Joseph Ratzinger, cited the appearance of sex in films in the '60s in his native Bavaria and the formation of "homosexual cliques" in seminaries "which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate." He also attributed it to failures in moral theology in that era.

 

[...]

 

'Conviction nearly impossible'

 

Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pope in six centuries to resign, also faulted church laws that protected accused priests.

 

He wrote that during the 1980s and 1990s "the right to a defense (for priests) was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible."

 

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict led reforms of those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children.

 

He took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican's conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

 

Benedict wrote in the introduction to the essay that Francis and the Vatican secretary of state had given him permission to publish. The Vatican also confirmed it was written by Benedict.

 

[...]

 

Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis, which effectively attributed the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it excluded key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder's pedophilia, which began long before then and involved abuse in one of the most rigorously orthodox, conservative religious orders.

 

"Everything we know in the global history of the Catholic abuse crisis makes Benedict XVI's take published yesterday very thin or worse: a caricature of what happened during in the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II period with all its ingenuities and some tragic mistakes," he tweeted.

 

"This is an embarrassing letter. The idea that ecclesial abuse of children was a result of the 1960s, a supposed collapse of moral theology, and 'conciliarity' is an embarrassingly wrong explanation for the systemic abuse of children and its coverup," Brian Flanagan, a theologian at Marymount University in Virginia, tweeted.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/ex-pope-benedict-blames-hippies-for-clerical-sex-abuse/a-48294635

[Ssnake]

In cases of pedophilia, I'll gladly take a pope who does the right thing for the wrong reasons over a pope whose analysis is correct and then does nothing; needless to say, the curreent one seems to be wrong in his analysis too, and less active about it than his predecessor, except organizing useless group sessions with cardinals and bishops that are part of the problem.

[sunday]

It is better to go to the primary sources.

 

https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2019/04/11/full-text-of-benedict-xvi-the-church-and-the-scandal-of-sexual-abuse/

 

I've not seen any newspaper that informs of the difference that BXVI states between theological errors, and considering those same errors as the new normal.

[Murph]

And more confirmation that good men were booted from Seminaries due to the liberal insanity and Lavender Mafia from Pope Benedict: https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/the-three-colors-of-martyrdom/

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

I always chuckle when people act like this is an issue of the last few decades, caused by general liberalization of sexual mores in society or something.

 

People like certain ex-popes, for example. Though lost in the general outrage about Benedict blaming society-at-large is that he also points to problems of Church law for prosecuting abusive priests.

 

I had to look up the pedophilia scandal surrounding the founder of the Legion of Christ.

 

Date 11.04.2019

 

Ex-Pope Benedict blames hippies for clerical sex abuse

 

Ex-Pope Benedict XVI says the sexual revolution of the 1960s is to answer for child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The former pope wrote in an essay that "absence of God" was behind acts of pedophilia.

 

Former Pope Benedict XVI has blamed the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal on the 1960s sexual revolution, growing secularization and weak church laws that protected priests in an essay published Thursday.

 

"Among the freedoms that the Revolution of 1968 sought to fight for was this all-out sexual freedom ... Part of the physiognomy of the Revolution of '68 was that pedophilia was then also diagnosed as allowed and appropriate," he wrote in the 6,000-word essay for Klerusblatt, a German monthly magazine for clergy.

 

"Why did pedophilia reach such proportions? Ultimately, the reason is the absence of God," he wrote, noting failed attempts to include a reference to God in European Union treaties as a negative example of Western secularization

 

Benedict, born in Germany as Joseph Ratzinger, cited the appearance of sex in films in the '60s in his native Bavaria and the formation of "homosexual cliques" in seminaries "which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate." He also attributed it to failures in moral theology in that era.

 

[...]

 

'Conviction nearly impossible'

 

Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pope in six centuries to resign, also faulted church laws that protected accused priests.

 

He wrote that during the 1980s and 1990s "the right to a defense (for priests) was so broad as to make a conviction nearly impossible."

 

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict led reforms of those laws in 2001 to make it easier to remove priests who abused children.

 

He took a hard line against clerical sex abuse as the Vatican's conservative doctrine chief, and later as pope, defrocking hundreds of priests accused of raping and molesting children.

 

Benedict wrote in the introduction to the essay that Francis and the Vatican secretary of state had given him permission to publish. The Vatican also confirmed it was written by Benedict.

 

[...]

 

Villanova University theologian Massimo Faggioli said the essay was thin in its analysis, which effectively attributed the scandal to the sexual revolution. He said it excluded key cases, such as the Legion of Christ founder's pedophilia, which began long before then and involved abuse in one of the most rigorously orthodox, conservative religious orders.

 

"Everything we know in the global history of the Catholic abuse crisis makes Benedict XVI's take published yesterday very thin or worse: a caricature of what happened during in the Catholic Church during the post-Vatican II period with all its ingenuities and some tragic mistakes," he tweeted.

 

"This is an embarrassing letter. The idea that ecclesial abuse of children was a result of the 1960s, a supposed collapse of moral theology, and 'conciliarity' is an embarrassingly wrong explanation for the systemic abuse of children and its coverup," Brian Flanagan, a theologian at Marymount University in Virginia, tweeted.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/ex-pope-benedict-blames-hippies-for-clerical-sex-abuse/a-48294635

 

 

He really needs to read up on Church Abuses in the Irish Republic. Many of them predated the 1960's by at least 2 decades.

[R011]

It would be nice to pretend this is all the fault of Baby Boomer gay leftist anti Westernism, but it has been going on forever and in more places than just the Catholic Church.

[BansheeOne]

I'm coming back to St. Peter Damian ...

 

 

The Liber Gomorrhianus (Book of Gomorrah) is a book authored and published by the Benedictine monk St. Peter Damian during the Gregorian Reformation circa AD 1051. ^[1] It is a treatise regarding the vices of the clergy, principally sodomy, and the consequent need for reform.

 

[...] Although various forms of same-sex behaviour were discussed in contemporary handbooks of penance, such as those by Burchard of Worms and Regino of Prüm, according to Paul Halsall, this is the only theological tract which exclusively addresses this theme.^[1]

 

In this, Petrus Damiani made an attack on homosexual practices, mutual masturbation, copulation between the thighs, anal copulation and solitary masturbation,^[1] as subversive disruptions against the moral order occasioned by the madness associated with an excess of lust. He was especially indignant about priests having sexual relationships with adolescent boys. He singles out superiors who, due to excessive and misplaced piety, have been lax in their duty to uphold church discipline. He opposes the ordination of those who engage in homosexual sex and wants those already ordained dismissed from Holy Orders. Those who misuse the sacraments to defile boys are treated with particular contempt.

 

Controversy

 

It caused a great stir and aroused not a little enmity against its author. Even the pope, Pope Leo IX, who had at first praised the work, was persuaded that it was exaggerated. He praised Damian's motivation in advocating chastity and condemning vice, and told him that Damian's own exemplary life did more to teach appropriate conduct than any words. He softened the suggestions for decisive action against offending clerics made by the author and excluded from the ranks of clergy only those who had offended repeatedly and over a long period of time.^[4] The Pope's reaction drew from Damian a vigorous letter of protest.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Gomorrhianus