ARCHBISHOP TIMOTHY DOLAN'S TAKE ON THINGS

To Whom Shall We Go?

In some ways, Holy Week is hardly the time I would choose to make the following comments. Still, the matter is so pressing that I feel compelled to address it.

Last week I asked for some fairness in the seemingly unappeasable criticism of the Church over the catastrophe of clergy sexual abuse.

Not to my surprise, if anything, it has only gotten worse, especially in the interminable headlines about the Pope himself.

Last fall I wrote in this blog about anti-Catholicism in the New York Times and other media, providing a list of contemporary examples. A few tried to slap me back into place, suggesting that I stupidly believed the Church to be immune from scrutiny.

Baloney! The Church needs criticism; we want it; we welcome it; we do a good bit of it ourselves; we do not expect any special treatment…so bring it on.

All we ask is that it be fair and accurate.

The reporting on Pope Benedict XVI has not been so.

The first reports were about a shameful priest in Germany three decades ago. I weighed in on that coverage last week.

The second story, sprayed all over the New York Times this week, and predictably copied by the world’s press, is groundless. (I am grateful for Father Raymond de Souza’s excellent piece posted at National Review Online which goes through the story point by point.)

The report accuses Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of preventing a priest whose sins and crimes can only be described as diabolical, one Lawrence Murphy, from facing proper penalties in the Church for the serial abuse of deaf minors.

While the report on the nauseating abuse is bitterly true, the insinuation against Cardinal Ratzinger is not, and gives every indication of being part of a well-oiled campaign against Pope Benedict.

Here’s a summary of the key points:

* The New York Times relied on tort lawyers who currently have civil suits pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the Holy See, who are aggressively supporting the radical measure right now before the Wisconsin legislature to abrogate the statute of limitations on civil cases of abuse, and who have high financial interest in the matter being reported. Hardly an impartial source…

* The documentation that allegedly supports these sensational charges is published on the website of the New York Times; rather than confirming their theory, the documents instead show that there is no evidence at all that Cardinal Ratzinger ever blocked any decision about Murphy. Even a New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, calls this charge “unfair” in his column of March 29.

* We also find on the website a detailed timeline of all the sickening information about Murphy, data not “uncovered” by any reporter but freely released by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee a number of years back, and thoroughly covered at that time by the local media in Milwaukee. One wonders why this story, quite exhaustively reported in the past, rose again this very week. It is hardly “news.” One might therefore ask: Why is this news now? The only reason it is news at all is because of the implication that Cardinal Ratzinger was involved. Yet the documentation does not support that charge, and thus they should have no place in a putatively respectable newspaper.

Nothing in this non-news merits the tsunami of headlines, stories, and diatribes against the Church and this Pope that we have endured this past week.

There was legitimate news last week that should have received much more attention than it did. It was the annual independent audit report on American dioceses on compliance with our own tough Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. For those who profess to be so interested in the welfare of the young, the news should have been trumpeted as stunning progress. Catholics deeply disturbed by lurid tales of wicked behavior twenty or thirty years ago might have been surprised to discover:

* The Church has had in place strict protocols and preventative measures to stop this from happening again. Last week’s audit reported that six million children in our schools and religious education programs underwent safe environment training – that’s 96% of the children in our care. Background evaluations were completed on two million priests, deacons, seminarians, educators, employees and volunteers.

* Last week’s audit reported that there were six (6) credible allegations of sexual abuse of current minors for the entire year, in a Church of more than 60 million members. Though one would be too many, the percent is dramatically lower than experts tell us is the sad national average, and is only known because the Church is transparent in reporting.

* In the spirit of no good deed goes unpunished, the false allegations of last week have obscured the good work that the Cardinal Ratzinger did at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and as Pope. Beginning in 2001, as ably described by respected journalist John Allen, and also mentioned recently by Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Cardinal Ratzinger brought about a profound change in how sexual abuse cases were handled. The details are many, but the effect was clear. It became easier to remove priests who have committed these crimes from ministry very quickly, and often, dismissed from the priesthood altogether. Since his election, Pope Benedict has repeatedly demonstrated that even high-ranking priests are to be held accountable, and has not minced words about the failures of his brother bishops – both here in the United States and just last week, in his letter to the Catholics of Ireland.

This failure to report in similar detail today’s successes and yesterday’s failures suggests the bias I wrote about last fall. This is also about simply telling the truth, or more to the point, about peddling falsehoods to destroy the Holy Father’s good name. It needs to be called what it is – scandalous.

Let me be upfront: I confess a bias in favor of the Church and her Pope.

I only wish some others would admit a bias on the other side.

A blessed Holy Week.

THANK GOD THE CHURCH IS FIGHTING BACK: THE TRUTH WILL SET US FREE!

With the New York Times and other media outlets exploiting the victims of clergy sexual abuse to advance their "anti-Catholic" agenda, I am glad to see what Cardinal Levada, the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith writes in a San Francisco Newspaper. I am glad to see that Cardinals, bishops, priests, deacon and the rank and file laity are not going allow us to be bullied by the news media out of a fear that we might come across as callous and indifferent to the sufferings of the victims. As these media outlets and the lawyers that represent abused victims continue to exploit once again the victims of abuse for their own personal or financial gain, I'm happy that the gloves have come off and spiritual warfare is in high gear! The greatest weapon we have is prayer, the Mass and the sacraments, but most of all the Holy Spirit who will defend us in all things holy! The media and the lawyers who are trying to destroy the Church simply don't get it and that they will not succeed.

Cardinal Levada succeeded Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:

The New York Times and Pope Benedict XVI:
how it looks to an American in the Vatican

By Cardinal William J. Levada
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

In our melting pot of peoples, languages and backgrounds, Americans are not noted as examples of “high” culture. But we can take pride as a rule in our passion for fairness. In the Vatican where I currently work, my colleagues – whether fellow cardinals at meetings or officials in my office – come from many different countries, continents and cultures. As I write this response today (March 26, 2010) I have had to admit to them that I am not proud of America’s newspaper of record, the New York Times, as a paragon of fairness.


I say this because today’s Times presents both a lengthy article by Laurie Goodstein, a senior columnist, headlined “Warned About Abuse, Vatican Failed to Defrock Priest,” and an accompanying editorial entitled “The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal,” in which the editors call the Goodstein article a disturbing report (emphasis in original) as a basis for their own charges against the Pope. Both the article and the editorial are deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness that Americans have every right and expectation to find in their major media reporting.

In her lead paragraph, Goodstein relies on what she describes as “newly unearthed files” to point out what the Vatican (i.e. then Cardinal Ratzinger and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) did not do – “defrock Fr. Murphy.” Breaking news, apparently. Only after eight paragraphs of purple prose does Goodstein reveal that Fr. Murphy, who criminally abused as many as 200 deaf children while working at a school in the Milwaukee Archdiocese from 1950 to 1974, “not only was never tried or disciplined by the church’s own justice system, but also got a pass from the police and prosecutors who ignored reports from his victims, according to the documents and interviews with victims.”

But in paragraph 13, commenting on a statement of Fr. Lombardi (the Vatican spokesman) that Church law does not prohibit anyone from reporting cases of abuse to civil authorities, Goodstein writes, “He did not address why that had never happened in this case.” Did she forget, or did her editors not read, what she wrote in paragraph nine about Murphy getting “a pass from the police and prosecutors”? By her own account it seems clear that criminal authorities had been notified, most probably by the victims and their families.

Goodstein’s account bounces back and forth as if there were not some 20 plus years intervening between reports in the 1960 and 70’s to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and local police, and Archbishop Weakland’s appeal for help to the Vatican in 1996. Why? Because the point of the article is not about failures on the part of church and civil authorities to act properly at the time. I, for one, looking back at this report agree that Fr. Murphy deserved to be dismissed from the clerical state for his egregious criminal behavior, which would normally have resulted from a canonical trial.

The point of Goodstein’s article, however, is to attribute the failure to accomplish this dismissal to Pope Benedict, instead of to diocesan decisions at the time. She uses the technique of repeating the many escalating charges and accusations from various sources (not least from her own newspaper), and tries to use these “newly unearthed files” as the basis for accusing the pope of leniency and inaction in this case and presumably in others.

It seems to me, on the other hand, that we owe Pope Benedict a great debt of gratitude for introducing the procedures that have helped the Church to take action in the face of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse of minors. These efforts began when the Pope served as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and continued after he was elected Pope. That the Times has published a series of articles in which the important contribution he has made – especially in the development and implementation of Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela, the Motu proprio issued by Pope John Paul II in 2001 – is ignored, seems to me to warrant the charge of lack of fairness which should be the hallmark of any reputable newspaper.

Let me tell you what I think a fair reading of the Milwaukee case would seem to indicate. The reasons why church and civil authorities took no action in the 1960’s and 70’s is apparently not contained in these “newly emerged files.” Nor does the Times seem interested in finding out why. But what does emerge is this: after almost 20 years as Archbishop, Weakland wrote to the Congregation asking for help in dealing with this terrible case of serial abuse. The Congregation approved his decision to undertake a canonical trial, since the case involved solicitation in confession – one of the graviora delicta (most grave crimes) for which the Congregation had responsibility to investigate and take appropriate action.

Only when it learned that Murphy was dying did the Congregation suggest to Weakland that the canonical trial be suspended, since it would involve a lengthy process of taking testimony from a number of deaf victims from prior decades, as well as from the accused priest. Instead it proposed measures to ensure that appropriate restrictions on his ministry be taken. Goodstein infers that this action implies “leniency” toward a priest guilty of heinous crimes. My interpretation would be that the Congregation realized that the complex canonical process would be useless if the priest were dying. Indeed, I have recently received an unsolicited letter from the judicial vicar who was presiding judge in the canonical trial telling me that he never received any communication about suspending the trial, and would not have agreed to it. But Fr. Murphy had died in the meantime. As a believer, I have no doubt that Murphy will face the One who judges both the living and the dead.

Goodstein also refers to what she calls “other accusations” about the reassignment of a priest who had previously abused a child/children in another diocese by the Archdiocese of Munich. But the Archdiocese has repeatedly explained that the responsible Vicar General, Mons. Gruber, admitted his mistake in making that assignment. It is anachronistic for Goodstein and the Times to imply that the knowledge about sexual abuse that we have in 2010 should have somehow been intuited by those in authority in 1980. It is not difficult for me to think that Professor Ratzinger, appointed as Archbishop of Munich in 1977, would have done as most new bishops do: allow those already in place in an administration of 400 or 500 people to do the jobs assigned to them.

As I look back on my own personal history as a priest and bishop, I can say that in 1980 I had never heard of any accusation of such sexual abuse by a priest. It was only in 1985, as an Auxiliary Bishop attending a meeting of our U.S. Bishops’ Conference where data on this matter was presented, that I became aware of some of the issues. In 1986, when I was appointed Archbishop in Portland, I began to deal personally with accusations of the crime of sexual abuse, and although my “learning curve” was rapid, it was also limited by the particular cases called to my attention.

Here are a few things I have learned since that time: many child victims are reluctant to report incidents of sexual abuse by clergy. When they come forward as adults, the most frequent reason they give is not to ask for punishment of the priest, but to make the bishop and personnel director aware so that other children can be spared the trauma that they have experienced.

In dealing with priests, I learned that many priests, when confronted with accusations from the past, spontaneously admitted their guilt. On the other hand, I also learned that denial is not uncommon. I have found that even programs of residential therapy have not succeeded in breaking through such denial in some cases. Even professional therapists did not arrive at a clear diagnosis in some of these cases; often their recommendations were too vague to be helpful. On the other hand, therapists have been very helpful to victims in dealing with the long-range effects of their childhood abuse. In both Portland and San Francisco where I dealt with issues of sexual abuse, the dioceses always made funds available (often through diocesan insurance coverage) for therapy to victims of sexual abuse.

From the point of view of ecclesiastical procedures, the explosion of the sexual abuse question in the United States led to the adoption, at a meeting of the Bishops’ Conference in Dallas in 2002, of a “Charter for the Protection of Minors from Sexual Abuse.” This Charter provides for uniform guidelines on reporting sexual abuse, on structures of accountability (Boards involving clergy, religious and laity, including experts), reports to a national Board, and education programs for parishes and schools in raising awareness and prevention of sexual abuse of children. In a number of other countries similar programs have been adopted by Church authorities: one of the first was adopted by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in response to the Nolan Report made by a high-level commission of independent experts in 2001.

It was only in 2001, with the publication of Pope John Paul II’s Motu proprio Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela (SST), that responsibility for guiding the Catholic Church’s response to the problem of sexual abuse of minors by clerics was assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This papal document was prepared for Pope John Paul II under the guidance of Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Contrary to some media reports, SST did not remove the local bishop’s responsibility for acting in cases of reported sexual abuse of minors by clerics. Nor was it, as some have theorized, part of a plot from on high to interfere with civil jurisdiction in such cases. Instead, SST directs bishops to report credible allegations of abuse to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is able to provide a service to the bishops to ensure that cases are handled properly, in accord with applicable ecclesiastical law.

Here are some of the advances made by this new Church legislation (SST). It has allowed for a streamlined administrative process in arriving at a judgment, thus reserving the more formal process of a canonical trial to more complex cases. This has been of particular advantage in missionary and small dioceses that do not have a strong complement of well-trained canon lawyers. It provides for erecting inter-diocesan tribunals to assist small dioceses. The Congregation has faculties allowing it derogate from the prescription of a crime (statute of limitations) in order to permit justice to be done even for “historical” cases. Moreover, SST has amended canon law in cases of sexual abuse to adjust the age of a minor to 18 to correspond with the civil law in many countries today. It provides a point of reference for bishops and religious superiors to obtain uniform advice about handling priests’ cases. Perhaps most of all, it has designated cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics as graviora delicta: most grave crimes, like the crimes against the sacraments of Eucharist and Penance perennially assigned to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This in itself has shown the seriousness with which today’s Church undertakes its responsibility to assist bishops and religious superiors to prevent these crimes from happening in the future, and to punish them when they happen. Here is a legacy of Pope Benedict that greatly facilitates the work of the Congregation which I now have the privilege to lead, to the benefit of the entire Church.

After the Dallas Charter in 2002, I was appointed (at the time as Archbishop of San Francisco) to a team of four bishops to seek approval of the Holy See for the “Essential Norms” that the American Bishops developed to allow us to deal with abuse questions. Because these norms intersected with existing canon law, they required approval before being implemented as particular law for our country. Under the chairmanship of Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and currently President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, our team worked with Vatican canonical experts at several meetings. We found in Cardinal Ratzinger, and in the experts he assigned to meet with us, a sympathetic understanding of the problems we faced as American bishops. Largely through his guidance we were able to bring our work to a successful conclusion.

The Times editorial wonders “how Vatican officials did not draw the lessons of the grueling scandal in the United States, where more than 700 priests were dismissed over a three-year period.” I can assure the Times that the Vatican in reality did not then and does not now ignore those lessons. But the Times editorial goes on to show the usual bias: “But then we read Laurie Goodstein’s disturbing report . . .about how the pope, while he was still a cardinal, was personally warned about a priest … But church leaders chose to protect the church instead of children. The report illuminated the kind of behavior the church was willing to excuse to avoid scandal.” Excuse me, editors. Even the Goodstein article, based on “newly unearthed files,” places the words about protecting the Church from scandal on the lips of Archbishop Weakland, not the pope. It is just this kind of anachronistic conflation that I think warrants my accusation that the Times, in rushing to a guilty verdict, lacks fairness in its coverage of Pope Benedict.

As a full-time member of the Roman Curia, the governing structure that carries out the Holy See’s tasks, I do not have time to deal with the Times’s subsequent almost daily articles by Rachel Donadio and others, much less with Maureen Dowd’s silly parroting of Goodstein’s “disturbing report.” But about a man with and for whom I have the privilege of working, as his “successor” Prefect, a pope whose encyclicals on love and hope and economic virtue have both surprised us and made us think, whose weekly catecheses and Holy Week homilies inspire us, and yes, whose pro-active work to help the Church deal effectively with the sexual abuse of minors continues to enable us today, I ask the Times to reconsider its attack mode about Pope Benedict XVI and give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on.

YOU BETTER BELIEVE THAT THE SECULAR, ELITE PRESS IS SMEARING AND DEMONIZING THE CHURCH, THE PRIESTHOOD AND POPE BENEDICT

I use to think the press was doing the Church a service in exposing the crimes and sins of predator priests and helping victims to come forward with their stories. But more and more, I believe that the reporting on the Catholic Church is motivated by something much less laudable then what I perceived to be the truth. There are those in our liberal press, government and society who want to destroy the Church. The Catholic Church is the only institution in the world standing in the way of their liberal agenda in the following areas:
1. Homosexual marriage
2. Birth control and abortion
3. Women's rights in all institutions, including women as deacons, priests, bishops, pope
4. Chastity
5. egalitarianism as it concerns truth, religions, etc
6. Human rights come from God, not the state

Part of the attack on the Church is to bankrupt her. Lawyers are making millions as are victims. Who's paying for this? Not just insurance companies, but every Catholic who has donated to their parish and diocese.

Part of the attack is to undermine the Church's teaching on chastity, homosexuality, birth control and traditional marriage. How the secular world believes the Church treats women by excluding them from ordination is also at the heart of this attack.

Pope Benedict is very articulate in presenting the traditional understanding of Church teaching. This is of concern to the secular elitists especially in Europe where the pope's stated mission is to re-Christianize the continent. Secular liberalism is extremely strong in all of Europe, almost like a dictatorship. Europe has had problems with dictators in the past!

Last night we celebrated our Chrism Mass at the Cathedral. Part of Bishop Boland's homily focused on the media demonizing the pope, priests and the Catholic Church in general. The Catholic Church is not intrinsically evil as the media would have us believe. The Church is intrinsically good as are the people of the Catholic Church, including the hierarchy and priests of the Church.

As I drove home to Macon from the Chrism Mass, I listened to "Larry King Live" on my XM radio. There was a panel discussion with victims from 40 years ago and Bill Donohue of the Catholic League. Some of the victims and others made scurrilous, false accusations against the pope and continued the mantra of others in the media stating the pope must resign. I heard Sally Quinn of the Washington Post utter her silly, unchallenged suggestions on MSNBC on Monday--this is the Pope's Watergate, he must resign. This is what we're going to hear from those who have it in for this pope and our Church. The pope must resigned is one of the talking points now.

William Donohue was having none of it. He called it as it is and would not be intimidated by victims who are seeking revenge on the Church. For many of them their thirst for justice has moved to revenge. We cannot be passive to this blood lust no matter how much these victims have suffered at the hands of their priest-abusers. Two wrongs don't make a right!

The Catholic League had this ad in the New York Times yesterday:

click on image to enlarge:

The secular press wants you to believe that every case of sex abuse has been directed at small children, that all of these are cases of pedophilia.They are not! The vast, overwhelming majority of cases against a small minority of sick, immature Catholic priests are not towards small children, but teenagers, most of whom look like adults. This is a mortal sin too, it is immoral, it is a crime. But in the priesthood, the predators for the most part have been homosexual priests and their immature acting out and abuse of their position, authority and power. They have abused the trust accorded to priests and manipulated that trust for their own sick satisfaction and to the detriment of unsuspecting teenage boys and their parents and families.

But do you hear the press referring to these cases as "homosexual predations?" Yes, there are "heterosexual predators" of teenagers too that comes from the same immaturity and abuse of trust. In both cases, it is not pedophilia that is the culprit, but predation on teenagers, either male or female. Adult men who have sex with teenage girls are accused of statutory rape not pedophilia. You never hear the press referring to these cases against heterosexual men who have sex with teenage girls as pedophilia because it is not pedophilia, it is heterosexual predation!

Why is the press afraid to label what the majority of cases in the Catholic priesthood are, "homosexual predation?" I think you can understand the reason. It is fine to smear every Catholic priest as a pedophile, but don't you dare intimate that homosexuals could have a problem within their sub-culture, of predation of teenagers which is quite prevalent in much of the sub-culture of homosexuality and their pornography. Does anyone report on that? No! It is politically incorrect to do so.

Thank God for Bill Donohue who is not afraid to tell the truth, about the Church, the priesthood and what the actual problem is--the press and the elitist liberal society are out to destroy or neutralize the Church and her mission of truth. Satan is the other culprit in this conspiracy as well as sins of the members of the Church and her priesthood. As we continue to celebrate the events of Holy Week, let us keep in mind that Jesus Christ has died for us; He is risen and He will come again!

IN YESTERDAY'S NEW YORK TIMES, MAUREEN DOWD, PERHAPS THE MOST ANTI-CATHOLIC OP-ED WRITER SPEWS FORTH HER PONTIFICATIONS. DO YOU THINK THE NEW YORK TIMES NEEDS AN INQUISITION? HER EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS THE TALKING POINTS OF THE LIBERAL, ELITE SECULAR PRESS WHICH HATES THE CATHOLIC CHURCH. SHAME! SHAME! THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS EVERY MEMBER THAT IS BAPTIZED, CONFIRMED AND RECEIVING THE HOLY EUCHARIST AND OTHER SACRAMENTS. YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE HIERARCHY FROM THE PEOPLE, BECAUSE THE HIERARCHY COMES FROM THE PEOPLE AND YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE INSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH FROM THE PEOPLE EITHER.


Op-Ed Columnist
Should There Be an Inquisition for the Pope?
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 30, 2010
The New York Times

Do you think she has her talking points in line and an ax to grind against the Catholic Church?

It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin.

Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery, the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused — and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged — children.

The church gave up its credibility for Lent. Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday.

This week of special confessions and penance services is unfolding as the pope resists pressure from Catholics around the globe for his own confession and penance about the cascade of child sexual abuse cases that were ignored, even by a German diocese and Vatican office he ran.

If church fund-raising and contributions dry up, Benedict’s P.R. handlers may yet have to stage a photo-op where he steps out of the priest’s side of the confessional and enters the side where the rest of his fallible flock goes.

Or maybe 30-second spots defending the pope with Benedict’s voice intoning at the end: “I am infallible, and I approve this message.”

Canon 1404 states that “The First See is judged by no one.” But Jesus, Mary and Joseph, as my dad used to say. Somebody has to tell the First See when it’s blind — and mute — to deaf children in America and Italy.

The Vatican is surprised to find itself in this sort of trouble. Officials there could have easily known what was going on all along; archbishops visiting Rome gossip like a sewing circle. The cynical Vatican just didn’t want to deal with it.

And now the church continues to hide behind its mystique. Putting down the catechism, it picked up the Washington P.R. handbook for political sins.

First: Declare any new revelation old and unimportant.

At Palm Sunday Mass at St. Patrick’s, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York bemoaned that the “recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests, this time in Ireland, Germany, and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin, has knocked us to our knees once again.”

A few priests? At this point, it feels like an international battalion.

A re-run of an old story? So sorry to remind you, Archbishop, that one priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, who showed no remorse and suffered no punishment from “Rottweiler” Ratzinger, abused as many as 200 deaf children in Wisconsin.

Archbishop Dolan compared the pope to Jesus, saying he was “now suffering some of the same unjust accusations, shouts of the mob, and scourging at the pillar,” and “being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo.”

Second: Blame somebody else — even if it’s this pope’s popular predecessor, on the fast track to sainthood.

Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schönborn defended Pope Benedict this week, saying that then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s attempt in 1995 to investigate the former archbishop of Vienna for allegedly molesting youths in a monastery was barred by advisers close to Pope John Paul II.

Third: Say black is white.

In his blog, Archbishop Dolan blasted church critics while stating: “The Church needs criticism; we want it; we welcome it; we do a good bit of it ourselves,” adding: “We do not expect any special treatment. ...so bring it on.” Right.

Fourth: Demonize gays, as Karl Rove did in 2004.

In an ad in The Times on Tuesday, Bill Donohue, the Catholic League president, offered this illumination: “The Times continues to editorialize about the ‘pedophilia crisis,’ when all along it’s been a homosexual crisis. Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent. While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior, and most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay.”

Donohue is still talking about the problem as an indiscretion rather than a crime. If it mostly involves men and boys, that’s partly because priests for many years had unquestioned access to boys.

Fifth: Blame the victims.

“Fr. Lawrence Murphy apparently began his predatory behavior in Wisconsin in the 1950s,” Donohue protested, “yet the victims’ families never contacted the police until the mid-1970s.”

Sixth: Throw gorilla dust.

Donohue asserts that “the common response of all organizations, secular as well as religious,” to abuse cases “was to access therapy and reinstate the patient.” Really? Where in heaven’s name does that information come from? It’s absurd.

And finally, seventh: Use the Cheney omnipotence defense, most famously employed in the Valerie Plame case. Vice President Cheney claimed that his lofty position meant that the very act of spilling a secret, even with dastardly intent, declassified it.

Vatican lawyers will argue in negligence cases brought by abuse victims that the pope has immunity as a head of state and that bishops who allowed an abuse culture, endlessly recirculating like dirty fountain water, were not Vatican employees.

Maybe they worked for Enron.

"FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO!"

I JUST DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS KIND OF MASS! SOMEHOW IT DOESN'T STRIKE ME AS NOBLE SIMPLICITY

Despite the buzz about him, His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI had time to spy on the Liturgical creativity in Hollywood. He's thinking there's more than clerical sex abuse he needs to clean up!

Did Joel Osteen and his Dallas, Mega Church inspire this? No, I think his "liturgies" are a bit more sober. But there must be some Mega Church, Protestant non-denominational influence or inculturation here, don't you think? I know today that people of Jesus' day who welcomed Him to Jerusalem, may have welcomed Him in this manner if it were today? But I don't know. I know the pope in his various travels, particularly Pope John Paul II got these kinds of welcome.

But I have to ask, did people act this way at the foot of the Sacrifice? Did people act this way at the taking down from the Cross? Did they act this way at the entombment? Did they act this way at the Resurrection? No, I think there was a sober response not a Hollywood moment! This Mass was at the conclusion of Hollywood's recent Religious Education Convention!

What in God's name are they and we thinking with these types of Masses? Couldn't this have been done in some other liturgical setting? A para-liturgy? A devotion? Making Mass into a Hollywood production and entertainment is a bit shocking to me especially during this holy season of Lent! Do you think they sang "Stabat Mater"("Sorrowful Mother") this way? Is this what Vatican II had in mind when the document on the Liturgy recommended "NOBLE SIMPLICITY?"

"FATHER FORGIVE THESE PEOPLE IN HOLLYWOOD AND ELSEWHERE, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY ARE DOING!"

After having watched the Hollywood production for a Mass above, this is the only "ANTIDOTE" that can cure you of your stomach upset!

FROM "TOAST OF THE TOWN "TO "TOAST!"

At the triumphal beginning of Palm Sunday's Mass, Jesus is the "Toast of the Town!"


At the conclusion of Palm Sunday's Mass, Jesus is "Toast!"

In Jesus case, both the religious authorities of the day and the rank and file laity of Judaism and also the secular establishment were settling scores with Jesus. The audacity of Jesus to forgive sinners! Who does He think He is God? What about justice? What about all the families that the women caught in adultery broke up with her liaisons? What about all the people that the tax collectors swindled? What about all the victims of others' sins, MURDERS, CHILD MOLESTERS, MOBSTERS? How could Jesus forgive them? Really, just who does He think He is? He can't get away with His callousness! What did He know and when did He know it about these sinners that He has the audacity to forgive? Crucify Him, crucify Him!

Does the Passion of our Lord sound familiar to you today? How odd that during Holy Week, the Pope and the Catholic Church are enduring attacks from her own and from the world. It all sounds so very familiar. Thank God for Jesus who is the "Toast" of the Passion--yes, the BREAD OF LIFE, THE VICTIM OF FORGIVENESS, THE LAMB OF SACRIFICE AND THE TRUTH, THE WAY AND THE LIFE!

Some liberal Catholics are thinking: It's payback time, Ratzinger!

By:Damian Thompson
Damian Thompson is Blogs Editor of the Telegraph Media Group.

There is still no good evidence that Pope Benedict XVI is seriously implicated in the atrocious child abuse scandals that are – rightly – blackening the reputation of the institutions of the Catholic Church. But still the attempts to join the dots continue. To put it bluntly, there is an increasingly frantic media campaign against the Pope in which headlines are being written first and then facts shaved to fit them.

It is also clear that many prominent liberal Catholics are turning a blind eye to this media vendetta because they don’t like Pope Benedict. They are happy for him to take the rap for diocesan cover-ups initiated, in some cases, by liberal prelates. Those relates are grateful for the opportunity to pass the buck to the one man who, though his record on this matter is certainly not beyond criticism, has done more than any other to rectify the Church’s lax procedures – Joseph Ratzinger.

Some Catholics, such as our blogger Cristina Odone, have protested against the unjust treatment of the Pope. God bless her, for I know that Cristina is not sympathetic to some of the Pope’s views; yet she can spot the hidden agenda here.

I have to ask myself: if a liberal, liturgically wet Pope was castigated unfairly in this way, would I stick up for him? I can’t be sure, but how shameful if I did not.

If I was Benedict XVI, I’d be asking myself if I even wanted to visit Britain this autumn. For, when he does, he will meet English bishops, Catholic journalists and self-appointed spokesmen for the Catholic community who did not dare offend liberal opinion by defending him properly, or whose judgment was clouded by personal dislike of the Pope and his agenda.

Some Catholics – not many, but they are prominent – are actually thinking: it’s payback time, Ratzinger. If we can make this mud stick, then we can continue to sabotage your liturgical reforms. In other words, they are using the victims of clerical child abuse to fight internal political battles. Why am I not surprised?

While Jesus triumphal entry leads to crucifixion, stay tuned for Easter Sunday, you ain't seen anything yet! Wait and see what Jesus does to those who crucified Him!

HOW CAN THE CHURCH, MEANING, POPE, BISHOPS, PRIESTS, DEACONS, RELIGIOUS AND LAITY, COME CLEAN?

PRAY THAT THE POPE DOES NOT STUMBLE IN THIS CRISIS!

Christ will still the tempest the Pope, bishops and priests, deacons, religous and laity have stirred through sins of omission and commission!

In this worldwide scandal, only His Holiness can bring the light of Christ to the darkness now enveloping the hierarchy and the Magisterium of His Holiness. May the Light of Christ guide the words and actions of Pope Benedict in the coming days and months. May trust in the Holy Spirit in this dark hour prevail in the Church!

My comments first: The article below is copied from the Italian blogger, Sandro Magister of "Chiesa." What it does not address is the "How?" Why so many bishops and now perhaps "Joseph Ratzinger" when he was an Archbishop and later as a Cardinal seemed to downplay the scope of the problem of sexual abuse of minors, rely too much on psychiatric care, spiritual counseling and therapy to "fix" offending priests, in particular the most grievous serial offenders in order to recycle them back to ministry unsupervised. The pattern of most bishops, gave the appearance of absolutely no concern for those victimized. These priests were the bishops'clerical "sons" and thus got preferential treatment over the laity thus leading to unspeakable (and that "unspeakablity" is the culprit too) cycle of crimes against the laity and their children. How could this be? What in Church law, clerical mentality and the "closed circle" of clericalism led bishops to be apathetic toward children who were sexually abused? What of the culture of bishops to ignore the elephant in the room and allow such repeated abuse to continue? I can't answer all these questions, but just blame human nature and the phenomena of sin that our Savior came to forgive and the people who need redemption.

I know from my ministry, of women now in their 50's who as children and teenagers were molested by their fathers and repeatedly for years. Yes there is a love/hate relationship these women still harbor for their fathers. But there is also a deep resentment toward their mothers. What did their mothers know and when did they know it!? Did they not know what was happening right under their nose? Why didn't they call the authorities? Why didn't they divorce their husband? Why didn't they say a word? Denial and minimizing the devastation of abuse inflicted could well be the culprits not only for these mothers, but in the Church for bishops. Mothers are sometimes jealous of their daughters and the affection their husbands show their daughters, almost like a competition. Maybe the mothers thought their daughters liked this sort of incestuous abuse? Did bishops think children and teenager might have enjoyed the sexual attention brought upon them by a high ranking church official, a priest? If they didn't like it, they could have stopped it themselves? You see what I'm getting at, denial, rationalization, avoiding a serious issue, not bringing the law into it, the disruption it brings to the family, to the Church--minimizing the problem, fear of public scandal have devastating results.

I think since 2002 and even before, back to the 1980's, the Church was/is taking slow, methodical steps to address how bishops dealt/deal with disobedient priests and pathologically unstable priests. For the latter, the best solution is to remove them from ministry to spare harm to the greater good of the Church and her people. Where crime is involved, the civil authorities must be called immediately. Internal processes and canon law can only go so far, but the Church through her bishops is subject to civil law too and must respect that legitimate authority.

If Cardinal Ratzinger when he was the head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and when he was an archbishop in Germany made mistakes of judgment and showed more concern for his brother priests accused and guilty of crimes and sins against children,or in his own mind even minimized the scope of the scandal and the harm to children, then it would be best for even the Pope to make a public confession and beg forgiveness from the Church and the World, not only for himself, but also for all those in Catholic authority who showed only concern for offending priests and not for victims. Catholics for their part must forgive those who have harmed the others,children or adults, when a plea for forgiveness is requested and penance is accomplished.

Pope Benedict must required more of bishops who facilitated this grave scandal on the Church in terms of not only public penance, but resignations, demanded resignations. The systemic problem is that most bishops are accountable to no one, unless they themselves fall into personal sin, such as sexual sin, financial misdealing or the like. But incompetence in office can go on until they retire or die. That needs to change too. Only the pope can make that change. Pray for the pope. Saint Joseph, patron of the Universal Church, pray for us!

Finally, Armageddon is not here, I don't think? Cooler heads must prevail and this too shall pass. Hopefully Rome will have some savvy in dealing with a malicious press and vitriolic Catholics and world. Pope Benedict's letter to Ireland was marvelous. But perhaps its fatal flaw was its lack of specifying canonical procedures against irresponsible, enabling bishops who exacerbated this scandal, this wound on children and the Church in general. That flaw must be addressed!
OUR ONLY HOPE, THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR! SAVE THE LITURGY, SAVE THE WORLD! LET'S GET OUR NEW ENGLISH TRANSLATION IMPLEMENTED NOW AND OBEDIENTLY BY THE CLERGY AND LAITY AND MOVE ON TO ALLOWING CHRIST THROUGH DIGNIFIED CELEBRATIONS OF THE MASS TO RENEW THE PRIESTHOOD AND GOD'S PRIESTLY PEOPLE. ONLY JESUS CAN RENEW HIS PRIESTHOOD AND PRIESTLY PEOPLE! THE MASS IS WHERE TO START! IF WE CAN'T OBEY SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS IMPROVING OUR MASS, HOW CAN WE OBEY GREATER ISSUES THAT WILL RESOLVE THE SCANDAL ENVELOPING THE CHURCH NOW? DISOBEDIENCE AND PRIDE ARE AT THE ROOT OF ALL SCANDAL!


Genesis of a Crime. The Revolution of the 1960's

The scandal of pedophilia has always been there, but it was magnified by the cultural revolution of half a century ago. Benedict XVI makes the claim in his letter to the Catholics of Ireland. Two cardinals and a sociologist comment

by Sandro Magister




ROME, March 25, 2010 – Law and grace. Where earthly justice does not reach, the hand of God can. With his letter dated March 19, Benedict XVI has given the Catholics of Ireland an order never before given by a pope of the modern era to an entire national Church.

He told them not only to bring the guilty before the canonical and civil courts, but to put themselves collectively in a state of penance and purification. And not in the privacy of their consciences, but in a public form, before the eyes of all, even of their most implacable and mocking adversaries. Fasting, prayer, reading the Bible, and works of charity on all the Fridays from now until Easter of next year. Frequent sacramental confession. Continual adoration of Jesus – " himself a victim of injustice and sin" – present in the sacred host, exposed on the altars of the churches. And for all the bishops, priests, and religious, without exception, a special period of "mission," a long and strict course of spiritual exercises for a radical review of life.

It's a daring step, this one taken by Pope Benedict. Because not even the prophet Jonah believed any longer that God would forgive Nineveh its sins, in spite of the penitential ashes and sackcloth worn by all, from the king to the lowliest beast of burden.

And today as well, many conclude that the Church remains irremediably under condemnation, even after the letter in which the pope himself expresses shame and remorse for the abomination committed against children by some priests, with the culpable negligence of some bishops.

And yet God's forgiveness descended even upon Nineveh, and the skeptical Jonah had to face this fact, and Michelangelo painted this very prophet at the top of the wall behind the altar in the Sistine Chapel, to show that God's forgiveness is the key to everything, from the creation of the world to the last judgment.

On Sunday, March 21, while his letter was being read in the churches of Ireland, Benedict XVI commented to the faithful, at the Angelus in St. Peter's Square, on Jesus' forgiveness of the adulterous woman: "He knows what is in the heart of every man, he wants to condemn sin, but to save the sinner and unmask hypocrisy." The hypocrisy of those who wanted to stone the woman, even though they were the first to sin.

Ruthless with sin, "beginning with our own," and merciful towards persons. This is the lesson that Joseph Ratzinger wants to apply to the case of Ireland, and, by extension, to the entire Church.

On the one hand, the rigors of the law. The price of justice must be paid to the last penny. The dioceses, the seminaries, the religious congregations in which the abuse was allowed to run free have been warned: apostolic visitors will come from the Vatican to uncover what they have done, and even where there is nothing that can be prosecuted under civil law, canonical discipline will punish the negligent.

But at the same time, the pope is kindling the light of grace. He is opening the door of God's forgiveness even to those guilty of the worst abominations, if they sincerely repent.

As for the foremost accusers, those most armed with stones to throw at the Church, none of them is without sin. It is a stretch for those who exalt sexuality as a pure instinct, free from any constraint, to object when it is abused.

The tragedy of some priests and religious, Benedict XVI has written in the letter, was in part that they gave in to these widespread "ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel," to the point of justifying the unjustifiable.

A lapse that certainly cannot be attributed to Ratzinger as bishop and pope, not even by his staunchest adversaries, if they are sincere.

_______________


The commentary reproduced above is published in "L'espresso" no. 13, 2010, on newsstands March 26.

At the end, the commentary makes reference to a specific paragraph, the fourth, of Benedict XVI's letter to the Catholics of Ireland.

It is the paragraph in which the pope looks at the factors that fostered, in the 1960's, the expansion of sexual abuse among the clergy, and above all the incomprehension of its gravity.

Here it is in its entirety.

______________


BENEDICT XVI. PARAGRAPH 4 FROM HIS LETTER


"In recent decades, the Church in your country has had to confront new and serious challenges to the faith arising from the rapid transformation and secularization of Irish society. Fast-paced social change has occurred, often adversely affecting people’s traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values. All too often, the sacramental and devotional practices that sustain faith and enable it to grow, such as frequent confession, daily prayer and annual retreats, were neglected.

"Significant too was the tendency during this period, also on the part of priests and religious, to adopt ways of thinking and assessing secular realities without sufficient reference to the Gospel. The programme of renewal proposed by the Second Vatican Council was sometimes misinterpreted and indeed, in the light of the profound social changes that were taking place, it was far from easy to know how best to implement it. In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations. It is in this overall context that we must try to understand the disturbing problem of child sexual abuse, which has contributed in no small measure to the weakening of faith and the loss of respect for the Church and her teachings.

"Only by examining carefully the many elements that gave rise to the present crisis can a clear-sighted diagnosis of its causes be undertaken and effective remedies be found. Certainly, among the contributing factors we can include: inadequate procedures for determining the suitability of candidates for the priesthood and the religious life; insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates; a tendency in society to favour the clergy and other authority figures; and a misplaced concern for the reputation of the Church and the avoidance of scandal, resulting in failure to apply existing canonical penalties and to safeguard the dignity of every person. Urgent action is needed to address these factors, which have had such tragic consequences in the lives of victims and their families, and have obscured the light of the Gospel to a degree that not even centuries of persecution succeeded in doing."

__________


Among those who have remarked on the cultural factors analyzed by the pope are two cardinals and a scholar of religious sociology.

__________


THE COMMENTARY OF CARDINAL BAGNASCO


The first of the two cardinals is Angelo Bagnasco, archbishop of Genoa and president of the Italian bishops' conference.

On Monday, March 22, in the opening address with which he introduced the work of the permanent council of the CEI, Bagnasco concluded as follows the passage dedicated to the pope's letter to the Catholics of Ireland:

"From various sides, and not only Catholic, it is being revealed how for some time the phenomenon of pedophilia appears to have been tragically widespread in different environments and among various categories of persons: but this, far from being evoked here in order to diminish or relativize the precise gravity of the actions disclosed in the ecclesiastical sphere, is rather a warning to grasp the objective scope of the tragedy. At the very moment in which it feels humiliation, the Church learns from the pope not to be afraid of the truth, even when this is painful and detestable, to not silence it or cover it up. This, however, does not mean enduring – if there were any – strategies of generalized discredit.

"In reality, we must all question ourselves, without any more alibis, about a culture that in our time reigns pampered and uncontested, and tends progressively to fray the connective tissue of society as a whole, perhaps even mocking those who resist and try to oppose it: the attitude, that is, of those who cultivate absolute autonomy from the criteria of moral judgment and convey as good and alluring behaviors that are designed according to individual desires and even unbridled instincts. But the exaggeration of sexuality disconnected from its anthropological significance, all-encompassing hedonism, and a relativism that does not admit limits or exceptions do great harm, because they are specious and sometimes so pervasive as to escape notice.

"It is fitting, then, that we should all return to calling things by their names always and everywhere, to identifying evil in its progressive gravity and in the multiplicity of its manifestations, in order to avoid finding ourselves in time facing the claim of an aberration defended on the level of principle."

__________________


THE COMMENTARY OF CARDINAL RUINI


The second cardinal is Camillo Ruini, president of the committee for the cultural project of the Italian Church, Bagnasco's predecessor as president of the CEI, and the pope's vicar for the diocese of Rome from 1991 to 2008.

In an interview with the newspaper "il Foglio" on March 16, a few days before the pope published his letter, Ruini said among other things:

"In my view, the defamation campaign against the Catholic Church and the pope deployed by the media is part of a strategy that has been underway for centuries, and which Friedrich Nietzsche elaborated with his flair for detail. According to Nietzsche, the decisive attack on Christianity cannot be brought on the level of truth, but on that of Christian ethics, which he saw as the enemy of the joy of living. And so I would like to ask those who decry scandals of pedophilia mostly when they involve the Catholic Church, perhaps bringing into question priestly celibacy: would it not be more honest and realistic to recognize that certainly these and other deviations related to sexuality accompany the entire history of the human race, but also that in our time these deviations are further stimulated by the much ballyhooed 'sexual liberation'?"

And again:

"When the exaltation of sexuality pervades every part of life and when autonomy from any moral criterion is claimed for the sexual instinct, it becomes difficult to explain that certain abuses are absolutely to be condemned. In reality, human sexuality from the start is not simply instinctual, it is not the same as that of the other animals. It is, like all of man, a sexuality 'mixed' with reason and morality, which can be lived humanly, and truly bring happiness, only if it is lived in this way."

________________


THE COMMENTARY OF PROFESSOR INTROVIGNE


The sociologist is Professor Massimo Introvigne, president of the CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religion.

In a commentary that appeared on March 22 in the Italian edition of the international agency "Zenit," Introvigne wrote among other things:

"What the English and the Americans call 'the Sixties', and the Italians, concentrating on the emblematic year of 1968, "il Sessantotto', increasingly appears as a time of profound disturbance of customs, with crucial and lasting effects on religion.

"There was, moreover, a Sessantotto in society and also a Sessantotto in the Church: 1968 is itself the year of public dissent against the encyclical 'Humanae Vitae' of Paul VI, a dispute that according to a valuable and influential study by the recently deceased American philosopher Ralph McInerny, 'What Went Wrong with Vatican II', represents a point of no return in the crisis of the principle of authority in the Catholic Church. [...]

"But why the 1960's? On this topic, staying in the British Isles, in 2007 Hugh McLeod published an important volume with Oxford University Press, 'The Religious Crisis of the 1960s', which takes stock of the discussions in progress.

"Two theses are pitted against each other: that of Alan Gilbert, according to whom the revolution of the 1960's was the economic boom, which spread consumerism and drove people away from the churches, and that of Callum Brown, according to whom the decisive factor was the emancipation of women after the spread of feminist ideology, of divorce, of the birth control pill, and of abortion.

"McLeod thinks, correctly in my opinion, that a single factor cannot explain a revolution of this magnitude. The economic boom and feminism play a part, but also more strictly cultural aspects both outside the Churches and Christian communities (the encounter between psychoanalysis and Marxism) and inside them (the 'new theologies').

"Without entering into the more technical elements of this discussion, Benedict XVI in his letter shows that he is aware of the fact that there was in the 1960's an authentic revolution – no less important than the Protestant Reformation or the French Revolution – that was 'fast-paced' and dealt a tremendous blow to 'traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values'. [...]

"In the Catholic Church, there was not at once a sufficient awareness of the scope of this revolution. On the contrary, it infected – Benedict XVI maintains today – 'also priests and religious', created misunderstandings in the interpretation of the Council, and caused 'insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates'.

"In this climate, certainly not all priests who were insufficiently formed or infected by the climate following the 1960's, and not even a significant percentage of them, became pedophiles: we know from the statistics that the real number of priest pedophiles is much lower than the ones presented by certain media outlets. And yet this number is not equal to zero – as we would all want – and justifies the extremely severe words of the pope. But the study of the revolution of the 1960's, and of 1968, is crucial to understanding what happened afterward, including pedophilia. And to finding real remedies.

"If this revolution, unlike those before it, is moral and spiritual and touches the interiority of man, it is only from the restoration of morality, of the spiritual life and of comprehensive truth about the human person that the remedies can ultimately come. But for this reason the sociologists, as always, are not enough: there is a need for fathers and masters, teachers and saints. And we all have a great need for the pope: for this pope, who once again – to borrow the title of his latest encyclical – speaks the truth in charity and practices charity in truth."

ASK FOR SAINT JOSEPH'S INTERCESSION FOR POPE BENEDICT AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH NOW UNDER ATTACK!

The True Enemy of Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church isn't Islam! It is the Mass Media and Secularism! Pray for Pope Benedict; for the Catholic Church and all who have been victims of sin, crime and injustice, especially those who have no voice to protest secularism, the victims of abortion, now more than 50 million in this country. Shame on the world media for neglecting the victims of abortion and those who perform them, and those who legalize them and those who are pro-choice!


THE WORLD'S MEDIA IS DOING TO THE POPE WHAT THIS WOMAN DID CHRISTMAS EVE! IRONIC THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES IS CALLED THE "GREY LADY!"
PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH FOR THE CHURCH

(Note: This prayer was taken from the booklet "Devotions to Saint Joseph" by Brian Moore, S.J., printed and published by the Society of St. Paul.)

Great St. Joseph, you were chosen by God

to be the reputed father of Jesus,

the chaste husband of Mary ever-Virgin,

and head of the Holy Family;

you were elected by the Vicar of Christ

to be the heavenly Patron and Protector

of the Church founded by Jesus Christ.

With the greatest confidence, therefore,

I ask your powerful aid in this day

for the entire Church on earth.

Protect in a special manner

with your true fatherly love

our Holy Father, the Pope,

and all the Bishops and priests

who are united to the See of St. Peter;

defend all those who labor for souls

in the midst of the trials and difficulties of this life;

and win for all nations

unity of faith under one Shepherd. Amen!

SHOULD JESUS CHRIST RESIGN AS THE SAVIOR? SHOULD GOD RESIGN, WOULD THE MASS MEDIA BE A BETTER GOD? GIVE US THE MASS MEDIA! CRUCIFY THE TRUE GOD!

BREAKING NEWS, 2000 YEARS AGO, JESUS CHRIST KNEW WHAT THIS MONSTER WOULD DO AND DIED FOR HIS SINS ANYWAY TO REDEEM HIM! JESUS MUST RESIGN OR COME CLEAN ABOUT OTHERS HE DIED FOR. THE VICTIMS OF THIS MAN WANT JUSTICE! THE VICTIMS WANT JESUS TO RESIGN, MORE AT 11:00 PM!"

THE WORLD'S MEDIA HAVE HIM AS THEIR TARGET, HE STANDS FOR EVERYTHING THEY OPPOSE, HE'S PRO-LIFE, FORGIVING, FOR THE SANCTITY OF MARRIAGE, AND THE DIGNITY OF ALL PEOPLE EVEN THOSE WHO COMMIT MONSTROUS ACTS! WILL CATHOLICS STAND UP FOR THIS MAN OR CAVE INTO GODLESS SECULARISM AND THE POLITICIZATION OF THE CHURCH?

THE DEMONIZING OF POPE BENEDICT XVI BY THE WORLD'S MEDIA, ARE THEY SETTING HIM UP FOR MARTYRDOM?

MARTYRDOM OF POPE SAINT PETER AT THE HANDS OF SECULAR LEADERS

Pope Benedict burned in effigy

Was all this just a show to hide the secret sins of people under Jesus Blood? More evidence of a cover-up!

Didn't God create this creature called Satan? Should God resign?

Wasn't Jesus tempted by Satan, is that why Jesus died for child molesters?

IS THIS THE KIND OF SAVIOR WE WANT, SOMEONE WHO FORGIVES CHILD MOLESTERS? SOMEONE WHO IS WILLING TO DIE FOR THEM? NEW YORK TIMES, DO YOUR BEST TO TAKE HIM DOWN!

Jesus Christ prevented the woman caught in adultery from receiving the legal sentence of death for committing the sin and crime of adultery. Jesus also knew what sins the men accusers had committed, but said nothing about them.

When Jesus died on the cross,he died for child molesters, the now long dead priest that the New York Times reports that Pope Benedict allowed to die as a priest rather than put him through a long canonical process to "defrock" him. In dying for this monstrous priest, did Jesus not care about the victims?

Jesus Christ also died for all the bishops,cardinals, priests, who covered up the scandal of priestly sex abuse. Should Jesus be removed from the Cross?

Jesus Christ also died for all those who have had abortions, their victims now silenced and not able to tell their horror stories.

Jesus Christ died for everyone in the secular press who are now trying to undermine the Catholic Church and her leaders with stories going back 40 and 50 years ago.

Jesus Christ died for those in the media who think it is perfectly fine that there have been over 50 million abortions in this country. They do not investigate those who promote such an outrage, but rather praise them. They even praise those who suggest that partial birth abortion on a full term baby is justified.

Jesus Christ died for HYPOCRITES! Take Him down from the Cross and give us a charter on who should be selected as the Savior!

JESUS DIED FOR THOSE WHO VICTIMIZED THIS CHILD, THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND ALL THOSE WHO ARE PRO CHOICE, INCLUDING THOSE IN THE SECULAR PRESS NOW ACCUSING POPE BENEDICT OF INDIFFERENCE TO THE VICTIMS OF SEX ABUSE AND GIVING MONSTER PRIESTS A PASS!

JESUS DIED FOR THOSE WHO DID THIS!

CHRIST DIED FOR THE PERSONS WHO DID THIS! IF THERE HAD ONLY BEEN A NEW YORK TIMES DURING JESUS PUBLIC MINISTRY TO UNCOVER THE DARKNESS OF A MAN WHO WOULD DIE FOR PEOPLE WHO DID THIS!

SHAME ON THE NEW YORK TIMES! SHAME ON THE SECULAR PRESS! SHAME ON THOSE CATHOLICS WHO DON'T GET WHAT JESUS DID! SHAME ON THE WORLD THAT PREFERS SECULARISM TO SALVATION AND FORGIVENESS!

IT'S FISH FRIDAY IN PASSIONTIDE, HAVE A FISH STICK!

You'll have to find a stick for these yourself

These come with the sticks provided, true fish sticks!