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Wednesday, August 1, 2018

A WAKE-UP CALL AS THE STORM GATHERS MOMENTUM

 I'm reluctant to print Dr. Ralph Martin's letter and continue the discussion  on the McCarrick case and other situations related to it since I have and I suspect you have reached a saturation point of disgust.

But Dr. Martin offers a prophetic message to the papacy and Magisterium at this juncture. I hope he is being read there!

Pope Benedict knew about the filth (and I would say also the rot) in the Church that has led the Church in the USA to an unprecedented time of crisis that will continue to cause Catholics (clergy and laity both) not only deep concern but also lead many away from the Church and cause those who God is calling to be Catholic to reconsider.

It is up to Rome to act to clear out the rot starting with many who are advising Pope Francis. It is time for Pope Francis to bring moral clarity back to the papacy and the Church and to call Germany and other progressive conferences of bishops back to the "black and white, bread and butter" of Catholic morality and belief. WE NEED TO SUPPORT DOCTORS OF THE LAW AND NOT CASTIGATE THEM!

The Dubia Cardinals need to have answers which will answer questions for the entire Church and those cardinals that have been sounding the alarm need to be taken seriously as well as other orthodox bishops. WE NEED TO HEAR MORE FROM THEM AND OTHERS NOW!

Dear Troubled Catholics – a Letter From Ralph Martin About the Current Crisis

 Dear Troubled Catholics,
 
I have never seen so many “ordinary Catholics”—who usually never follow or hear about Church news—as deeply troubled as I have seen them in response to the recent revelations about the retired archbishop of Washington, DC.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was asked by the pope to resign from his membership in the College of Cardinals and ordered to live in seclusion until a canonical trial can be held to verify the validity of charges of sexual abuse and harassment made against him. After the first brave person came forward (whose accusations were found credible by the Archdiocese of New York Review Board), more and more followed. The climate of fear among many of our clergy—the fear of being punished or marginalized if they report sexual immorality among their fellow clergy or leaders—is starting to break. Cardinal McCarrick is now known as Archbishop McCarrick.

What has been so disturbing to so many people is the fact that there had been numerous warnings to various church officials that he was a homosexual predator, harassing many seminarians, priests, and young boys, for many years, but nothing had ever been done about it, and he was continually promoted. Even after a delegation of priests and lay people went to Rome to warn the Vatican about the situation, he was promoted. Even after a leading Dominican priest wrote a letter to Cardinal O’Malley, nothing was done. Even after lawsuits accusing him of homosexual sexual harassment in two of his previous dioceses had been settled with financial awards, he was still promoted. And not only that, he became a key advisor to Pope Francis and offered advice on whom to appoint as bishops in the United States!

One young Catholic mother with two boys who was open to the priesthood for them said to me that she now has grave concerns about ever having one of her sons enter the seminary, given the corruption that has been revealed.
Another said she could no longer see anyone joining the Catholic Church, due to such bad leadership. She lamented about the difficulty this presents for evangelization.

Another said that seven people from her very small, rural parish had left the parish, because sexual sin is never spoken of and there is almost an exclusive emphasis on political issues. She now fears that even more will leave.

Another said that the only way this is ever going to change is if we simply stop giving to the bishops’ national collections and to our own dioceses and parishes’ collections, unless they are led by bishops who are willing to call a spade a spade and govern accordingly. To this day, there are quite a number of “gay friendly” parishes in even “good dioceses,” where those afflicted with homosexual temptation are not encouraged to live chaste lives or offered effective correction, but instead are confirmed in their sexual activity. It seems many bishops are afraid to tackle the local “homosexual lobbies” and choose to turn a blind eye.

This past weekend at Mass, the priest giving the sermon was more upset than I’ve ever seen him about the unfolding scandal. The Gospel was about how the weeds and the wheat grow up together and will only finally be separated at the judgment. It was unclear what the priest was actually saying, but we are certainly not called to “enable the weeds.” And shepherds in particular have the obligation to admonish the sinner and remove from ministry those who refuse to preach the truth and who encourage others in wrong doing. Yes, we will always have sin, but as Jesus said,
“whoever causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Mt 18:6).

There have been a veritable deluge of articles that have appeared from highly respected lay Catholics and priests saying that “enough is enough,” and we need to stop the cover-ups and get to the bottom of who is implicated in promoting men like this and covering up for them. We do.

In 2002, when the American bishops approved their “charter” that attempted to respond to the many cases of priest pedophilia that had come to light by that time, they conspicuously exempted themselves from their “zero tolerance” policy. Many priests have told me that they felt “thrown under the bus” by the bishops, who conveniently didn’t adopt policies to deal with their own tolerance of immoral behavior, cover-ups that allowed the pedophilia to go on for many years, or in some cases, their own immoral behavior. Another disturbing thing about the 2002 Charter is that—despite pleas to not ignore the fact that this is primarily a homosexual scandal, since most of the victims were adolescent boys rather than true children—the bishops decided not to tackle “the elephant in the room.” Could it be because they knew some of their brother bishops/cardinals were implicated, and they didn’t want to face the mess of cleaning it up? Now this refusal to acknowledge the “homosexual lobby,” as Pope Benedict termed it, is coming home to roost.

But there’s not just a huge homosexual problem in the Church; unfortunately, heterosexual sin and financial malfeasance are common in many places as well. In some countries, a significant percentage of priests are living with concubines or fathering children by vulnerable women and giving scandal to the faithful, who often know about it. This is the case in Uganda, from which I have recently returned, and in many other countries as well. In these situations, the “protection” of the priests and the frequent disregard for their victims—the women and their children—cries out for justice.

And so, once again because of the pressure of lawsuits and the press, the bishops are talking about “developing new policies” that would apply to bishops. As a colleague at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, Michigan, has said: “Isn’t it clear enough from the Gospel that covering up immoral behavior is itself wicked? Why do we need new policies when the teaching of Jesus and the apostles is so clear?” Can the words of the Old Testament prophets and Jesus Himself against false shepherds be any clearer or more devastating? (See Jeremiah 23:1-6; Matthew 23, etc.)

The Archbishop McCarrick case may prove to be the “straw that broke the camel’s back.” It may  make the bureaucratic, carefully worded, evasive statements that have come from our leaders finally address sin and repentance, instead of the mere policies and processes they typically focus on. Could it be—finally—that the revelation of the long-term sexual harassment of seminarians and priests that never stopped Archbishop McCarrick’s rise in the hierarchy will be so totally repugnant that real repentance may actually start to happen? I have never prayed more for the pope and our leaders than I have in the last several years, and we all must continue to do so. More about that later.


Unfortunately, the Archbishop McCarrick case is certainly only the “tip of the iceberg.” The cumulative effect of revelation after revelation of immorality in high places is devastating. First, a number of years ago, a cardinal from Austria was forced to resign over homosexual activity; then, more recently, a cardinal from Scotland resigned over sexual harassment of seminarians and priests; and then the archbishop of Guam underwent a canonical trial in Rome over the sexual abuse of minors; and now cardinals in Chile (one of whom is on the pope’s Council of Cardinals that oversees reform) are under heavy suspicion for covering up homosexual abuse in their country. In fact, the whole bishops’ conference of Chile, acknowledging complicity in not taking seriously reports of a bishop’s cover up of sexual abuse, recently gave their resignations to the pope, and he has so far accepted several of them. The pope himself at first stubbornly backed the appointment of this bishop and dismissed the victims’ pleas as “calumny” and “gossip.” And before we could absorb this news, there was news of an archbishop in Australia getting a prison sentence for covering up abuse on the part of a priest. And just today, as I am writing this, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ordered the release of a grand jury report implicating more than 300 “predator priests” in six of the eight Pennsylvania dioceses involved in the sexual abuse of minors over many years.

Unfortunately, the rot is wide and deep and years of covering up abuse (and the concomitant reluctance to really preach the Gospel and call people to faith and repentance) and its ultimate exposure have injured the faith of millions. How shocking and tragic was it to see tens of thousands of Irish people in the streets of Dublin wildly celebrating that they could now legally kill babies!!!! Just when the Irish bishops needed to speak most strongly on fundamental moral issues, their credibility was destroyed when it was finally exposed that they had covered up abuse for decades. Satan is indeed like that wild boar Scripture talks about that rampages though the vineyard of the Lord because the hedges of protection have been destroyed (Ps 80:12-13). The corruption, ineptitude, and cowardice runs wide and deep, and its effects on the eternal salvation of millions, and the destiny of nations, is devastating.

Most recently, Cardinal Maradiaga of Honduras has seen his auxiliary bishop resign over homosexual and financial impropriety, and forty seminarians in his diocese publish a letter asking him to please root out the homosexual network in his seminary. This cardinal is Pope Francis’ chief advisor, the head of his “Council of Nine” that works closely with the pope in bringing about reform in Rome, and is mentioned as a possible successor to Pope Francis.

But continual reports of ongoing financial and sexual scandals suggest reform doesn’t seem to be happening. Recently, a male prostitute in Italy published the names and photos of sixty priests who frequent his services—with scarcely any comment from the shepherds. And the homosexual orgy in the apartment of a Vatican cardinal, used by his secretary, was met with a “no comment” by the Vatican press office. And then we hear also of a monsignor in the papal nuncio’s office in Washington, D.C., who suddenly leaves the country and is put on trial in the Vatican for trafficking in child pornography and is given a five year prison sentence.

I didn’t plan to discuss this whole situation, but it came up this summer when the thirty priests in my class at the seminary wanted to discuss Pope Francis’ leadership and the McCarrick scandal. We all agreed that Pope Francis has said and done some wonderful things (I teach his Apostolic Exhortation The Joy of the Gospel in one of my classes), but he also has said and done some things that are confusing and seem to have led to a growth of confusion and disunity in the Church. How can German and Polish bishops approach the question of whether divorced and remarried couples can receive Communion without getting an annulment in opposite ways, and the Church still retain an ability to speak to the contemporary culture with one voice? It can’t.  

And how long can Church officials speak about the “positive values” of “irregular relationships” until the average Catholic comes to believe that we no longer believe the words of Jesus that fornicators, adulterers, and those who actively practice homosexuality will not enter the kingdom of God unless they repent? How many still believe that there is really a hell and that, unless we repent from such serious sins before we die, we will go there? Have we ever heard from leading churchmen, even in Rome, in recent years, that adultery, fornication and homosexual relations are not only “irregular,” but gravely sinful? Has the creeping “universalism” (the belief that virtually everyone will be saved) so undermined the holy fear of God and belief in His clear word, which has been transmitted faithfully all these centuries and is found intact in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that people have become “understanding” about persisting in grave sin with no fear of God or of hell?

Has false compassion and presumption on God’s mercy replaced true love, which is based on truth, and the only appropriate response to God’s mercy—faith and repentance?

And what are we to make of the fact that so many of those advising the pope have questionable fidelity to the truth? How can we have confidence in Cardinal Maradiaga as the head of his Council of Cardinals when he is accused of financial impropriety (which he denies); he chose an active homosexual as his auxiliary bishop; and he allowed a homosexual network to grow up in his seminary, dismissing attempts to appeal to him to clean up the mess as unsubstantiated gossip? 
How can we have confidence in the pope’s main theological advisor, a theologian from Argentina who is most known for his book The Art of the Kiss, or the pope’s main Italian theological advisor, who is known for his subtle dissent from the Church’s teaching in the area of sexuality and who tried to insert texts in the synods on the family that pushed the document in a permissive direction? And how can we have confidence in the recently appointed head of the John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family—an archbishop who commissioned a mural in his former cathedral in an Italian diocese from a homosexual artist who included homo-erotic themes in the mural, including a portrait of the archbishop in an ambiguous pose?
One godly woman just asked me last night if it was OK for her to be upset with what was happening. I sadly said yes, of course it is.

How can we passively endure such corruption that runs so wide and deep? It is right to make our views known. It is right and necessary. But even more so, it is necessary to pray and offer sacrifices for the Church and her leaders at this time. It is necessary to pray that genuine reform, rooted in real repentance and an embrace of all the truths of the faith, would come out of this awful situation and that the Church, more deeply purified and humbled, may shine forth with the radiance of the face of Christ.

But it is going to be a long way from here to there. Grave damage has been done to the credibility of the Church, and more will leave. Grave damage has been done to many of the flock, and reparation must be made; public repentance is called for. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote when he was a young priest, the Church will have to become smaller and more purified before it can again be a light to the world. The Church is going through a radical purification under the chastising hand of God, but already we can see a remnant of fervent renewal appearing all over the world, which is a sign indeed of hope and the renewal to come.

And so, what can we do as we continue to pray for the pope and our leaders that God may give them the wisdom and courage to deal with the root of the rot and bring about a real renewal of holiness and evangelization in the Church?

»We need to go about our daily lives, trying to live each day in a way pleasing to God, loving Him and loving our neighbor, including the neighbor in our own families. We need to look to ourselves, lest we fall.

»We need to remember that even though we have this treasure in earthen vessels (or as some translations put it, “cracked pots”), the treasure is no less the treasure. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! Baby Jesus is the treasure, and He is still as present as ever and still as ready to receive all who come to Him. And the Mass! Every day, He is willing to come to us in such a special way. Let’s attend daily Mass even more frequently, to offer the sacrifice of Jesus’ death and resurrection to God the Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit, for the salvation of souls and the purification of the Church.

»We need to remember that the Catholic Church is indeed founded by Christ and, despite all problems, has within it the fullness of the means of salvation. Where else can we go? Nowhere; this is indeed our Mother and Home, and she needs our love, our prayers, and our persevering in the way of holiness more than ever.
»We need to remember that there are many truly holy and dedicated bishops and priests, and we must pray for them and support them. They need and deserve our support.

»We need to remember that this isn’t the first time such grave problems have beset the Church. In the fourteenth century, St. Catherine of Siena bemoaned the “stench of sin” coming from the papal court and prophesied that even the demons were disgusted by the homosexual activity he had tempted priests into and the cover up by their superiors! (See chapters 124-125 of Catherine of Siena’s The Dialogue.)

That isn’t to say that we don’t need to take seriously and do all we can in response to the grave scandal we are facing in our time. And yet we need to remember that all this is happening under the providence of God, and He has a plan to bring good out of it. It was even prophesied strongly in Mary’s apparitions in Akita, Japan. Jesus is still Lord and will use the current grave problems to bring about good.

And finally, I’m beginning to see why the Lord has impressed on me so strongly in the past year the urgent need to heed the appeals of Our Lady of Fatima. Indeed, as Mary said,

“Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and to pray for them.”

Let’s continue to pray and offer sacrifices for the conversion of sinners and as reparation for sin, and let’s pray the rosary daily as Mary requested, for peace in the world and true renewal in the Church.
Your brother in Christ,
Ralph

P.S. Please feel free to share this letter with family, friends and fellow parishioners if you think it would be helpful.
Ralph Martin
Ralph Martin is president of Renewal Ministries. He also hosts The Choices We Face, a widely viewed weekly Catholic television and radio program distributed throughout the world. Ralph holds a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome and is a professor and the director of Graduate Theology Programs in the New Evangelization at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in the Archdiocese of Detroit. He was named by Pope Benedict XVI as a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization and was also appointed as a “peritus” to the Synod on the New Evangelization. Ralph is the author of a number of books, the most recent of which are The Urgency of the New Evangelization, The Fulfillment of All Desire, and Will Many Be Saved? He and his wife Anne have six children and sixteen grandchildren and reside in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

12 comments:

Cletus Ordo said...

It struck me while reading this how the word "reform" is used, or should I say, misused?

The Protestant "reformation" didn't reform anything. Nothing was reformed until the Council of Trent.

We STILL read about the "reforms of Vatican II", but Vatican II, as we have been told over and over and over was a PASTORAL council, not a reform council.

The experts tell us how they are going to "reform" the sacraments, "reform the liturgy", "reform parish life", etc. and 99% of the time, none of these things don't or didn't need reforming in the first place.

Yet I NEVER, EVER, EVER hear about priest and bishops reforming the way they operate. Especially bishops.

Kinda' makes you think.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Father, for posting this. You’re absolutely correct that we’re at a saturation point, but my fear is “we ain’t seen nothin yet...”
We must be courageous and push ourselves to fight this war—we are at war. We cannot allow what has been to continue. It. Must. Stop.

TJM said...

Vatican Disaster II was a clergy liberation movement offering the laity virtually nothing.

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

Way back in 1997 (that's 19 years ago, by the way. Not exactly recent.) there was a pastor at the parish of my childhood, the parish where my parents' attended Mass, who was so obnoxious on the altar, that my mom, whom I never, EVER heard criticize any priest or religious sister (EVER!), found it nearly intolerable to be at Mass. His flamboyant behavior and (as she saw it) the arrogant and disrespectful way he sat in the celebrant's chair on the altar (he would sit, she said, almost sideways, with his elbow and arm resting on the back of the chair) inspired her to call him "Caesar" because he reminded her of depictions of Roman Emperors, arrogant and smug. But she kept going to Mass. She confided in me she thought by his behavior that he was a homosexual.

On the day after a BIG party to celebrate the 25th Jubilee of his ordination, he was found dead in his bed in the rectory. That in itself was shocking. His death was publicly attributed to a heart attack. HOWEVER....a policeman who was very good friends with my elder brother was among those detectives first on the scene, and he told my brother the priest was found handcuffed to the bed and his death appeared to be due to some sort of sexual escapades, along with drugs. (I don't remember any other details.) Of course, none of this was ever revealed, and the obituary simply stated he died of an apparent heart attack.

My point is, this atrocity of homosexuals - active homosexuals - in our clergy in powerful positions and all through the Church has been going on for many years. We don't have a holy Church because many of our priests are not holy. Heck, they are not even good. Those who are holy and good fight to preach the truth, but are silenced by superiors who are part and parcel of the corrupt. The faithful believing clergy are the ones disciplined and censured, not the corrupt ones.

When I was in my late 20's and wanting so much to come closer to God, to work toward greater sanctity, I was unable to find even ONE priest who could or would help me. Not one. That out of five or six parishes I visited. Their advice was lame at best. (The archdiocese was under Card. Bernadine at the time.)

I used to wonder why this was. What was wrong? Now I know.

I am not shocked at the Cardinal McCarrick news. And I'm not even shocked that the other Cardinal and Archbishops are playing the "I didn't know." game.

But heck, I'm kind of blessed. I had to learn a long time ago, and the hard way, that you can't depend on men (mankind) for your faith. Mankind is fickle. Men (even Cardinals) lie. Some are false shepherds, not caring for the sheep, but are hired hands, who don't give a lick about the sheep...caring only their own status and pay and lifestyle. I had to learn you can only trust God. If you put depend on men, they will disappoint you.

I would love it if the whole sordid truth came out, for each and every member of the clergy. Every last one. Because if I wanted to follow the leadership of an active homosexual, or a man in any kind of mortal sin, I wouldn't bother to get up on Sunday morning to do so. I'd just hang out in the local bar on Saturday night.

God bless.
Bee



Mark Thomas said...

"The pope himself at first stubbornly backed the appointment of this bishop and dismissed the victims’ pleas as “calumny” and “gossip.”

"Stubbornly."

Pope Francis:

"In the case of Bishop Barros, I had it studied, I had it investigated, I had it worked on a lot. And truly there is no evidence. I am waiting for evidence to change position, but I apply the judicial principle basic in any tribunal: “nemo malus nisi provetur” — no one is guilty until it is proven."

CCC, 2477: "He becomes guilty: of rash judgment who, even tacitly, assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor;"

2479: "Honor is the social witness given to human dignity, and everyone enjoys a natural right to the honor of his name and reputation and to respect."

Pope Francis held "stubbornly" to Church teaching in regard to Bishop Barros.

Pax.

Mark Thomas

Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

"...the Church will have to become smaller and more purified before it can again be a light to the world."

The Church remains and will always be a light to the world, whether it is damaged by the abominable behavior of sinners or whether it is attacked and falsely accused by detractors. Yes, the sins of its members dim the light, but the light remains.

Smaller? I don't see that as necessary. More purified? Always.

Ecclesia Semper Reformanda is not just a Protestant reformer's mantra, but a clearer understanding of what must be our own Church's constant refrain. Many in the Church understood it to be a "perfect" society. Not perfect in the moral sense - members are sinners, but in the sense of completeness - . "...that which is complete and independent in itself, fully sufficient in its own order to attain its proposed end, and not subject to any other society in those things which pertain properly to it.” (Vatican I "Tametsi Deus" - never voted on)

A "perfect" society is wholly independent. What we need, we have, and outside groups/organizations, including governments and law enforcement, have nothing to offer. It might have been this attitude that prevented the Church and its members from reaching out to others when, given the nature of the sins, we were insufficient to address the problem.

We isolated ourselves to our own detriment and tended to see ourselves to much as "over against the world" and "they can offer us nothing."

We're doing better now, I think. But we certainly have a long, difficult way to go.

Anonymous said...

For me the McCarrick situation is the last straw. Priests and bishops are very isolated and they gossip among themselves. Everybody knew about McCarrick. I heard stories about him in the late 1980’s. They knew. The bishops have zero credibility, zero. Including Francis. The filth is so wide spread that I don’t think we have even learned the worse of it yet. There is going to be more. The major problem in the clergy isn’t pedophilia but active homosexual lifestyles. The John Jay Report stated that. One way to deal with it is to subject every bishop including Francis to a lie detector test and see the results. Also these evil priests and bishops use the seal of confession to silence anyone who might reveal them by confessing to them. The problem is immense. Who knows how to fix it. Let’s face it the homosexual cabal that drove Benedict out is running everything. I want to know did Francis abuse anyone during his life or did he protect any priest or bishop who did? If he did then he must resign.

Anonymous said...

“We’re doing better now, I think.”
Fr. K, could you explain/expand this please? How are we doing better? I really need to hope that we are...and my family desperately needs some encouragement in this regard.

rcg said...

If this continues only a little further it will expose the links of the homosexual cabal to the Vatican Bank. I see indications of something so terrible I can’t print it here. The good news is the Church has endured this before and it will help us grow in Christ.

TJM said...

Kavanaugh,

LOL. The Church has become much smaller since Vatican Disaster II. Mass attendance on Sunday is in free fall, vocations are miniscule, but keep drinking that Vatican Disaster II sauce.

MT,

Seek pyschiatric help. PF is the least talented and orthodox man to occupy the Throne of St. Peter in hundreds of years. If you want to destroy the Church, he's your man. He's leftwing, leftwing, leftwing.

Ackley said...

"We isolated ourselves to our own detriment and tended to see ourselves to much as 'over against the world' and 'they can offer us nothing.'

I am not denying that this MIGHT be true, but I would first ask, what has been the effect of the Church getting closer to the world, as it has during this postconciliar period? It seems that the Church has been converted to the world rather than vice versa.

Anonymous said...

TJM - I'm sure that your withholding contributions from your Archbishop will result in a phenomenal jump in the number of converts to Catholicism, an overnight increase in Mass attendance, a staggering jump in the number of men and women answering the call to serve as priests and sisters.

Have a nice phantasy.