I just listened to the afternoon news conference from the Vatican concerning the Vatican summit. It was a Vatican feed and while some questions and answers were in English, the majority in fact, some were in Italian and Spanish. I am better at Italian than Spanish but amazed myself that I understood so much of the well spoken (slowly) Spanish.
My Italian is better, but I have a limited (arrested development unfortunately) vocabulary, thus I have to listen closely to the entire paragraph or sentence to interpret what is said because quite frankly there are words used that aren't in my limited vocabulary.
As an aside, a Frenchman asked a question in Italian but his French accent made it sound French. WOW! Talk about the best of both worlds, Italian which I think is truly beautiful but spoken with a French accent which is quite beautiful too. I thought I was understanding French, but he was speaking Italian. KOOOL!!!!!
But now the two elephants. Lifesite news was able to ask a question. She asked about homosexuality in the clergy, sub cultures in the seminary, like the Honduran seminary where 50 seminarians made complaints about a homosexual sub culture. She prefaced her comments by stating we can't generalize about homosexuals and abuse, but wanted to know if these sorts of things are being discussed. THERE WAS A NON ANSWER and a REBUKE by the temporary director of Vatican News.
Then there were two pointed questions about Mr. Ted McCarrick, about his double life (no mention of homosexuality, but that is what it was of course) and what others in the Church, Vatican and otherwise, knew about it and did nothing and in fact enabled his rise to high places even with the current pontificate.
There were non answers from both Cardinals O'Malley, whose answer you could tell was limited but he would have liked to complain as much as the reporters, and Cardinal Cupich, who gave quite a generic answer.
Until the pope and bishops at this summit express that there is more opportunity for homosexual abuse because the Church has been lax in accepting homosexual clergy and treating their sins against nature as not against nature, but merely as sins like heterosexual sex which isn't against nature unless it is unnatural (and no one even knows today what I mean by that) we won't get anywhere.
By God's design the Catholic Sacrament of Holy Orders is only open to men. This creates a different culture compared to the larger culture. In the larger culture sexual abuse of minors is predominantly a heterosexual phenomenon but not in the Church's subculture due to the nature of the abuse.
Cardinals O'Malley and Cupich and Archbishop Siculna, need to address the two elephant in the room and not shy away, because of political correctness, from the homosexual issue which is somewhat unique in the Catholic experience of sexual abuse of minors, especially adult looking teenagers.
24 comments:
It crosses this cynic's mind that they do not address this issue because they wish to advance this issue...
Admittedly I am no theologian or canon lawyer, but it seems to me that under Francis, the Church has been put under absurd positions.
Immediately we learned one "really" shouldn't judge homosexual behaviors or same sex attraction. We've learned that absolution should be given to the silent penitent that looks miserable, but that priests should be expecting to hear those "sins against the environment" any minute now. Francis has given positions to atheist, pro abortionists, and a priest that argues that the Church should rethink the idea of "intrinsic evil."
Pro-gay cheerleader Fr. Martin all over the place AND given a Vatican post. Amoris laetitia suggests that people can be contented with "doing the best that they can" while continuing in what used to be a sin.
Francis seems to indicate that God is "cool" with whatever faith you choose, even atheism.
Francis' agenda seems straight out of the new world masonic order playbook.
There's your crisis MT.
LOL - yes I imagine the Church derives 98% of her financial support from the gay community so we can't offend our largest donor block (sarc). What a worthless crew we have running the Church today. If the antics of this "conference" were widely known by Catholics who still attend Church, this conference may end up finishing the job Vatican Disaster II started and we can start putting up the "for sale" signs.
Bee here:
They won't address it. They haven't addressed it when it was below most people's radar, and they don't intend to address it now because they are the problem. They are in the manage the crises mode and that is all.
It's like telling an embezzler that hey, someone's stealing....
God bless.
Bee
I wonder, if in the seminary, women were able to live with seminarians to take classes and there was an underground culture of relationships and of a promiscuous kind, would the bishops say that it wasn't heterosexual concupiscence at work?
Right after Vatican II there was a tremendous bleeding of heterosexual priests who couldn't live clandestinely. They made the decision to publicly marry their paramour, be it a sister, secretary, parishioner and the like. Laity were distressed but understood their decision to marry. Most who left before Pope John Paul, thought it would be only a matter of time before a married priesthood would come about. They full expected to return to active ministry.
I think the only thing good about same sex "marriage" is that gay priests, I know, I know, people don't like that adjective, but that is what is used, can now come out of the closet and marry.
Of course, just like their heterosexual counterparts, they would be expelled from the priesthood and unable to receive the Sacraments.
But will homosexual priests be as ethical as heterosexual priests who "married" or better yet, entered civil unions with their lovers and decided to go public with a public marriage?
This is a display of contempt for us.
This summit is a total sham. The "emperor has no clothes". Cupich has absolutely zero credibility on this issue and O'Malley needs to "man up". Terrible waste of time and doing more harm than good. Actually disastrous.
Of course it's a sham and display of contempt - look who was specially selected by Francis to give talks and facilitate this synod. Just like the others.... Garbage...
Dan said..."Immediately we learned one "really" shouldn't judge homosexual behaviors or same sex attraction."
Did you learn that from Pope Francis? He said that? I want to make sure that I have that right.
Thank you.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
Dan said..."Amoris laetitia suggests that people can be contented with "doing the best that they can" while continuing in what used to be a sin."
Dan, you have read a very different version than I have of AL. You have read a very different version from one Cardinal and bishop after another, who has praised AL as a tremendous, orthodox Apostolic Exhortation.
Cardinal Sarah:
"In his post-synodal Exhortation on the Family, Amoris Lætitia (“The Joy of Love”), Pope Francis states clearly: “In no way must the Church desist from proposing the full ideal of marriage, God’s plan in all its grandeur … proposing less than what Jesus offers to the human being.”
"This is why the Holy Father openly and vigorously defends Church teaching on contraception, abortion, homosexuality, reproductive technologies, the education of children and much more."
Pax.
Mark Thomas
I think MT, like Kavanaugh, gets his jollies posting here. Probably better to ignore him
MT, funny. I know of several Cardinals who had some "doubts" about AL.....
Bee here:
Fr. McD asked (rhetorically, I expect):
"I wonder, if in the seminary, women were able to live with seminarians to take classes and there was an underground culture of relationships and of a promiscuous kind, would the bishops say that it wasn't heterosexual concupiscence at work?"
Exactly, Father. They would identify it immediately as such.
As for homosexual men in general as priests....I wonder if bishops would find no problem with a man who presented himself as a candidate for the priesthood who was an admitted kleptomanic? (Would they say, oh, he's a spiritual man and can be a good priest in spite of his weakness? I doubt it.)
God bless.
Bee
Bee,
When I see the statements of some of these clerics, I want to say “thanks, buddy for telling us what you are up to,”
MT this quote from Cardinal Gracias at the synod. Notice how he mentions CRISIS.
"...Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the subsequent failure to address it in an open, accountable, and effective way has caused a multifaceted crisis that has gripped and wounded the Church...."
Notice to that he links it to abuse from long ago. You know, the ones you dont think matters anymore.
Father Dan,
But MT knows SO MUCH MORE than Cardinal Gracias. He's an expert, just ask him.
VERY interesting quote from Frederic Martel's book " In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy."
"Every week new charges are pressed, bishops are accused or found guilty, priests are sentenced, and scandal follows scandal. In over 80 per cent of cases, these affairs concern homosexual abuse – very rarely heterosexual."
MT, he seems to be implying that the CRISIS isn't over. And that it's a CRISIS of homosexuality.
Strange coming from a sociologist/author described as both a homosexual and an activist for homosexuality.
One more quote (I've barely started)
"...Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, described to me the unimaginable explosion in cases of sexual abuse."
EXPLOSION!!!!! MT.
Father Dan,
MT is only interested in selective facts which support his left-wing views!!!
MT, according to L'Espresso:
"From 2013 to today, on average, a new pedophile priest has been reported every day."
That is, report finally made it to the Vatican.
Since you've declared the crisis over, imagine how bad it used to be!
MT - This from Cardinal Marx: "Files that could have documented the terrible deeds and named those responsible were destroyed, or not even created"
I'm seeing the value of cutting and pasting.
Fsther Dan, LOL
Martel's book has been panned by virtually everyone from the right and the left, from the traditionalist to the progressive, from Damian Thompson to CNN.
Wrote Fr. Z, "The appallingly stupid “gay” book about the Vatican by the “gay” French writer"
Damian Thompson wrote, "He’s (Martel) more than an odd fish, though. He’s a menace, because he hasn’t bothered to equip himself with basic theological knowledge."
CNN: "And while the author has some genuinely sharp insights about the distance between the Catholic Church's public and private stances on homosexuality, they are too often buried beneath catty quotes and unverifiable anecdotes."
But, by all means, perception is reality. If someone wrote what I want to believe, I will believe it in spite of what anyone else says or does....
A., most stories that I've seen concerning Martel's book are all claiming essentially the same thing -i.e. "really a hit on conservative critics of Francis." I suspect all are "cutting and pasting" the point of view of the first person to actually write something about it. Fr. Z??? Well I doubt if he's actually bothered to read it yet. He always seems busy with food and drink.
Yes, some of what I've read is unverifiable by my self, but he does very often associate quotes with names -so he leaves himself open to legal action if he is lying.
Btw.. if reality is beyond perception, what good is it anyway??
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