Fr. Z from "What Does the Prayer Really Say" blog has his own comments about the two paragraphs from Fr. Cantalamessa's homily given in the presence of the Holy Father on Good Friday's Liturgy of the Passion of the Lord. This was at the end of the homily and Fr. Z's comments are bracketed:
[Here is the section of the sermon that will overshadow everything that Cantalamessa said and shove the rest into obscurity:] By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it. [So far so good.]
He said: [This is where he steps wrong, in my opinion.] "I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. [So… there it is.] Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours are undoubtedly different, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter."
My comments:
It is unfortunate that Fr. Cantalamessa did not qualify with his own comments what his Jewish friend wrote to him. What is happening to Pope Benedict now, in terms of the accusations that he handled sex abuse cases inappropriately in the past, is not the same as six million Jews being singled out for extermination. This was the culmination of centuries of anti-antisemitism.
Many Jewish commentators have taken Fr. Cantalamessa to task for his less than nuanced use of his Jewish friends analogy. But one rabbi, Rabbi Jack Bemporad, director of the New Jersey-based Center for Interreligious Understanding, said the church and Benedict are unquestionably under attack.
Comparing anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism was "a little bit of an exaggeration," he said. But Bemporad said he understands what the preacher was driving at: The Jewish community has often been accused and its people even murdered for things for which they bore no collective or even partial responsibility.
"It would be nice," he said, "if there was a little charity and understanding in all this instead of taking someone who is down and kind of stomp on them.
But with that said, the drum beat in the press with relentless unsubstantiated accusations against the pope with reporters and other commentators grinding axes they have against the Church is truly alarming. We in America believe in a free press of course and also freedom of speech. What Fr. Cantalamessa quoted in his homily is of course his opinion and the opinion of a Jewish friend but not properly nuanced. The lack of nuance should be criticized and what the Jewish friend said appreciated as a comment of solidarity with the Catholic Church at this time.
What alarms me about the general demonizing of the Pope,bishops and priests is that it is a demonizing of the Catholic Church in general. What if some deranged, anti-Catholic, despotic, maniacal dictator like Adolph Hitler came into power in Europe or elsewhere. Would he persecute and possibly exterminate as many of the bishops, priests and religious as possible based upon the fomented anti-Catholicism now raging in the liberal media? In centuries past, bishops, priests, religious and lay people have been targeted for death, not to the extent as Jews, but we have been targeted. Is the liberal press fomenting such a possibility for the Church down the road. Anti-Catholicism has always been around, just as antisemitism. Each has its roots in hatred and prejudice.
For a few decades now, the only politically correct prejudice that exists in the world today is prejudice against the Catholic Church. If this prejudice turns to violence fomented by a relentless anti-Catholic media, who will take responsibility?
The bishops of the Catholic Church including Pope Benedict have said in the past and time and time again, that the way the Church handled sexually abusive priests was wrong.The bishops of this country in 2004 in collaboration with Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger made sweeping changes to this secretive process of disciplining priests, offering therapy to sexually abusive priests and then recycling them time and time again with monstrous results. Today, if a priest is accused of criminal sexual abuse, the authorities are called, the priest is suspended and due process in both civil and canon law take place. The results of both are public, either the priest is guilty and thus removed from ministry or he is innocent and returned to ministry with the resulting effort to rehabilitate a sullied reputation.
What Pope Benedict must now do is put into place a universal procedure based upon the American model to deal with the criminal activities of a small minority of priests and to help eliminate the scourge of child and teenage sex abuse of the serial type from the Catholic Church. The procedures of the past were flawed and those who were in the destructive path of serial abusers have suffered greatly and are rightfully full of rage at the various levels of mismanagement of these crimes and sins against children and teenagers. The flawed procedures of the past have been admitted time and time again by bishops and this pope. Secrecy, fear of public scandal and protecting a "childlike" laity from hearing about actual scandal exacerbated the abuse and contributed to it.
But let's be clear, other institutions in society, including law enforcement were complicit in dealing with these cases as it concerns all ministers, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. There seems to be very little outrage against the way in which law enforcement gave ministers of all religions a different and more lenient treatment in the past in order to protect the reputation of these religions and their congregations and ministers.
Let us move on with all due fairness! Let us not foment anti-Catholic sentiment that could turn violent. History does not need to repeat itself.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Friday, April 2, 2010
ON GOOD FRIDAY, THE POPE'S HOMILIST CREATES YET MORE CONTROVERSY FOR OUR EMBATTLED POPE
I had just read a few very nasty comments concerning the priest who preached the Good Friday homily at the Liturgy of the Passion of Our Lord where Pope Benedict presided. I thought it must be very bad indeed to create such outrage in all the typical places. But then I received the following as an email. It contains first, the impressions of a man who actually attended the Liturgy today in St. Peter's Basilica. Then below his comments is the actual homily translated from Italian into English. I see nothing outrageous in it. Below that is the New York Times take on things and the Vatican Press Office spin.
Fasten your seat belts, anti-Catholicism and bigotry are going to be very virulent in the coming days, weeks and months. Pray for our Holy Father. Pray for all victims who are having the scars of their abuse reopened by all of this public mess and pray for the Church. Easter Sunday will give us the hope we need, the hope all people need, regardless of who they are and what they have experienced.
This is long, but well worth reading in its entirety:
A Fiery Sermon
This evening in St. Peter's Basilica, during a Good Friday liturgy, the preacher of the papal household delivered a sermon in which he quoted a Jewish friend, regarding the recent attacks against the Pope, as saying that aspects of the attacks "remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism"
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
=====================================
A Sermon Rich in Contrasts
ROME, Italy, Friday, April 2, 2010 -- Tonight at 5 p.m. in St. Peter's Basilica, I attended the Good Friday liturgy which celebrates the Passion of the Lord.
The basilica was packed, but a kind Vatican official enabled our little group to have a place near the main altar.
Pope Benedict XVI was present throughout, and spoke a number of prayers in Latin, and unveiled the cross for veneration.
But he did not deliver the sermon.
He entrusted the sermon to the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, a Franciscan Capuchin friar.
Cantalamessa, regarded as one of the most profound and moving Catholic homilists in the world today, focused on the mystery of Christ's priesthood and what it means for a mankind subject to mortality and sin.
The sermon was essentially a meditation on violence, and on how Jesus, through his life and death, overthrew the primordial "alliance between the sacred and violence" which prior to him was so common (animal and even human sacrifice, the use of a "scapegoat" to bear the sins of the people).
"Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself the victim of all violence," Cantalamessa said.
Then towards the end, he spoke directly about the recent attacks on the Pope.
Noting that this year Easter falls in the same week as the Jewish Passover, Cantalamessa said he had received a letter recently from a Jewish friend. He then cited the letter.
It was a striking moment, rich in symbolic contrasts.
The words he was speaking were part of the official homily for the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica -- a liturgy which contains the scriptural passages in which the Jewish crowds in Jerusalem call out "Crucify him!"
And the words he was speaking had to do with attacks on a German Pope -- a Pope from the country where anti-Semitism was official state policy for 12 years two generations ago.
And the words the preacher was speaking, in support of the Pope, were written by a Jew.
Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend had written to him that some aspects of these recent attacks against the Pope and the Church, including "the use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt," reminded his Jewish friend of "the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism."
As the word "antisemitismo" at the end of that sentence echoed out over the vast hall, over the silent throng, the battle over this Pope and this pontificate seemed to me to take on a new and deeper dimension.
Then, in a further irony, Cantalamessa ended his sermon, not with a citation from scripture, but with a citation from, of all people, the Rabbi Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul -- words which he said had passed into the text of the Jewish Seder, and from there into "the most ancient Christian liturgy"(!).
"We Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover," Cantalamessa said. "We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:
"He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia."
And there the homily ended.
Just after the liturgy was over, I was able to speak with Father Raniero, who was seated a few feet away from me. I asked him for the text of his sermon, which he had delivered in Italian. He agreed to send it to me via email.
A few minutes ago, I received an email from him with the text in English. Here it is in its entirety.
=====================================
"WE HAVE A GREAT HIGH PRIEST"
Homily on Good Friday 2010 in Saint Peter's Basilica
by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap
"We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God": thus begins the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard in the second reading. In the Year for Priests, the liturgy for Good Friday enables us to go back to the historical source of the Christian priesthood. It is the source of both the realizations of the priesthood: the ministerial, of bishops and presbyters, and the universal of all the faithful. This one also, in fact, is founded on the sacrifice of Christ that, Revelation says, "loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father" (Revelation 1:5-6). Hence, it is of vital importance to understand the nature of the sacrifice and of the priesthood of Christ because it is from them that priests and laity, in a different way, must bear the stamp and seek to live the exigencies.
The Letter to the Hebrews explains in what the novelty and uniqueness of Christ's priesthood consists, not only in regard to the priesthood of the old Covenant, but as the history of religions teaches us today, in regard to every priestly institution also outside of the Bible. "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come [...] he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:11-14).
Every other priest offers something outside of himself, Christ offered himself; every other priest offers victims, Christ offered himself victim! Saint Augustine enclosed in a famous formula this new kind of priesthood in which priest and victim are the same thing: "Ideo sacerdos, quia sacrificium": priest because victim."[1]
* * *
In 1972 a famous French thinker launched the thesis according to which "violence is the heart and secret spirit of the sacred."[2] In fact, at the origin and center of every religion there is sacrifice, and sacrifice entails destruction and death. The newspaper "Le Monde" greeted the affirmation, saying that it made of that year "a year to mark with an asterisk in the annals of humanity." However, before this date, that scholar had come close again to Christianity and at Easter of 1959 he made public his "conversion," declaring himself a believer and returning to the Church.
This enabled him not to pause, in his subsequent studies, on the analysis of the mechanism of violence, but to point out also how to come out of it. Many, unfortunately, continue to quote René Girard as the one who denounced the alliance between the sacred and violence, but they do not speak of the Girard who pointed out in the paschal mystery of Christ the total and definitive break of such an alliance. According to him, Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself, the victim of all violence.
The process that leads to the birth of religion is reversed, in regard to the explanation that Freud had given. In Christ, it is God who makes himself victim, not the victim (in Freud, the primordial father) that, once sacrificed, is successively raised to divine dignity (the Father of the Heavens). It is no longer man that offers sacrifices to God, but God who "sacrifices" himself for man, consigning for him to death his Only-begotten Son (cf. John 3:16). Sacrifice no longer serves to "placate" the divinity, but rather to placate man and to make him desist from his hostility toward God and his neighbor.
Christ did not come with another's blood but with his own. He did not put his sins on the shoulders of others -- men or animals --; he put others' sins on his own shoulders: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24).
Can one, then, continue to speak of sacrifice in regard to the death of Christ and hence of the Mass? For a long time the scholar mentioned rejected this concept, holding it too marked by the idea of violence, but then ended by admitting the possibility, on condition of seeing, in that of Christ, a new kind of sacrifice, and of seeing in this change of meaning "the central fact in the religious history of humanity."
* * *
Seen in this light, the sacrifice of Christ contains a formidable message for today's world. It cries out to the world that violence is an archaic residue, a regression to primitive stages and surmounted by human history and -- if it is a question of believers -- a culpable and scandalous delay in becoming aware of the leap in quality operated by Christ.
It reminds also that violence is losing. In almost all ancient myths the victim is the defeated and the executioner the victor . [3] Jesus changed the sign of victory. He inaugurated a new kind of victory that does not consist in making victims, but in making himself victim. "Victor quia victima!", victor because victim, thus Augustine describes the Jesus of the cross.[4]
The modern value of the defense of victims, of the weak and of threatened life is born on the terrain of Christianity, it is a later fruit of the revolution carried out by Christ. We have the counter-proof. As soon as the Christian vision is abandoned (as Nietzsche did) to bring the pagan back to life, this conquest is lost and one turns to exalt "the strong, the powerful, to its most exalted point, the superman," and the Christian is described as "a morality of slaves," fruit of the mean resentment of the weak against the strong.
Unfortunately, however, the same culture of today that condemns violence, on the other hand, favors and exalts it. Garments are torn in face of certain events of blood, but not being aware that the terrain is prepared for them with that which is shown in the next page of the newspaper or in the successive palimpsest of the television network. The pleasure with which one indulges in the description of violence and the competition of the one who is first and the most crude in describing it do no more than favor it. The result is not a catharsis of evil, but an incitement to it. It is disturbing that violence and blood have become one of the ingredients of greatest claim in films and video-games, that one is attracted to it and enjoys watching it.
The same scholar recalled above has unveiled the matrix that sparks the mechanism of violence: mimicry, that innate human inclination to consider desirable the things that others desire and, hence, to repeat the things that they see others do. The "heard" psychology is that which leads to the choice of the "scapegoat" to find, in the struggle against a common enemy -- in general, the weakest element, the different one --, a proper artificial and momentous cohesion.
We have an example in the recurrent violence of youth in the stadium, in the bullying in schools and in certain square manifestations that leave behind destruction and debris. A generation of youth that has had the very rare privilege of not knowing a real war and of never having been called to arms, amuses itself (because it is about a game, even if stupid and at times tragic) to invent little wars, driven by the same instinct that moved the primordial horde.
* * *
However there is a yet more grave and widespread violence than that of youth in stadiums and squares. I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here. I am speaking of violence to women. This is an occasion to make persons and institutions that fight against it understand that Christ is their best ally.
It is a violence all the more grave in as much as it is often carried out in the shelter of domestic walls, unknown to all, when it is not actually justified with pseudo-religious and cultural prejudices. The victims find themselves desperately alone and defenceless. Only today, thanks to the support and encouragement of so many associations and institutions, some find the strength to come out in the open and denounce the guilty.
Much of this violence has a sexual background. It is the male who thinks he can demonstrate his virility by inflicting himself on the woman, without realizing that he is only demonstrating his insecurity and baseness. Also in confrontations with the woman who has made a mistake, what a contrast between the conduct of Christ and that still going on in certain environments! Fanaticism calls for stoning; Christ responds to the men who have presented an adulteress to him saying: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7). Adultery is a sin that is always committed by two, but for which only one has always been (and, in some parts of the world, still is) punished.
Violence against woman is never so odious as when it nestles where mutual respect and love should reign, in the relationship between husband and wife. It is true that violence is not always and wholly on the part of one, that one can be violent also with the tongue and not only with the hands, but no one can deny that in the vast majority of cases the victim is the woman.
There are families where the man still believes himself authorized to raise his voice and hands on the women of the house. Wife and children at times live under the constant threat of "Daddy's anger." To such as these it is necessary to say courteously: dear men colleagues, by creating you male, God did not intend to give you the right to be angry and to bang your fist on the table for the least thing. The word addressed to Eve after the fault: "He (the man) shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16), was a bitter forecast, not an authorization.
John Paul II inaugurated the practice of the request for forgiveness for collective wrongs. One of these, among the most just and necessary, is the forgiveness that half of humanity must ask of the other half, men to women. It must not be generic or abstract. It must lead, especially in one who professes himself a Christian, to concrete gestures of conversion, to words of apology and reconciliation within families and in society.
* * *
The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard continues saying: "In the days of his flesh, with loud cries and with tears he offered prayers and supplications to Him who could save him from death." Jesus felt in all its crudity the situation of the victims, the suffocated cries and silent tears. Truly, "we do not have a high priest who cannot suffer with us in our weaknesses." In every victim of violence Christ relives mysteriously his earthly experience. Also in regard to every one of these he says: "you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).
By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it.
He said: "I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours are undoubtedly different, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter."
And also we Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover. We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:
"He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia."[5]
* * *
Notes
[1] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 43.
[2] Cf. R. Girard, La Violence et le Sacré, Grasset, Paris, 1972.
[3] Cf. R. Girard, Il sacrificio, Milano 2004, pp. 73 f.
[4] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 4.
[5] Pesachim, X, 5 e Meliton of Sardi, Easter Homily, 68 (SCh 123, p. 98).
=======================================
The Coverage by the New York Times
Then, just a few moments ago, I received an email of the following story. It is this evening's report of the New York Times on tonight's sermon.
===========================
At Vatican Service, Persecution of Jews Is Invoked
By DANIEL J. WAKIN and RACHEL DONADIO
Published: April 2, 2010
ROME — A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack.
The remarks, on the day Christians mark the crucifixion, underscored how much the Catholic Church has felt under attack from recent news reports and criticism over how it has handled charges of child molestation against priests in the past, and sought to focus attention on the church as the central victim.
In recent weeks, Vatican officials and many bishops have angrily denounced news reports that Benedict failed to act strongly enough against pedophile priests, once as archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1980 and once as a leader of a powerful Vatican congregation in the 1990s.
Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said.
Father Cantalamessa quoted from what he said was a letter from an unnamed Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi stressed that Father Cantalamessa’s sermon represented his own private thoughts and was not “an official statement” from the Vatican.
He said it was incorrect to interpret the remarks as comparing recent criticism of the Catholic Church to anti-Semitism, but should instead be read as a sign of “solidarity” by Father Cantalamessa’s Jewish friend.
Father Lombardi said that he personally did not think that criticism of the church could be compared to anti-Semitism.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate comparison,” he said. “That’s why the letter should be read as a letter of solidarity by a Jew.”
“It is not meant as an attack on the Jewish world, anything but,” Father Lombardi added. He said that Benedict had no role in the sermon.
Even as the priest spoke out against attacks on the church, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, head of the German Bishops Conference, said that sex abuse victims were not helped enough “out of a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church.” The church, he said, was shaken by “the suffering inflicted on the victims, who often for decades could not put their injuries into words.” Bishops around Europe have been offering similar remarks in recent days, following up on a major statement on molestation in the Irish church by the pope.
Father Cantalamessa’s comments about the Jews came toward the end of a long talk about scripture, the nature of violence and the sacrifice of Jesus. He also spoke about violence against women, but gave only a slight mention of the children and adolescents who have been molested by priests. “I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here,” he said.
Disclosures about hundreds of such cases have emerged in recent months in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and France, after a previous round of scandal in the United States earlier this decade.
A leading advocate for sex abuse victims in the United States, David Clohessy, called comparing criticism of the church to persecution of the Jews “breathtakingly callous and misguided.”
“Men who deliberately and consistently hide child sex crime are in no way victims,” he said. “And to conflate public scrutiny with horrific violence is about as wrong as wrong can be.”
The comments could cause a new twist in Vatican-Jewish relations, which have had ups and downs during Benedict’s papacy.
Rabbi Riccardo di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, who hosted Benedict at the Rome synagogue in January on a visit that helped calm waters after a year of tensions, laughed in seeming disbelief when asked about Father Cantalamessa’s remarks.
“With a minimum of irony, I will say that today is Good Friday, when they pray that the Lord illuminate our hearts so we recognize Jesus,” Rabbi Di Segni said, referring to a prayer in a traditional Catholic liturgy calling for the conversion of the Jews. “We also pray that the Lord illuminate theirs.”
In 2007, Benedict ruffled feathers with Jewish groups when he issued a ruling making it easier to use the Latin Mass including that Good Friday prayer, which had fallen out of widespread use after the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In January 2009, he stirred outrage when he revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, one of whom turned out to have denied the scope of the Holocaust.
The legacy of the wartime pope, Pius XII, has been another sticking point. Some say he didn’t do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust; on a visit to the Rome synagogue in January, Benedict said that the Holy See had “provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way,” to help Jews.
Father Cantalamessa’s remarks come after weeks of intense scrutiny of Benedict, which some Italian media have seen in conspiratorial terms. Last week, the center-left daily La Repubblica wrote, without attribution, that “certain Catholic circles” believed the criticism of the church stemmed from “a New York ‘Jewish lobby.’”
Father Cantalamessa is a longtime fixture in the papal household, having been its official preacher since 1980. It is an ancient role, established by Pope Paul IV in the middle of the 16th century. The job is reserved for a member of the Franciscan Order of Capuchin Friars Minor. The apostolic preacher, as he also is called, gives meditations — especially during Advent and Lent — for the pope, cardinals, bishops and leaders of religious orders.
Father Cantalamessa was also tasked to deliver a meditation on the problems facing the church and need for careful consideration to the college of cardinals shortly after the death of John Paul II, as they prepared to elect his successor. Their choice was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.
Later in the evening, Benedict was to move on to the Colosseum, to take part in the Way of the Cross procession marking Jesus’ final hours and his crucifixion.
Fasten your seat belts, anti-Catholicism and bigotry are going to be very virulent in the coming days, weeks and months. Pray for our Holy Father. Pray for all victims who are having the scars of their abuse reopened by all of this public mess and pray for the Church. Easter Sunday will give us the hope we need, the hope all people need, regardless of who they are and what they have experienced.
This is long, but well worth reading in its entirety:
A Fiery Sermon
This evening in St. Peter's Basilica, during a Good Friday liturgy, the preacher of the papal household delivered a sermon in which he quoted a Jewish friend, regarding the recent attacks against the Pope, as saying that aspects of the attacks "remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism"
By Robert Moynihan, reporting from Rome
=====================================
A Sermon Rich in Contrasts
ROME, Italy, Friday, April 2, 2010 -- Tonight at 5 p.m. in St. Peter's Basilica, I attended the Good Friday liturgy which celebrates the Passion of the Lord.
The basilica was packed, but a kind Vatican official enabled our little group to have a place near the main altar.
Pope Benedict XVI was present throughout, and spoke a number of prayers in Latin, and unveiled the cross for veneration.
But he did not deliver the sermon.
He entrusted the sermon to the Preacher of the Pontifical Household, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, a Franciscan Capuchin friar.
Cantalamessa, regarded as one of the most profound and moving Catholic homilists in the world today, focused on the mystery of Christ's priesthood and what it means for a mankind subject to mortality and sin.
The sermon was essentially a meditation on violence, and on how Jesus, through his life and death, overthrew the primordial "alliance between the sacred and violence" which prior to him was so common (animal and even human sacrifice, the use of a "scapegoat" to bear the sins of the people).
"Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself the victim of all violence," Cantalamessa said.
Then towards the end, he spoke directly about the recent attacks on the Pope.
Noting that this year Easter falls in the same week as the Jewish Passover, Cantalamessa said he had received a letter recently from a Jewish friend. He then cited the letter.
It was a striking moment, rich in symbolic contrasts.
The words he was speaking were part of the official homily for the Good Friday liturgy in St. Peter's Basilica -- a liturgy which contains the scriptural passages in which the Jewish crowds in Jerusalem call out "Crucify him!"
And the words he was speaking had to do with attacks on a German Pope -- a Pope from the country where anti-Semitism was official state policy for 12 years two generations ago.
And the words the preacher was speaking, in support of the Pope, were written by a Jew.
Cantalamessa said his Jewish friend had written to him that some aspects of these recent attacks against the Pope and the Church, including "the use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt," reminded his Jewish friend of "the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism."
As the word "antisemitismo" at the end of that sentence echoed out over the vast hall, over the silent throng, the battle over this Pope and this pontificate seemed to me to take on a new and deeper dimension.
Then, in a further irony, Cantalamessa ended his sermon, not with a citation from scripture, but with a citation from, of all people, the Rabbi Gamaliel, the teacher of St. Paul -- words which he said had passed into the text of the Jewish Seder, and from there into "the most ancient Christian liturgy"(!).
"We Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover," Cantalamessa said. "We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:
"He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia."
And there the homily ended.
Just after the liturgy was over, I was able to speak with Father Raniero, who was seated a few feet away from me. I asked him for the text of his sermon, which he had delivered in Italian. He agreed to send it to me via email.
A few minutes ago, I received an email from him with the text in English. Here it is in its entirety.
=====================================
"WE HAVE A GREAT HIGH PRIEST"
Homily on Good Friday 2010 in Saint Peter's Basilica
by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, ofmcap
"We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God": thus begins the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard in the second reading. In the Year for Priests, the liturgy for Good Friday enables us to go back to the historical source of the Christian priesthood. It is the source of both the realizations of the priesthood: the ministerial, of bishops and presbyters, and the universal of all the faithful. This one also, in fact, is founded on the sacrifice of Christ that, Revelation says, "loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father" (Revelation 1:5-6). Hence, it is of vital importance to understand the nature of the sacrifice and of the priesthood of Christ because it is from them that priests and laity, in a different way, must bear the stamp and seek to live the exigencies.
The Letter to the Hebrews explains in what the novelty and uniqueness of Christ's priesthood consists, not only in regard to the priesthood of the old Covenant, but as the history of religions teaches us today, in regard to every priestly institution also outside of the Bible. "But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come [...] he entered once for all into the Holy Place, taking not the blood of goats and calves but his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the sprinkling of defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a heifer sanctifies for the purification of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God" (Hebrews 9:11-14).
Every other priest offers something outside of himself, Christ offered himself; every other priest offers victims, Christ offered himself victim! Saint Augustine enclosed in a famous formula this new kind of priesthood in which priest and victim are the same thing: "Ideo sacerdos, quia sacrificium": priest because victim."[1]
* * *
In 1972 a famous French thinker launched the thesis according to which "violence is the heart and secret spirit of the sacred."[2] In fact, at the origin and center of every religion there is sacrifice, and sacrifice entails destruction and death. The newspaper "Le Monde" greeted the affirmation, saying that it made of that year "a year to mark with an asterisk in the annals of humanity." However, before this date, that scholar had come close again to Christianity and at Easter of 1959 he made public his "conversion," declaring himself a believer and returning to the Church.
This enabled him not to pause, in his subsequent studies, on the analysis of the mechanism of violence, but to point out also how to come out of it. Many, unfortunately, continue to quote René Girard as the one who denounced the alliance between the sacred and violence, but they do not speak of the Girard who pointed out in the paschal mystery of Christ the total and definitive break of such an alliance. According to him, Jesus unmasks and breaks the mechanism of the scapegoat that makes violence sacred, making himself, the victim of all violence.
The process that leads to the birth of religion is reversed, in regard to the explanation that Freud had given. In Christ, it is God who makes himself victim, not the victim (in Freud, the primordial father) that, once sacrificed, is successively raised to divine dignity (the Father of the Heavens). It is no longer man that offers sacrifices to God, but God who "sacrifices" himself for man, consigning for him to death his Only-begotten Son (cf. John 3:16). Sacrifice no longer serves to "placate" the divinity, but rather to placate man and to make him desist from his hostility toward God and his neighbor.
Christ did not come with another's blood but with his own. He did not put his sins on the shoulders of others -- men or animals --; he put others' sins on his own shoulders: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24).
Can one, then, continue to speak of sacrifice in regard to the death of Christ and hence of the Mass? For a long time the scholar mentioned rejected this concept, holding it too marked by the idea of violence, but then ended by admitting the possibility, on condition of seeing, in that of Christ, a new kind of sacrifice, and of seeing in this change of meaning "the central fact in the religious history of humanity."
* * *
Seen in this light, the sacrifice of Christ contains a formidable message for today's world. It cries out to the world that violence is an archaic residue, a regression to primitive stages and surmounted by human history and -- if it is a question of believers -- a culpable and scandalous delay in becoming aware of the leap in quality operated by Christ.
It reminds also that violence is losing. In almost all ancient myths the victim is the defeated and the executioner the victor . [3] Jesus changed the sign of victory. He inaugurated a new kind of victory that does not consist in making victims, but in making himself victim. "Victor quia victima!", victor because victim, thus Augustine describes the Jesus of the cross.[4]
The modern value of the defense of victims, of the weak and of threatened life is born on the terrain of Christianity, it is a later fruit of the revolution carried out by Christ. We have the counter-proof. As soon as the Christian vision is abandoned (as Nietzsche did) to bring the pagan back to life, this conquest is lost and one turns to exalt "the strong, the powerful, to its most exalted point, the superman," and the Christian is described as "a morality of slaves," fruit of the mean resentment of the weak against the strong.
Unfortunately, however, the same culture of today that condemns violence, on the other hand, favors and exalts it. Garments are torn in face of certain events of blood, but not being aware that the terrain is prepared for them with that which is shown in the next page of the newspaper or in the successive palimpsest of the television network. The pleasure with which one indulges in the description of violence and the competition of the one who is first and the most crude in describing it do no more than favor it. The result is not a catharsis of evil, but an incitement to it. It is disturbing that violence and blood have become one of the ingredients of greatest claim in films and video-games, that one is attracted to it and enjoys watching it.
The same scholar recalled above has unveiled the matrix that sparks the mechanism of violence: mimicry, that innate human inclination to consider desirable the things that others desire and, hence, to repeat the things that they see others do. The "heard" psychology is that which leads to the choice of the "scapegoat" to find, in the struggle against a common enemy -- in general, the weakest element, the different one --, a proper artificial and momentous cohesion.
We have an example in the recurrent violence of youth in the stadium, in the bullying in schools and in certain square manifestations that leave behind destruction and debris. A generation of youth that has had the very rare privilege of not knowing a real war and of never having been called to arms, amuses itself (because it is about a game, even if stupid and at times tragic) to invent little wars, driven by the same instinct that moved the primordial horde.
* * *
However there is a yet more grave and widespread violence than that of youth in stadiums and squares. I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here. I am speaking of violence to women. This is an occasion to make persons and institutions that fight against it understand that Christ is their best ally.
It is a violence all the more grave in as much as it is often carried out in the shelter of domestic walls, unknown to all, when it is not actually justified with pseudo-religious and cultural prejudices. The victims find themselves desperately alone and defenceless. Only today, thanks to the support and encouragement of so many associations and institutions, some find the strength to come out in the open and denounce the guilty.
Much of this violence has a sexual background. It is the male who thinks he can demonstrate his virility by inflicting himself on the woman, without realizing that he is only demonstrating his insecurity and baseness. Also in confrontations with the woman who has made a mistake, what a contrast between the conduct of Christ and that still going on in certain environments! Fanaticism calls for stoning; Christ responds to the men who have presented an adulteress to him saying: "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7). Adultery is a sin that is always committed by two, but for which only one has always been (and, in some parts of the world, still is) punished.
Violence against woman is never so odious as when it nestles where mutual respect and love should reign, in the relationship between husband and wife. It is true that violence is not always and wholly on the part of one, that one can be violent also with the tongue and not only with the hands, but no one can deny that in the vast majority of cases the victim is the woman.
There are families where the man still believes himself authorized to raise his voice and hands on the women of the house. Wife and children at times live under the constant threat of "Daddy's anger." To such as these it is necessary to say courteously: dear men colleagues, by creating you male, God did not intend to give you the right to be angry and to bang your fist on the table for the least thing. The word addressed to Eve after the fault: "He (the man) shall rule over you" (Genesis 3:16), was a bitter forecast, not an authorization.
John Paul II inaugurated the practice of the request for forgiveness for collective wrongs. One of these, among the most just and necessary, is the forgiveness that half of humanity must ask of the other half, men to women. It must not be generic or abstract. It must lead, especially in one who professes himself a Christian, to concrete gestures of conversion, to words of apology and reconciliation within families and in society.
* * *
The passage from the Letter to the Hebrews that we heard continues saying: "In the days of his flesh, with loud cries and with tears he offered prayers and supplications to Him who could save him from death." Jesus felt in all its crudity the situation of the victims, the suffocated cries and silent tears. Truly, "we do not have a high priest who cannot suffer with us in our weaknesses." In every victim of violence Christ relives mysteriously his earthly experience. Also in regard to every one of these he says: "you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).
By a rare coincidence, this year our Easter falls on the same week of the Jewish Passover which is the ancestor and matrix within which it was formed. This pushes us to direct a thought to our Jewish brothers. They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms. I received in this week the letter of a Jewish friend and, with his permission, I share here a part of it.
He said: "I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful by the whole world. The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism. Therefore I desire to express to you personally, to the Pope and to the whole Church my solidarity as Jew of dialogue and of all those that in the Jewish world (and there are many) share these sentiments of brotherhood. Our Passover and yours are undoubtedly different, but we both live with Messianic hope that surely will reunite us in the love of our common Father. I wish you and all Catholics a Good Easter."
And also we Catholics wish our Jewish brothers a Good Passover. We do so with the words of their ancient teacher Gamaliel, entered in the Jewish Passover Seder and from there passed into the most ancient Christian liturgy:
"He made us pass
From slavery to liberty,
From sadness to joy,
From mourning to celebration,
From darkness to light,
From servitude to redemption
Because of this before him we say: Alleluia."[5]
* * *
Notes
[1] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 43.
[2] Cf. R. Girard, La Violence et le Sacré, Grasset, Paris, 1972.
[3] Cf. R. Girard, Il sacrificio, Milano 2004, pp. 73 f.
[4] St. Augustine, Confessions, 10, 4.
[5] Pesachim, X, 5 e Meliton of Sardi, Easter Homily, 68 (SCh 123, p. 98).
=======================================
The Coverage by the New York Times
Then, just a few moments ago, I received an email of the following story. It is this evening's report of the New York Times on tonight's sermon.
===========================
At Vatican Service, Persecution of Jews Is Invoked
By DANIEL J. WAKIN and RACHEL DONADIO
Published: April 2, 2010
ROME — A senior Vatican priest speaking at a Good Friday service compared the uproar over sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church — which have included reports about Pope Benedict XVI’s oversight role in two cases — to the persecution of the Jews, sharply raising the volume in the Vatican’s counterattack.
The remarks, on the day Christians mark the crucifixion, underscored how much the Catholic Church has felt under attack from recent news reports and criticism over how it has handled charges of child molestation against priests in the past, and sought to focus attention on the church as the central victim.
In recent weeks, Vatican officials and many bishops have angrily denounced news reports that Benedict failed to act strongly enough against pedophile priests, once as archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1980 and once as a leader of a powerful Vatican congregation in the 1990s.
Benedict sat looking downward when the Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa, who holds the office of preacher of the papal household, delivered his remarks in the traditional prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica. Wearing the brown cassock of a Franciscan, Father Cantalamessa took note that Easter and Passover were falling during the same week this year, saying he was led to think of the Jews. “They know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms,” he said.
Father Cantalamessa quoted from what he said was a letter from an unnamed Jewish friend. “I am following the violent and concentric attacks against the church, the pope and all the faithful by the whole world,” he said the friend wrote. “The use of stereotypes, the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt, remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi stressed that Father Cantalamessa’s sermon represented his own private thoughts and was not “an official statement” from the Vatican.
He said it was incorrect to interpret the remarks as comparing recent criticism of the Catholic Church to anti-Semitism, but should instead be read as a sign of “solidarity” by Father Cantalamessa’s Jewish friend.
Father Lombardi said that he personally did not think that criticism of the church could be compared to anti-Semitism.
“I don’t think it’s an appropriate comparison,” he said. “That’s why the letter should be read as a letter of solidarity by a Jew.”
“It is not meant as an attack on the Jewish world, anything but,” Father Lombardi added. He said that Benedict had no role in the sermon.
Even as the priest spoke out against attacks on the church, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg, head of the German Bishops Conference, said that sex abuse victims were not helped enough “out of a misplaced concern for the reputation of the church.” The church, he said, was shaken by “the suffering inflicted on the victims, who often for decades could not put their injuries into words.” Bishops around Europe have been offering similar remarks in recent days, following up on a major statement on molestation in the Irish church by the pope.
Father Cantalamessa’s comments about the Jews came toward the end of a long talk about scripture, the nature of violence and the sacrifice of Jesus. He also spoke about violence against women, but gave only a slight mention of the children and adolescents who have been molested by priests. “I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here,” he said.
Disclosures about hundreds of such cases have emerged in recent months in Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and France, after a previous round of scandal in the United States earlier this decade.
A leading advocate for sex abuse victims in the United States, David Clohessy, called comparing criticism of the church to persecution of the Jews “breathtakingly callous and misguided.”
“Men who deliberately and consistently hide child sex crime are in no way victims,” he said. “And to conflate public scrutiny with horrific violence is about as wrong as wrong can be.”
The comments could cause a new twist in Vatican-Jewish relations, which have had ups and downs during Benedict’s papacy.
Rabbi Riccardo di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, who hosted Benedict at the Rome synagogue in January on a visit that helped calm waters after a year of tensions, laughed in seeming disbelief when asked about Father Cantalamessa’s remarks.
“With a minimum of irony, I will say that today is Good Friday, when they pray that the Lord illuminate our hearts so we recognize Jesus,” Rabbi Di Segni said, referring to a prayer in a traditional Catholic liturgy calling for the conversion of the Jews. “We also pray that the Lord illuminate theirs.”
In 2007, Benedict ruffled feathers with Jewish groups when he issued a ruling making it easier to use the Latin Mass including that Good Friday prayer, which had fallen out of widespread use after the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. In January 2009, he stirred outrage when he revoked the excommunication of four schismatic bishops, one of whom turned out to have denied the scope of the Holocaust.
The legacy of the wartime pope, Pius XII, has been another sticking point. Some say he didn’t do enough to save Jews during the Holocaust; on a visit to the Rome synagogue in January, Benedict said that the Holy See had “provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way,” to help Jews.
Father Cantalamessa’s remarks come after weeks of intense scrutiny of Benedict, which some Italian media have seen in conspiratorial terms. Last week, the center-left daily La Repubblica wrote, without attribution, that “certain Catholic circles” believed the criticism of the church stemmed from “a New York ‘Jewish lobby.’”
Father Cantalamessa is a longtime fixture in the papal household, having been its official preacher since 1980. It is an ancient role, established by Pope Paul IV in the middle of the 16th century. The job is reserved for a member of the Franciscan Order of Capuchin Friars Minor. The apostolic preacher, as he also is called, gives meditations — especially during Advent and Lent — for the pope, cardinals, bishops and leaders of religious orders.
Father Cantalamessa was also tasked to deliver a meditation on the problems facing the church and need for careful consideration to the college of cardinals shortly after the death of John Paul II, as they prepared to elect his successor. Their choice was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.
Later in the evening, Benedict was to move on to the Colosseum, to take part in the Way of the Cross procession marking Jesus’ final hours and his crucifixion.
UNLIKE THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER, JOHN ALLEN IS FAIR AND BALANCED AND MIDDLE OF THE ROAD
The always nice and middle of the road John Allen who writes for the National Catholic Reporter--such a shame, but maybe good he's there. He is a bright light there, one of the very, very few.
The National Catholic Reporter is a left leaning "rag." However, the NCR does have a bright light who writes for it and is interesting to read and very articulate when he is interviewed on CNN and other media outlets. Good Friday's "All Things Catholic" has Mr. Allen asking some good questions. I sent a comment to the article under "so" but it hasn't appeared yet and I don't know if it will, but I attach my comment below his brief article:
Is middle ground possible on the Pope?
by John L Allen Jr on Apr. 02, 2010
* All Things Catholic
More and more, I’m wondering if Karl Rove was right. Rove, of course, famously argued that the “independent voter” is a myth. Whatever they may tell pollsters, most Americans in their heart of hearts are clearly aligned with one side or the other, so the trick to winning elections is to turn out more of your base than the other side does of theirs.
“Rove’s Law” is about politics, but I’m beginning to suspect it has some traction in Catholic affairs as well.
From the beginning of the current round of the sexual abuse crisis, I’ve tried to make two basic points:
* The two cases from Pope Benedict’s past that have recently come to light, one in Munich and one from his years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, raise important questions, and the pope needs to answer them in order to move forward.
* Those questions, however, have to be seen in the context of his overall record on the crisis, and particularly since 2001, when John Paul II put then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in charge of reviewing the case files, there’s a lot to be said for that record.
Both, of course, are judgments rather than statements of fact, and thus eminently open to debate. What’s striking about much of the reaction I’ve received, however, is that it’s not focused on the content of what I’ve said but rather my alleged motives for saying it.
For one camp out there, my first point amounts to a “hatchet job” on the pope, making me complicit in a campaign led by The New York Times and other media outlets in trying to bring him down or to wound the church. For another crowd, point two is tantamount to a whitewash in favor of the pope. As one e-mailer put it to me succinctly, “Don’t you ever get tired of being an apologist for the Vatican?”
All of which makes me wonder: On an issue about which people feel so passionately, and one which so easily feeds all sorts of broader agenda about the church, the papacy, the media, and so on, is there actually a constituency for balance? Is there room for middle ground?
That’s something to ponder as this crisis unfolds.
My comment:
John your writings are clear and concise and I believe very balanced and middle of the road. All you write is excellent and fair. But yes there are extremes in the Church today, primary among them your own newspaper the NCR which is the "rag" of the left and yes extreme, much of what it publishes would make an Episcopalian blush--it is schismatic at worse or at "best" advocating for rupture in the Church and her people, clearly divisive. Sometimes it is hard to separate you from the "rag" that you write for. The NCR is to the left what the Wanderer is to the right. Get my drift?
But there is also "abuse" fatigue out there. Lawyers are exploiting victims and the Church for financial gain. Victims are coming forward not for therapy and healing but now for financial revenge and ruin of dioceses. But no one calls it for what it is all out of a fear of offending or victimizing once again those who have been so terribly harmed. But when victims make unsubstantiated allegations against the Holy Father, spew forth hatred and venom on the Church and anyone who would question their motives, they get a "pass" from "bleeding heart" liberals who can't believe that victims could also victimize--it really is a vicious cycle isn't it and no one seems willing to break that cycle, except maybe William Donohue of the Catholic League.
But more importantly the agenda that now is becoming clear from the secular media and the left leaning NCR is to change and neutralize the Church and exploit this scandal to do it. But in the meantime it also erodes faith in God since Jesus Christ could be accused of the very same things that our Holy Father is being accused of, complicity in forgiving sinners who victimized others without seeking punitive justice. Once again I ask, didn't God create the Archangel Lucifer, knowing full well what would happen and what Lucifer would do? Didn't God create Adam and Eve and give them free will to commit original sin which then God allowed every human being except the Blessed Virgin Mary to inherit, knowing full well that this would lead to all kinds of victimization, murder, sodomy, child sex abuse, rape, violence, terror, war, genocide, the Holocaust and the list goes on.
On this Good Friday, just what are the NCR (not you John) and the New York Times and the liberal media trying to do to the Catholic Church in general and the priesthood in particular, especially the Church's bishops and pope? What are lawyers trying to do? Like the priests who wrecked havoc on countless innocent teenage boys and some small children and like many bishops who followed the advice of psychiatry rather than canon law and like many others in the hierarchy who fear scandal over bringing light to a scourge in the Church, somehow I think Satan might well be involved in all of this and still I ask the question, shouldn't it all be left at the Foot of God, He created the whole damn mess. Thank God for Easter Sunday! Or blame God for it. Is there middle ground in that?
The Holy Father has said enough and His Holiness should now act like Christ at His trial on Good Friday, saying very little and letting salvation history take its awful course.
The National Catholic Reporter is a left leaning "rag." However, the NCR does have a bright light who writes for it and is interesting to read and very articulate when he is interviewed on CNN and other media outlets. Good Friday's "All Things Catholic" has Mr. Allen asking some good questions. I sent a comment to the article under "so" but it hasn't appeared yet and I don't know if it will, but I attach my comment below his brief article:
Is middle ground possible on the Pope?
by John L Allen Jr on Apr. 02, 2010
* All Things Catholic
More and more, I’m wondering if Karl Rove was right. Rove, of course, famously argued that the “independent voter” is a myth. Whatever they may tell pollsters, most Americans in their heart of hearts are clearly aligned with one side or the other, so the trick to winning elections is to turn out more of your base than the other side does of theirs.
“Rove’s Law” is about politics, but I’m beginning to suspect it has some traction in Catholic affairs as well.
From the beginning of the current round of the sexual abuse crisis, I’ve tried to make two basic points:
* The two cases from Pope Benedict’s past that have recently come to light, one in Munich and one from his years at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, raise important questions, and the pope needs to answer them in order to move forward.
* Those questions, however, have to be seen in the context of his overall record on the crisis, and particularly since 2001, when John Paul II put then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in charge of reviewing the case files, there’s a lot to be said for that record.
Both, of course, are judgments rather than statements of fact, and thus eminently open to debate. What’s striking about much of the reaction I’ve received, however, is that it’s not focused on the content of what I’ve said but rather my alleged motives for saying it.
For one camp out there, my first point amounts to a “hatchet job” on the pope, making me complicit in a campaign led by The New York Times and other media outlets in trying to bring him down or to wound the church. For another crowd, point two is tantamount to a whitewash in favor of the pope. As one e-mailer put it to me succinctly, “Don’t you ever get tired of being an apologist for the Vatican?”
All of which makes me wonder: On an issue about which people feel so passionately, and one which so easily feeds all sorts of broader agenda about the church, the papacy, the media, and so on, is there actually a constituency for balance? Is there room for middle ground?
That’s something to ponder as this crisis unfolds.
My comment:
John your writings are clear and concise and I believe very balanced and middle of the road. All you write is excellent and fair. But yes there are extremes in the Church today, primary among them your own newspaper the NCR which is the "rag" of the left and yes extreme, much of what it publishes would make an Episcopalian blush--it is schismatic at worse or at "best" advocating for rupture in the Church and her people, clearly divisive. Sometimes it is hard to separate you from the "rag" that you write for. The NCR is to the left what the Wanderer is to the right. Get my drift?
But there is also "abuse" fatigue out there. Lawyers are exploiting victims and the Church for financial gain. Victims are coming forward not for therapy and healing but now for financial revenge and ruin of dioceses. But no one calls it for what it is all out of a fear of offending or victimizing once again those who have been so terribly harmed. But when victims make unsubstantiated allegations against the Holy Father, spew forth hatred and venom on the Church and anyone who would question their motives, they get a "pass" from "bleeding heart" liberals who can't believe that victims could also victimize--it really is a vicious cycle isn't it and no one seems willing to break that cycle, except maybe William Donohue of the Catholic League.
But more importantly the agenda that now is becoming clear from the secular media and the left leaning NCR is to change and neutralize the Church and exploit this scandal to do it. But in the meantime it also erodes faith in God since Jesus Christ could be accused of the very same things that our Holy Father is being accused of, complicity in forgiving sinners who victimized others without seeking punitive justice. Once again I ask, didn't God create the Archangel Lucifer, knowing full well what would happen and what Lucifer would do? Didn't God create Adam and Eve and give them free will to commit original sin which then God allowed every human being except the Blessed Virgin Mary to inherit, knowing full well that this would lead to all kinds of victimization, murder, sodomy, child sex abuse, rape, violence, terror, war, genocide, the Holocaust and the list goes on.
On this Good Friday, just what are the NCR (not you John) and the New York Times and the liberal media trying to do to the Catholic Church in general and the priesthood in particular, especially the Church's bishops and pope? What are lawyers trying to do? Like the priests who wrecked havoc on countless innocent teenage boys and some small children and like many bishops who followed the advice of psychiatry rather than canon law and like many others in the hierarchy who fear scandal over bringing light to a scourge in the Church, somehow I think Satan might well be involved in all of this and still I ask the question, shouldn't it all be left at the Foot of God, He created the whole damn mess. Thank God for Easter Sunday! Or blame God for it. Is there middle ground in that?
The Holy Father has said enough and His Holiness should now act like Christ at His trial on Good Friday, saying very little and letting salvation history take its awful course.
MY HOMILIES FOR PALM SUNDAY 2010 AND GOOD FRIDAY, THE YEAR 2000
Our empty Church prior to the Palm Sunday Procession back inside. Yes, all the statues are covered in purple and the crucifixion scene above the reredos is covered in a veil of see through black. Quite stunning:
Arriving outside with palm in hand to begin the Liturgy of blessing of the palms, the reading of the Gospel of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into His hometown and then the procession into the Church:
Priestly greeting at the Procession of Palms, this past Palm Sunday:
My homily for this past Palm Sunday, 2010:
At the triumphal beginning of Palm Sunday’s Mass, Jesus is the "Toast of the Town!" The people welcome Him to Jerusalem with great joy and fanfare, palms and olive branches waving high, great joy and happiness. The rank and file laity of Judaism believe Jesus to be the long awaited Messiah, a political Messiah. Like a warrior, they hoped He would create an uprising against Roman rule and return the Promised Land back to the rule of the Jewish nation. They were waiting for Him to raise the sword and cut off the head of the Roman Emperor and all his men. Of course they did not truly grasp the type of Messiah Jesus is and this will lead to disaster or triumph depending on your faith perspective.
At the conclusion of Palm Sunday's Mass, Jesus is "Toast!"
In Jesus case, at the end of the day, 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? How negligent of Him? Doesn’t He care about or identify with the victims of sin? 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? Maybe He is complicit in their sins! Maybe He’s like those sinners! Forgiveness! Just who does He think He is? We’ll make Him know what it feels like to be a “VICTIM” to be the “VICTIM.” Crucify Him, crucify Him! We thought He would set Israel free and be our King, our political King after He conquers the Romans. Crucify Him, Crucify Him. And the Romans, they wondered what kind of a political insurrectionist He was; maybe crucifying Him was the best course for all of the Roman Empire. May be so?
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 all focusing on issues of victimization, negligence and yes forgiveness. Why can’t the Church, her pope, her bishops, her priests and yes her laity identify with suffering victims of sin and crime? 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 WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE!
COME BACK FOR THE EASTER TRIDUUM AND ESPECIALLY NEXT SUNDAY, EASTER SUNDAY, AND SEE WHAT JESUS DOES TO ALL THOSE WHO REJECTED HIM, MOCKED HIM, SCOURGED HIM, NAILED HIM TO THE CROSS AND KILLED HIM! COME BACK AND SEE WHAT JESUS DOES TO THOSE SINNERS WHO MAKE HIM FEEL WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE THE VICTIM! IT’S PAY BACK TIME. WHAT WILL JESUS’ PAY BACK BE? STAY TUNED.
GOOD FRIDAY
The procession of the Holy Cross to Pope Benedict on Good Friday:
Pope Benedict unveiling the Holy Cross:
Veneration of the Holy Cross:
My homily for Good Friday, the year 2000:
Introduction: As a creative newly ordained priest on Good Friday 1981, I decided to pass out some nails to the congregation as they came in for the Good Friday Passion Liturgy. In my homily I described the nails as our sins. My sins are a nail into the body of Jesus. My sins cause Jesus’ scourging. My sin is the crown of thorns. My sin is the heavy cross that Jesus carried. The seven deadly sins, pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth, all these crucified our Savior. While we are quite capable of giving good things to Jesus Christ, we are equally capable of giving Him sin and evil.
Main point: Good Friday exposes the impact of our sins and the power of God’s love to overcome them.
1. The more cynical among us question how in the world the damage our sins cause can be overcome?
A. In the news, a boyfriend chases his girl friend, intentionally knocking her car into an on-coming train killing two adults and two children instantly. How do you bring reconciliation to that? Two alienated and angry high schoolers go on a rampage killing classmates and teachers forever changing the lives of an entire nation. How do you overcome that? Domestic discord breaks up families, injures children. How can this be reconciled? >(Since 2000 until 2010, I could include the sex abuse scandal, now worldwide, engulfing the hierarchy and priests, not to mention the suffering it has inflicted upon countless victims).
B. And then we have Almighty God in the Flesh of Jesus Christ. We put him to death as a common criminal. He was too much for us, his kindness, his authority, and his love. His forgiveness and the appearance that he gave that the victims of sins didn’t need justice since He forgave the offenders of victims their sins. Our sins brought out the worst in us.
2. In Jesus Christ crucified, we have a power greater than the disasters the disease of our sins cause each other and Him.
A. There are two thieves that are crucified along with Jesus Christ. They represent all of humanity and the choice we have before our Savior. One of them blasphemes Jesus. Because of his sins, he is dead to God, he is dead to love, he is dead to reconciliation, and he is dead to eternal life. This is one scenario that our sins cause. The other looking at Jesus says, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus responds, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” Only God can save and reconcile a repentant sinner; He does it from the cross. This man represents the other scenario, openness to God, openness to reconciliation, trust and humility in the presence of Almighty God.
B. We’re all thieves because of our sins; but which thief are you? The choice is yours.
Conclusion: In a few moments we will unveil the cross. Take a long, hard look at what we give to God in our sins! But from the Holy Cross the Savior looks at you. Stay tuned, payback is coming! What will it be?
Arriving outside with palm in hand to begin the Liturgy of blessing of the palms, the reading of the Gospel of Jesus' Triumphal Entry into His hometown and then the procession into the Church:
Priestly greeting at the Procession of Palms, this past Palm Sunday:
My homily for this past Palm Sunday, 2010:
At the triumphal beginning of Palm Sunday’s Mass, Jesus is the "Toast of the Town!" The people welcome Him to Jerusalem with great joy and fanfare, palms and olive branches waving high, great joy and happiness. The rank and file laity of Judaism believe Jesus to be the long awaited Messiah, a political Messiah. Like a warrior, they hoped He would create an uprising against Roman rule and return the Promised Land back to the rule of the Jewish nation. They were waiting for Him to raise the sword and cut off the head of the Roman Emperor and all his men. Of course they did not truly grasp the type of Messiah Jesus is and this will lead to disaster or triumph depending on your faith perspective.
At the conclusion of Palm Sunday's Mass, Jesus is "Toast!"
In Jesus case, at the end of the day, 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? How negligent of Him? Doesn’t He care about or identify with the victims of sin? 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? Maybe He is complicit in their sins! Maybe He’s like those sinners! Forgiveness! Just who does He think He is? We’ll make Him know what it feels like to be a “VICTIM” to be the “VICTIM.” Crucify Him, crucify Him! We thought He would set Israel free and be our King, our political King after He conquers the Romans. Crucify Him, Crucify Him. And the Romans, they wondered what kind of a political insurrectionist He was; maybe crucifying Him was the best course for all of the Roman Empire. May be so?
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 all focusing on issues of victimization, negligence and yes forgiveness. Why can’t the Church, her pope, her bishops, her priests and yes her laity identify with suffering victims of sin and crime? 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 WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE!
COME BACK FOR THE EASTER TRIDUUM AND ESPECIALLY NEXT SUNDAY, EASTER SUNDAY, AND SEE WHAT JESUS DOES TO ALL THOSE WHO REJECTED HIM, MOCKED HIM, SCOURGED HIM, NAILED HIM TO THE CROSS AND KILLED HIM! COME BACK AND SEE WHAT JESUS DOES TO THOSE SINNERS WHO MAKE HIM FEEL WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE THE VICTIM! IT’S PAY BACK TIME. WHAT WILL JESUS’ PAY BACK BE? STAY TUNED.
GOOD FRIDAY
The procession of the Holy Cross to Pope Benedict on Good Friday:
Pope Benedict unveiling the Holy Cross:
Veneration of the Holy Cross:
My homily for Good Friday, the year 2000:
Introduction: As a creative newly ordained priest on Good Friday 1981, I decided to pass out some nails to the congregation as they came in for the Good Friday Passion Liturgy. In my homily I described the nails as our sins. My sins are a nail into the body of Jesus. My sins cause Jesus’ scourging. My sin is the crown of thorns. My sin is the heavy cross that Jesus carried. The seven deadly sins, pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth, all these crucified our Savior. While we are quite capable of giving good things to Jesus Christ, we are equally capable of giving Him sin and evil.
Main point: Good Friday exposes the impact of our sins and the power of God’s love to overcome them.
1. The more cynical among us question how in the world the damage our sins cause can be overcome?
A. In the news, a boyfriend chases his girl friend, intentionally knocking her car into an on-coming train killing two adults and two children instantly. How do you bring reconciliation to that? Two alienated and angry high schoolers go on a rampage killing classmates and teachers forever changing the lives of an entire nation. How do you overcome that? Domestic discord breaks up families, injures children. How can this be reconciled? >(Since 2000 until 2010, I could include the sex abuse scandal, now worldwide, engulfing the hierarchy and priests, not to mention the suffering it has inflicted upon countless victims).
B. And then we have Almighty God in the Flesh of Jesus Christ. We put him to death as a common criminal. He was too much for us, his kindness, his authority, and his love. His forgiveness and the appearance that he gave that the victims of sins didn’t need justice since He forgave the offenders of victims their sins. Our sins brought out the worst in us.
2. In Jesus Christ crucified, we have a power greater than the disasters the disease of our sins cause each other and Him.
A. There are two thieves that are crucified along with Jesus Christ. They represent all of humanity and the choice we have before our Savior. One of them blasphemes Jesus. Because of his sins, he is dead to God, he is dead to love, he is dead to reconciliation, and he is dead to eternal life. This is one scenario that our sins cause. The other looking at Jesus says, “Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus responds, “This day you will be with me in paradise.” Only God can save and reconcile a repentant sinner; He does it from the cross. This man represents the other scenario, openness to God, openness to reconciliation, trust and humility in the presence of Almighty God.
B. We’re all thieves because of our sins; but which thief are you? The choice is yours.
Conclusion: In a few moments we will unveil the cross. Take a long, hard look at what we give to God in our sins! But from the Holy Cross the Savior looks at you. Stay tuned, payback is coming! What will it be?
GOOD FRIDAY, A DAY OF FAST AND ABSTINENCE
Today is Good Friday. St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia will celebrate the Stations of the Cross at 12:10 PM and again at 3:00 PM. Confessions will be heard after both sets of Stations.
At 7:00 PM, the main Liturgy for Good Friday, The Passion of the Lord, will be celebrated. This includes the reading of the Passion from St. John's Gospel, the procession with and veneration of the Holy Cross and Holy Communion, pre-sanctified at Holy Thursday's Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.
Today, Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence. Penalties for breaking this Holy Day fast and abstinence are below.
My pet sharks are waiting to pounce and consume anyone who breaks the Good Friday Fast, meaning, two smaller snacks that combined do not equal a full meal and one main meal and no eating between meals. Of course, no meat or meat products. My friends below are not bound by Church law on Good Friday, and they are watching to see who breaks Church law and will attack. Technically, though, you could consume them before they consume you.
At 7:00 PM, the main Liturgy for Good Friday, The Passion of the Lord, will be celebrated. This includes the reading of the Passion from St. John's Gospel, the procession with and veneration of the Holy Cross and Holy Communion, pre-sanctified at Holy Thursday's Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper.
Today, Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence. Penalties for breaking this Holy Day fast and abstinence are below.
My pet sharks are waiting to pounce and consume anyone who breaks the Good Friday Fast, meaning, two smaller snacks that combined do not equal a full meal and one main meal and no eating between meals. Of course, no meat or meat products. My friends below are not bound by Church law on Good Friday, and they are watching to see who breaks Church law and will attack. Technically, though, you could consume them before they consume you.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
MY HOMILY FOR HOLY THURSDAY'S EVENING MASS OF THE LORD'S SUPPER
I preach using an outline form that I normally commit to memory and speak extemporaneously from my memorized outline, and away from the ambo. But tonight's homily was a bit too complicated for me to preach from memory, so I had the notes outline in front of me and preached from the ambo. I find the ambo restricts me too much but it was appropriate for a night like tonight! Happy Easter Triduum!
Introduction: The highlights of my life occurred on June 7, 1980 when I was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah, Georgia. Part of the Liturgy requires those who are to be ordained to lay prostrate on the floor as an act of submission to God and His church as the Litany of the Saints is chanted. The marble floor was cold and hard and had a distinct smell. But as I listened to the Litany being sung, I was emotionally overwhelmed at what was happening to me. At the end of the Litany when I got up, there was a puddle of tears on that cold, hard marble floor. I also recall the tears in my eyes as I concelebrated with Bishop Lessard and consecrated with Him the Holy Eucharist at that Mass of Ordination. I know now, some 30 years later that these tears symbolize for me, joy, sorrow, pain and sacrifice, frustration and happiness, despair and glory, the very things that Jesus Christ experienced in his earthly ministry. But I also remember the first blessing I gave to many people, my hands still fragrant from the sacred Chrism. Many of them kneeling before me would take by hands that had just blessed them, and turn the palms of my hands toward them and kiss both palms. I just couldn’t believe this was happening to me an unworthy sinner, that people would honor me in such a touching, intimate way. And yet I know these hands that bless and consecrate are not just my hands, they are the hands of the Lord Jesus and that is what was shown reverence on my ordination day! Then I recalled that wonderful poem, “The beautiful Hands of a Priest:” author unknown.
We need them in life's early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek them when tasting life's woes.
At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness;
Their dignity stands all alone;
And when we are tempted and wander,
To pathways of shame and of sin,
It's the hand of a priest that will absolve us,
Not once, but again and again.
And when we are taking life's partner,
Other hands may prepare us a feast,
But the hand that will bless and unite us
is the beautiful hand of a priest.
God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress;
When can a poor sinner do better
Than to ask Him to guide thee and bless?
When the hour of death comes upon us,
May our courage and strength be increased,
By seeing raised over us in blessing
The beautiful hands of a priest.
Topic Statement: Today, we celebrate what Jesus did two thousand years ago on the night before he died, the institution of the priesthood and the Most Holy Eucharist.
1. The Catholic Priesthood and the celebration of the Mass are dramatically tied together to show forth the sacrificial unconditional love of Jesus Christ.
A. I contend that we cannot truly appreciate the nature of the Holy Eucharist as uniting the Bride of Christ, the Church to the One Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and thus uniting us to our only means of salvation if we don’t understand the alternative. Quite frankly, without the one sacrifice Christ, we do not enter the kingdom of God. Life after death at best would be absolute nothingness or at worst, eternal torment and damnation in hell. In reality, hell is the absence of God. How many of us in reality live our lives as though God does not exist? Isn’t that a foretaste of what hell truly is? Getting to heaven is not accomplished by our being good, it is accomplished by Jesus Christ and His Cross and resurrection. Each year I interview our second graders who will make their First Holy Communion. They seem to understand that it is only through the one sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and His resurrection that any of us get into heaven. That belief of our faith is very important for all of us, especially adults, to understand.
B. In establishing the priesthood to be an icon of Christ the High Priest and Bridegroom of the Church, as well as the Holy Eucharist as the sign of Jesus, the Lamb of Sacrifice on Good Friday, Jesus uses the Jewish Seder or Passover ritual meal as the paradigm for the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. The Jews recall how God rescued them from the land of slavery, Egypt, and led them to freedom. The meal also recalls how the blood of lambs was painted on door posts to protect the Jews from the destroying angels. In the Seder meal, Jews remember the events of their salvation and in doing so, bring these events forward to be a living reality in the present. The Lord’s Supper that becomes the Holy Eucharist and Mass is the memorial of the events of Good Friday, our passage from sin and death to glory. We remember, not just in an historical way the events of our salvation, but like the Jews, God brings these events forward to the present. In other words, the real presence of the one Sacrifice of Christ is made manifest in the Holy Eucharist, along with the real presence of the Risen Lord in His body, blood, soul and divinity. In other words, the One Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is now eternal, not bound by a particular time or particular place. It is everywhere and always, just like God is "I AM."
2. The other aspect of our celebration of the Mass is that we must receive our Lord worthily in anticipation of His return, which in the Mass we already experience in an eternal way.
A. The season of Lent, in fact every season of the Church is a time to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance or Confession and also to do penance out of the need for justice to be accomplished even for our forgiven sin. We do not want to receive Christ into our body and soul corrupted by unrepentant sin. Through sacramental repentance we want to be a worthy receptacle for our Lord. At every Mass we encounter in a sacramental way three powerful aspects of Jesus Christ, the High Priest, the Victim of Sacrifice made visible in the Bread and Wine offered in Sacrifice and the Bridegroom of the Church which is His bride. Through ordination, the Catholic priest is a visible sign of Jesus Christ the High Priest who offers himself on the altar of the cross to save us from sin and hell. Jesus offers not a lamb, but himself, a sacrifice of love, love for sinners, love for the guilty, the murderer, the liar, the adulterer, the molester, the rapist, and love for all who have been harmed by sin, evil of the others. We receive what is Sacrificed, Jesus Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the ordinary elements of Bread and Wine that become Lamb of God Sacrificed for us. WE WANT TO BE READY AND PROPERLY SO FOR THE BRIDEGROOM OF THE CHURCH, WHO IS JESUS CHRIST.
B. In the Eastern Rite of the Church as well as Orthodoxy, Holy Week and especially Holy Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday focuses on Christ the Bridegroom and the Service of the Bridegroom (Akolouthia tou Nimfiou).The Icon of Christ the Bridegroom is Jesus after his betrayal, stripped of his garments, with a mocking royal robe and a reed as a scepter in his hands.. The name for the Service of the Bridegroom though comes from the central figure in the well-known parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). The title Bridegroom suggests the intimacy of love. It is not without significance that the kingdom of God is compared to a bridal feast and a bridal chamber. The Christ of the Passion, stripped and mocked is the divine Bridegroom of the Church. The imagery connotes the final union of the Lover and the beloved. The title Bridegroom also suggests the Parousia or the end times. The Parable of the Ten Virgins is related to the Second Coming; and is associated with the need for spiritual vigilance and preparedness, by which we are enabled to keep the divine commandments and receive the blessings of God’s Kingdom to come. In the Eastern Rite Liturgy, the cantor sings "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…", which is sung at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Hours (Orthos) of Great Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, relates the Church which is the Bride of Christ to that essential expectation: watching and waiting for our Bridegroom, who will come again to judge the living and the dead. Are we properly prepared tonight, have we been to confession? Do we have enough oil in our flasks, the grace of God in our souls, burning brightly to receive our Savior, the bridegroom worthily at this Mass and at our particular judgment?
Conclusion: Jesus symbolically washes the feet of the apostles, the first to be priests of the Church. Representing Christ, I will symbolically was the feet of 12 of our parishioners as a reminder to you and to me that being Catholic Priest and God's priestly people means imitating Jesus’ sacrificial love not only in the temple of this magnificent church, but in the temple of the world where we serve those most in need of salvation. The Church, the Bride of Christ, all of us together, clergy and laity, must also act in a like manner, calling the world God's unconditional love, to repent of sin, to seek justice and to know love and serve Jesus Christ, the high Priest, the Sacrificial Victim and the Bridegroom of His Bride the Church. The ordained priesthood and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass make present what we want to experience forever in heaven, Eternal joy and communion with Jesus Christ, High Priest and Bridegroom of the Church.
WATCH THIS VIDEO, YOU'LL KNOW WHY THIS MAN WILL BE A CARDINAL
When I was vocation director for our diocese, I visited our seminarians at the North American College in Rome where the rector was Msgr. Timothy Dolan. I had the privilege of being invited to his private apartment for a wonderful Italian meal with some other guests he invited. I thought to myself at that time, "you know, he'd make a great archbishop of New York!" This was in 1998! Do I have ESP?
THE SACRAMENT OF PENANCE ON GOOD FRIDAY AND HOLY SATURDAY? FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, YES!
There is an erroneous school of thought out there that the Sacrament of Penance (Confession) should not be celebrated on Good Friday or Holy Saturday, that this is some kind of liturgical principle or liturgical law.
It is not, although I have fallen into this trap on Holy Saturday (never on Good Friday). Pope John Paul II clarified this several years ago.
Usually those who pay scant attention to the "rubrics" of the Roman Missal, will always point to a place in the Missal that says the sacraments are not to be celebrated on Holy Saturday. This never applied to Confession. Pope John Paul makes that clear.
Priests who insist on not hearing confessions on Good Friday or Holy Saturday, while liturgically well-meaning and perhaps liturgically still in the 1970's,they are legally and canonically incorrect. Tisk, tisk!
So at St. Joseph Catholic Church in good old Macon, Georgia, we'll be hearing confessions on Good Friday, following our 12:10 PM and 3:00 PM Stations of the Cross.
On Holy Saturday, we'll be hearing confessions beginning at 3:00 PM until the last person (we normally conclude at 4:00 PM).
NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTS ITSELF AS OUTRAGE AGAINST THEIR FALSE REPORTING OF THE FACTS CONCERNING POPE BENEDICT GROWS
More proof that the New York Times is not to be trusted to tell the truth about the Catholic Church--a retraction!
A MUST NEEDED CLARIFICATION FROM LAURIE GOODSTEIN CONCERNING HER MALICIOUS ARTICLE IMPLICATING CARDINAL RATZINGER'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE CASE OF NOTORIOUS SERIAL MOLESTER, REV. LAWRENCE C. MURPHY.
It should also be noted to Laurie Goodstein and other reporters, that if a priest is validly ordained he is a priest forever. Defrocking, what is called "laicization" in the Catholic Church simply returns a priest to the canonical (legal) status of being a lay person. He can no longer function as a priest except in an emergency, to hear the confession of a dying person or offer the Last Rites if no other priest is available. Shame on Laurie Goodstein who calls herself a reporter for not knowing this truth of the Catholic faith. Once a priest, always a priest--dogma that cannot be changed by the pope or the New York Times.
Events in the Case of an Accused Priest
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 31, 2010
The case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys at a school in Wisconsin, stands out among the cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests because of the number and vulnerability of the victims, and the availability of documents revealing how church officials handled the matter.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via Associated Press
The Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy in 1974. He was accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys at a school.
Father Murphy died in 1998, still a priest, despite documents showing that a priest had informed church officials as early as the mid-1950s that deaf children had complained that Father Murphy was molesting them. The police and prosecutors in Wisconsin were also informed by the victims and their advocates, but failed to act.
The documents show that during the mid-1990s, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, facing the threat of lawsuits and hearing wrenching testimony from deaf adults who said they had been abused by Father Murphy, concluded that Father Murphy should be removed from the priesthood.
Archbishop Weakland appealed on July 17, 1996, to the Vatican office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger then headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had oversight of the case because Father Murphy was suspected of using the confessional to commit his crimes — a crime that is considered particularly serious under the church’s canon law because confession is a sacrament.
The documents show that Archbishop Weakland sent two letters to Cardinal Ratzinger, and one to the Apostolic Signatura, the church’s highest court, asking for guidance on whether to conduct a canonical trial of Father Murphy.
After eight months, on March 24, 1997, Archbishop Weakland received a response from Cardinal Ratzinger’s second-in-command in the doctrinal office, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state. Archbishop Bertone instructed the Milwaukee archdiocese to proceed with a canonical trial of Father Murphy, which could result in defrocking the priest.
On Jan. 12, 1998, Father Murphy sent a letter from his home in Boulder Junction, Wis., to Cardinal Ratzinger. He asked for a cessation of the trial because he was 72, had had a stroke and had repented, and because the case was beyond the statute of limitations.
On April 6, 1998, Archbishop Bertone wrote to Bishop Raphael M. Fliss of the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin, where Father Murphy was living, saying that the statute of limitations was waived in this case. But Archbishop Bertone suggested that given Father Murphy’s letter asking for leniency, Bishop Fliss should employ “pastoral measures” instead of a trial.
Under church law, those measures can include prayer, repentance and restrictions on what kinds of ministry and sacraments the priest may perform.
Bishop Fliss wrote back to Archbishop Bertone on May 13, 1998, saying, “It is in my judgment that all reasonable pastoral methods have been exhausted” and that a trial against Father Murphy was necessary.
On May 30, 1998, while Archbishop Weakland, Bishop Fliss and the auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee were in Rome for a regular visit to the Vatican, they met with Congregation officials, including Archbishop Bertone.
A log kept on the Murphy case and signed “RJS” — the initials for the auxiliary bishop, Richard J. Sklba — briefly summarized the Vatican meeting on May 30, 1998: “It became clear that the Congregation was not encouraging us to proceed with any formal dismissal” of Father Murphy. The reasons were that for 24 years he had shown “apparent good conduct,” and that with so much time passed between the crimes and the trial, it would be difficult to try him.
The minutes of the meeting said that a trial would be difficult because of the problem of getting proof without increasing the scandal. The minutes said Archbishop Weakland should limit Father Murphy’s ministerial duties instead. Archbishop Weakland, the minutes said, “reaffirmed the difficulty he will have explaining this to the community of the deaf.”
The translated minutes were sent to Bishop Fliss on Aug. 15 by the Rev. Thomas T. Brundage, then the judicial vicar in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the official responsible for presiding over the trial of Father Murphy.
A letter on Aug. 19, 1998, from Archbishop Weakland said he instructed Father Brundage to halt the trial. Father Murphy died on Aug. 21, 1998.
Father Brundage, who is now working in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, posted an essay this week saying he was never informed that the trial of Father Murphy had been halted.
He also said that he had been misquoted in both The New York Times and The Associated Press. In an interview on Wednesday, Father Brundage acknowledged that he had never been quoted in any Times articles about the Murphy case — and the paper did not misquote him. He said he was misquoted in an Associated Press article that was posted temporarily on the Times Web site, and he mistakenly attributed that to The Times.
He said the documents show that the Vatican had encouraged the Milwaukee Archdiocese to halt the trial, but they did not use strong language and actually order a halt. He said that he never saw the letter from Archbishop Weakland abating the trial until it appeared on the Times Web site last week.
“The only possible explanation I can come up with is that Archbishop Weakland withheld the letter, knowing the reaction I would have had,” Father Brundage said.
Father Brundage said he would have been appalled because he was absolutely convinced that Father Murphy should be put on trial, because, “This was a horrendous case.”
Correction: April 1, 2010:
An earlier version of this article misstated the date of Father Murphy's death. He died on Aug. 21, 1998, not on Sept. 2, 1998.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 1, 2010, on page A6 of the New York edition.
A MUST NEEDED CLARIFICATION FROM LAURIE GOODSTEIN CONCERNING HER MALICIOUS ARTICLE IMPLICATING CARDINAL RATZINGER'S INVOLVEMENT IN THE CASE OF NOTORIOUS SERIAL MOLESTER, REV. LAWRENCE C. MURPHY.
It should also be noted to Laurie Goodstein and other reporters, that if a priest is validly ordained he is a priest forever. Defrocking, what is called "laicization" in the Catholic Church simply returns a priest to the canonical (legal) status of being a lay person. He can no longer function as a priest except in an emergency, to hear the confession of a dying person or offer the Last Rites if no other priest is available. Shame on Laurie Goodstein who calls herself a reporter for not knowing this truth of the Catholic faith. Once a priest, always a priest--dogma that cannot be changed by the pope or the New York Times.
Events in the Case of an Accused Priest
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: March 31, 2010
The case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys at a school in Wisconsin, stands out among the cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests because of the number and vulnerability of the victims, and the availability of documents revealing how church officials handled the matter.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via Associated Press
The Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy in 1974. He was accused of molesting as many as 200 deaf boys at a school.
Father Murphy died in 1998, still a priest, despite documents showing that a priest had informed church officials as early as the mid-1950s that deaf children had complained that Father Murphy was molesting them. The police and prosecutors in Wisconsin were also informed by the victims and their advocates, but failed to act.
The documents show that during the mid-1990s, Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee, facing the threat of lawsuits and hearing wrenching testimony from deaf adults who said they had been abused by Father Murphy, concluded that Father Murphy should be removed from the priesthood.
Archbishop Weakland appealed on July 17, 1996, to the Vatican office of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI. Cardinal Ratzinger then headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which had oversight of the case because Father Murphy was suspected of using the confessional to commit his crimes — a crime that is considered particularly serious under the church’s canon law because confession is a sacrament.
The documents show that Archbishop Weakland sent two letters to Cardinal Ratzinger, and one to the Apostolic Signatura, the church’s highest court, asking for guidance on whether to conduct a canonical trial of Father Murphy.
After eight months, on March 24, 1997, Archbishop Weakland received a response from Cardinal Ratzinger’s second-in-command in the doctrinal office, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, now the Vatican’s secretary of state. Archbishop Bertone instructed the Milwaukee archdiocese to proceed with a canonical trial of Father Murphy, which could result in defrocking the priest.
On Jan. 12, 1998, Father Murphy sent a letter from his home in Boulder Junction, Wis., to Cardinal Ratzinger. He asked for a cessation of the trial because he was 72, had had a stroke and had repented, and because the case was beyond the statute of limitations.
On April 6, 1998, Archbishop Bertone wrote to Bishop Raphael M. Fliss of the Diocese of Superior in northern Wisconsin, where Father Murphy was living, saying that the statute of limitations was waived in this case. But Archbishop Bertone suggested that given Father Murphy’s letter asking for leniency, Bishop Fliss should employ “pastoral measures” instead of a trial.
Under church law, those measures can include prayer, repentance and restrictions on what kinds of ministry and sacraments the priest may perform.
Bishop Fliss wrote back to Archbishop Bertone on May 13, 1998, saying, “It is in my judgment that all reasonable pastoral methods have been exhausted” and that a trial against Father Murphy was necessary.
On May 30, 1998, while Archbishop Weakland, Bishop Fliss and the auxiliary bishop of Milwaukee were in Rome for a regular visit to the Vatican, they met with Congregation officials, including Archbishop Bertone.
A log kept on the Murphy case and signed “RJS” — the initials for the auxiliary bishop, Richard J. Sklba — briefly summarized the Vatican meeting on May 30, 1998: “It became clear that the Congregation was not encouraging us to proceed with any formal dismissal” of Father Murphy. The reasons were that for 24 years he had shown “apparent good conduct,” and that with so much time passed between the crimes and the trial, it would be difficult to try him.
The minutes of the meeting said that a trial would be difficult because of the problem of getting proof without increasing the scandal. The minutes said Archbishop Weakland should limit Father Murphy’s ministerial duties instead. Archbishop Weakland, the minutes said, “reaffirmed the difficulty he will have explaining this to the community of the deaf.”
The translated minutes were sent to Bishop Fliss on Aug. 15 by the Rev. Thomas T. Brundage, then the judicial vicar in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the official responsible for presiding over the trial of Father Murphy.
A letter on Aug. 19, 1998, from Archbishop Weakland said he instructed Father Brundage to halt the trial. Father Murphy died on Aug. 21, 1998.
Father Brundage, who is now working in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, posted an essay this week saying he was never informed that the trial of Father Murphy had been halted.
He also said that he had been misquoted in both The New York Times and The Associated Press. In an interview on Wednesday, Father Brundage acknowledged that he had never been quoted in any Times articles about the Murphy case — and the paper did not misquote him. He said he was misquoted in an Associated Press article that was posted temporarily on the Times Web site, and he mistakenly attributed that to The Times.
He said the documents show that the Vatican had encouraged the Milwaukee Archdiocese to halt the trial, but they did not use strong language and actually order a halt. He said that he never saw the letter from Archbishop Weakland abating the trial until it appeared on the Times Web site last week.
“The only possible explanation I can come up with is that Archbishop Weakland withheld the letter, knowing the reaction I would have had,” Father Brundage said.
Father Brundage said he would have been appalled because he was absolutely convinced that Father Murphy should be put on trial, because, “This was a horrendous case.”
Correction: April 1, 2010:
An earlier version of this article misstated the date of Father Murphy's death. He died on Aug. 21, 1998, not on Sept. 2, 1998.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 1, 2010, on page A6 of the New York edition.
HOLY THURSDAY, CHRIST THE HIGH PRIEST AND CHRIST THE BRIDEGROOM AND THE ORDAINED PRIESTHOOD AND MOST HOLY EUCHARIST
Christ the High Priest icon, which the Ordained Priesthood is also an icon of this image:
In establishing the priesthood to be an icon of Christ the High Priest and Bridegroom of the Church, as well as the Holy Eucharist as the sign of Jesus, the Lamb of Sacrifice on Good Friday, Jesus uses the Jewish Seder or Passover ritual meal as the paradigm for the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. The Jews recall how God rescued them from the land of slavery, Egypt, and led them to freedom. The meal also recalls how the blood of lambs was painted on door posts to protect the Jews from the destroying angels. In the Seder meal, Jews remember the events of their salvation and in doing so, bring these events forward to be a living reality in the present. The Lord’s Supper that becomes the Holy Eucharist and Mass is the memorial of the events of Good Friday, our passage from sin and death to glory. We remember, not just in an historical way the events of our salvation, but like the Jews, God brings these events forward to the present. In other words, the real presence of the one Sacrifice of Christ is made manifest in the Holy Eucharist, along with the real presence of the Risen Lord in His body, blood, soul and divinity. In other words, the One Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is now eternal, not bound by a particular time or particular place. It is everywhere and always, just like God is "I AM." The other aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is that of Christ the Bridegroom, whom we await to come and judge the living and the dead. The eschatological aspect of the Mass is made manifest in Christ the Bridegroom. The end times are present too at the celebration of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as we await our Bridegroom as the Ten Virgins did in the Parable of the Virgins. See below as the Eastern Rite and Orthodox Churches have a better grasp on this theology then the Latin Rite.
Christ the Bridegroom Icon
In the Eastern Rite of the Church as well as Orthodoxy, Holy Week and especially Holy Thursday focuses on Christ the Bridegroom and the Service of the Bridegroom (Akolouthia tou Nimfiou). The name comes from the central figure in the well-known parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). The title Bridegroom suggests the intimacy of love. It is not without significance that the kingdom of God is compared to a bridal feast and a bridal chamber. The Christ of the Passion is the divine Bridegroom of the Church. The imagery connotes the final union of the Lover and the beloved. The title Bridegroom also suggests the Parousia. In the patristic tradition, the aforementioned parable is related to the Second Coming; and is associated with the need for spiritual vigilance and preparedness, by which we are enabled to keep the divine commandments and receive the blessings of the age to come. The troparion "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…", which is sung at the beginning of the Orthros of Great Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, relates the worshiping community to that essential expectation: watching and waiting for the Lord, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
The Roman Catholic Priest standing in "Persona Christi" at the Sacrifice of the Mass, what the Catholic brain should visualize at every Mass:
The Sacrament of Holy Orders which makes men an icon of Jesus Christ the High Priest and Jesus Christ the Bridegroom is at the core of the sacramental theology of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. For this reason, a woman cannot be ordained a priest at it would be a perversion of the sacramental nature of Holy Orders and disobedient to the will of Christ. Can the images below represent Christ Jesus the High Priest and Christ Jesus the Bridegroom as highlighted above. Can they be icons of these powerful images of the Male Christ? Men only are valid for the Sacrament of Holy Orders, women are bogus.
Valid
Bogus:
Bogus:
Jesus used bread and wine and nothing else to show the newly ordained Apostles how to celebrate the Memorial of His Passion until He returns as the Bridegroom of the Church. Bread and Wine are valid for the Mass, Pizza and Beer are bogus!
Valid:
Bogus:
Bogus:
Do you now understand the Sacramental Theology of the Catholic Church and why women cannot be ordained into Holy Orders? Do you also understand why the Church is referred to as the "Bride of Christ" awaiting her Bridegroom? And why the Church is referred to as Holy Mother, who gives birth to children not generated through nature but through water and the Holy Spirit, with Christ as the "Father" Who begets these children? Seeing is believing!
In establishing the priesthood to be an icon of Christ the High Priest and Bridegroom of the Church, as well as the Holy Eucharist as the sign of Jesus, the Lamb of Sacrifice on Good Friday, Jesus uses the Jewish Seder or Passover ritual meal as the paradigm for the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. The Jews recall how God rescued them from the land of slavery, Egypt, and led them to freedom. The meal also recalls how the blood of lambs was painted on door posts to protect the Jews from the destroying angels. In the Seder meal, Jews remember the events of their salvation and in doing so, bring these events forward to be a living reality in the present. The Lord’s Supper that becomes the Holy Eucharist and Mass is the memorial of the events of Good Friday, our passage from sin and death to glory. We remember, not just in an historical way the events of our salvation, but like the Jews, God brings these events forward to the present. In other words, the real presence of the one Sacrifice of Christ is made manifest in the Holy Eucharist, along with the real presence of the Risen Lord in His body, blood, soul and divinity. In other words, the One Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross is now eternal, not bound by a particular time or particular place. It is everywhere and always, just like God is "I AM." The other aspect of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is that of Christ the Bridegroom, whom we await to come and judge the living and the dead. The eschatological aspect of the Mass is made manifest in Christ the Bridegroom. The end times are present too at the celebration of the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as we await our Bridegroom as the Ten Virgins did in the Parable of the Virgins. See below as the Eastern Rite and Orthodox Churches have a better grasp on this theology then the Latin Rite.
Christ the Bridegroom Icon
In the Eastern Rite of the Church as well as Orthodoxy, Holy Week and especially Holy Thursday focuses on Christ the Bridegroom and the Service of the Bridegroom (Akolouthia tou Nimfiou). The name comes from the central figure in the well-known parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). The title Bridegroom suggests the intimacy of love. It is not without significance that the kingdom of God is compared to a bridal feast and a bridal chamber. The Christ of the Passion is the divine Bridegroom of the Church. The imagery connotes the final union of the Lover and the beloved. The title Bridegroom also suggests the Parousia. In the patristic tradition, the aforementioned parable is related to the Second Coming; and is associated with the need for spiritual vigilance and preparedness, by which we are enabled to keep the divine commandments and receive the blessings of the age to come. The troparion "Behold the Bridegroom comes in the middle of the night…", which is sung at the beginning of the Orthros of Great Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, relates the worshiping community to that essential expectation: watching and waiting for the Lord, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
The Roman Catholic Priest standing in "Persona Christi" at the Sacrifice of the Mass, what the Catholic brain should visualize at every Mass:
The Sacrament of Holy Orders which makes men an icon of Jesus Christ the High Priest and Jesus Christ the Bridegroom is at the core of the sacramental theology of both the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches. For this reason, a woman cannot be ordained a priest at it would be a perversion of the sacramental nature of Holy Orders and disobedient to the will of Christ. Can the images below represent Christ Jesus the High Priest and Christ Jesus the Bridegroom as highlighted above. Can they be icons of these powerful images of the Male Christ? Men only are valid for the Sacrament of Holy Orders, women are bogus.
Valid
Bogus:
Bogus:
Jesus used bread and wine and nothing else to show the newly ordained Apostles how to celebrate the Memorial of His Passion until He returns as the Bridegroom of the Church. Bread and Wine are valid for the Mass, Pizza and Beer are bogus!
Valid:
Bogus:
Bogus:
Do you now understand the Sacramental Theology of the Catholic Church and why women cannot be ordained into Holy Orders? Do you also understand why the Church is referred to as the "Bride of Christ" awaiting her Bridegroom? And why the Church is referred to as Holy Mother, who gives birth to children not generated through nature but through water and the Holy Spirit, with Christ as the "Father" Who begets these children? Seeing is believing!
WOW! WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK? PRAVDA DEFENDS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH!
To Confuse the Wood with the Trees ...
30.03.2010
Much of the news coming out, in the effort to disguise ideological propaganda, contains the fundamental error of mistaking the wood with the trees ... especially when the aim is to denigrate. That is, from an isolated case, preferably rough outlines, and generalized in order to induce the reader to think that the whole is of the same nature. This generalization obviously has ideological connotations and follows a political agenda that seeks to deconstruct traditional society and all its secular institutions and to impose a New World Order after the manner of the sinister interests of the international oligarchy, the same ones that handle the financial markets and through them, largely control the global economy. We refer to cases of pedophilia within the ranks of the Catholic Church recently publicized by international news agencies.
Indeed recent reports of pedophilia involving priests have the outlines of information that journalistic ethics require, regardless of their moral gravity. Such stories raise suspicion about their "goodness" even among non-Catholics like us. Although disagreeing with the doctrine of the Catholic Church, in some respects, but we recognize the importance of their role in our history to defend the ethical values that shape our Judeo-Christian culture and their social merit on behalf of those who have been victims of the usury and greed of the international oligarchy, which is after all more interested in destroying Catholicism and religion in general, as they constitute a serious obstacle to achieving its goal, which is to reduce mankind to the status of robotic slaves.
We emphasize, beforehand that it should not be confused with defending pedophilia, that by making the defense of the Catholic Church we are not justifying the actions of dishonorable men who have forgotten all of their most basic obligations as priests, respect for others, especially the weaker, as is the orphan child, lacking the affection of a true family.
One aspect that makes us suspicious of the "goodwill" of these stories is that they focus exclusively on cases of pedophilia of Catholic clergy, when we know that addiction cuts across all religions and organizations. We find it in all social strata and even within families. The pedophile is in principle very close to the victim and their confidence, that is not a stranger ... and may even be a father, uncle, etc.. When it is argued that priests are more prone to abuse because of the celibacy that is required, as they repeatedly try to justify the temptation toward sexual abuse, it seems to be forgotten that these buggers are not always single and are often seen as "good" heads of the family, so the person apparently seems normal.
Another detail that suggests that a campaign of demoralization of the Catholic Church is in motion, is that news of pedophilia within it appears like mushrooms born every morning, confusing the number of victims and the pedophiles, it seems they are as many as a hive of bees ... Almost all of the Catholic hierarchy ... Of course, this does not exonerate the perpetrators of sexual abuse.
In fact the victims are many, but the alleged abusers are only a tiny minority. Of the evil, better ... Even if we take into account the statistics in the USA, the number of victims in Catholic institutions compared with others, particularly in the school environment where it is much higher, there is a ratio of 157 to 1, within a time period 52 years, 1950 to 2002. Is it difficult work, no? On the other hand, this disproportion shows that in the U.S., as child abuse is an extensive social phenomenon, that is, that is not restricted to a specific sector of society.
The case of the Casa Pia de Lisboa is also illustrative as to the definition of a pedophile. The Portuguese government orphanage, founded in the late eighteenth century, by the Manager of Police, Pina Manique, a man in the confidence of the Marquis of Pombal, was a process of pedophilia in progress, and brings together more suspects accused of sexual abuse of minors than in all the cases mentioned recently in the media to tarnish the image of the Catholic Church.
Ten defendants were indicted by the public prosecution service, including an accomplice. Nevertheless some say that a "sexual binge" at the Institute involves many people and quite big, since it goes back over a decade ago in the 80's of the last century and many of the victims, now adults, are not willing to go through the torment of police investigations and still less the public shame that they have been the "rent boys" directly involved in the process.
There is a note in support of truth, that not all complaints are genuine. There are those who take advantage to extort money. It maybe difficult to ascertain how much is the truth and where does the lie begin ... either one side or the other. Moreover, it is noted that in issues of sexuality, such as sodomy and others, it always tends to occur in boarding schools, even among the confined, although they are severely repressed, it also leaves indelible marks for the rest of their lives.
The fury of the anti-clerical secular lobby goes so far as to revive old cases like that of Father Lawrence Murphy, back in 1975, to address the current Pope insidiously and in this way, the very Roman Catholic Church. On 25 March of this year, the prestigious New York Times published an article that allegedly accused Benedict XVI of covering up for the priest from Milwaukee in 1995 when the Pope was still Cardinal and responsible for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith It must be motivated by a very strong hatred of Catholicism to raise this issue 35 years afterwards...
The complaint is all the more insidious when it ignores all that this body has had is the specific function to monitor doctrinal deviations, heresies, so nothing to do with the Law, which deals with cases of indiscipline, as are the acts that violate the chastity of the clergy are required. It is ignored that this priest was acquitted by civil law, which did not find evidence of the practice of pedophilia on deaf boys who were protected. How aware are we made that the Catholic hierarchy kept him under surveillance and did so not so much for suspicion of sexual abuse of minors, but for doctrinal deviations. It was this and only for this reason that the then Cardinal Ratzinger, in 1995, sanctioned, and then limited his pastoral functions. Four months later Murphy died. We do not believe that the New York newspaper was absolutely unaware of these facts. From here, it follows that bad faith exists and a defamatory smear campaign has been articulated against the world Catholic hierarchy.
And it is understandable. The current pontiff, consistent with the principles of the Catholic Church, has developed a tenacious resistance against unnatural and divisive proposals, carried out by secular organizations seeking to impose a vision of a sexist, hedonistic society, reducing man to his animal nature to deny its spiritual dimension. These organizations obviously have not arisen by "spontaneous generation," or live on air ... they have been created and are supported by the cunning of said philanthropic foundations like the Rockefeller family. The financial interests of those are linked to a wide range of economic sectors ranging from banking, oil, pharmaceuticals, military industry, etc., to audio visual media, including the "media", which clearly meets an agenda dictated by the Global Elite to which they belong.
Besides, who is it that postulated that humankind has to be reduced to 1 / 3 of the current population and contributes to the misery of millions of human beings and cannot see the charitable activity, specifically in areas where poverty is most felt, sometimes coinciding with rich subsoils operated by the same Global Elite.
Therefore there is an intention in this kind of news that goes far beyond the desire to tell ... If the same phenomenon were not omitted in other similar institutions. Further, a balanced assessment of responsibility in Catholic Church pedophilia should refer to the canonical and civil cases that have been raised for clerics accused of sexual abuse of minors and their outcome, not just advertising complaints, which may not be genuine, as has knowledge in processes of this kind.
Artur Rosa Teixeira
Translated from the Portuguese version by:
Lisa KARPOVA
PRAVDA.Ru
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