Thoughts from a Practicing Catholic on the Roman Catholic Sex Scandal
by Sander Hicks April 6, 2010 04:23 PM
--HuffingtonPost--
The Church is "under attack" and the Pope needs our unqualified support and prayers. Jesus was a warrior, and Easter was a "battle victory." At the Vatican that same day, Cardinal Sardano turned the Easter Mass into a pep rally for Pope Benedict. Sardano claimed that pedophilia cover-up claims were nothing but "petty gossip."
This is insane, it is not strategic, and it is not in keeping with Catholic teaching. We Catholics do not believe that the Pope is perfect, or "infallible," most of the time. Our Pope is a man and a sinner, not a king. He messed up. He needs to show empathy with the victims.
While he was still Cardinal in Germany, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict-to-be) signed off on an "untreatable" pedophile, Father Peter Hullerman, and let him return to work with kids from 1979 to 2010. That's 31 years of child sexual abuse from one guy. How many more Hullermans were there?
The more I learn about Pope Benedict, the more I realize that the Church needs a revolutionary period of deep renewal. Amidst the darkness of this damaging scandal, the light of the "Vatican III" Conference had better be around the corner.
I've been reading Betty Clermont's new book, The Neo Catholics a devastating history of the rise of the NeoCon Right. Turns out that rise paralleled that of a swing to the right inside the Vatican, as Reagan built up US-Vatican ties.
From age 14 to 16, Ratzinger was a Nazi in the Hitler Youth. So the Vatican's claim last week that their plight was akin to that of the Jews in the Holocaust was just ... weird. What a tasteless lack of empathy with the Jews. As reported by an Italian newspaper, "certain Catholic circles" in Rome blame the entire outcry on "a New York Jewish lobby" out to get the Pope.
In five short years, Pope Benedict reversed much of the interfaith work of Pope John Paul II. He brought back ornate, gilded ceremonial robes with 20-foot trains and decorated with the coat of arms of the House of Medici -- the wealthy Italian banking family that got four of its own elected pope over the course of four centuries. They presided over the peak in the Church's power, from the Dark Ages to the Counter-Reformation to Church's resistance to the Enlightenment. (cont.)
In my parish, St. John the Evangelist in Goshen, NY, the first major pedophile scandal materialized in the early nineties. The priest in question, "Father Ed" had been molesting boys in their early teens. To say that the parishioners were traumatized by this would be an understatement. They were devastated. Then something wondrous happened....
ReplyDeleteFather Ed was eventually replaced by Father Trevor Nichols. Father Trevor had been an Anglican in merrie old England when he converted to Catholicism. On becoming a Catholic was transferred to Saint John's - WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO DAUGHTERS! A married priest! WITH TWO KIDS!
You want to hear the punch line? Our little parish did not implode. The sun did not fall from the sky. Huge cracks did not appear in the earth's surface. In fact, it was nice having them. They were - and are to this day - deeply beloved by the people of St. John's.
Allowing priests to marry would transform the Catholic Church. Having a married priest and his lovely family in our midst certainly transformed the people of St. John's.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan