Where is the apology for the abuses in Germany? After all, even as the number of Irish abuse cases mounts, the depth and history of abuse in Germany is just now becoming clear ”” more than 250 cases are known, with more appearing each day. At least 14 priests are under investigation by the authorities.
Though Germany is a secular country and Catholics make up only a third of the population, the scandal has engendered a national debate ”” about religious education, about single-sex institutions and, above all, about the role of celibacy in the Catholic Church.
And while the scandal is not unique to Germany, the current wave of abuse revelations sweeping Europe feels particularly German, because the pope is German: Benedict was once Joseph Ratzinger, the archbishop of Munich and Freising and long a leading voice of conservative German Catholics.
I believe the Devil’s friends in this entire world wide crisis found their first homes in the corruption of seminaries – not in the sound good reason for celibacy. If we don’t think it can or already has happened in our own TEC, we are being immensely blind and foolish. Words short of the biblical ones fail in these circumstances. When one considers the failures of our 60’s generation, one wonders if entire generations will not be lost. We are sinking in the web of our own making. Grim.
I regularly give thanks to God for Pope Benedict and pray that he is granted a long papacy in which to complete the good work he has begun to get the RCC back on track.
I have nothing but sorrow and a rage for justice for the victims. And I fully condemn the abuse and any coverup. That being said I truly believe that if tommorow the Church threw her support behind abortion, liberal sex education, the radical gay agenda, universalism in religion and canonized Margaret Sanger all these voices of doom for the Church would be quickly subdued.
Make no mistake in the coming days any church that dares to lift its voice to be heard above the moral quagmire of modern culture will be in danger of being tumbrilled off in front of the Mdm Defarges of this reign of terror.
#3
I’m with you 100%, Paula.
A fragile church of 1.4billion members. A weak pope who needs Coventry airport because Wembley will not hold all the people flocking to see him (can you imagine Rowan EVER having that pull?)
or as others note- we the powerful media are not letting go until you roll over and endorse the secular, liberal mindset?!
It’s actually more like 1.1 to 1.2 billion, #5. But why let facts get in the way of a good rant (Schneider, Rugbyplayingpriest, not you).
It’s tempting to go after the internal inconsistencies and simple false statements in the article, but really, why bother? I’ve been studying and reading about the sex scandals since the Rudy Kos scandal in Dallas 15 years ago and have come to a conclusion not much of anyone really cares about the well-being of children. This issue is mostly just an occasion to push an agenda? This fellow’s agenda is to attack clerical celibacy and to answer him is a waste of time; facts don’t matter to a man with an agenda.
If Benedict really did do something bad 40 years ago, the New York Times and their ilk will stomp and rant and rave; protestants, conservative and liberal will view it as yet more proof that the Catholic Faith is wrong and the Catholic Church really is the Whore of Babylon. Liberal Catholics will play at that as well.
But as a Catholic, my faith is not in Joseph Ratzinger: my faith is in Christ, who has always spoken through fragile men. The See of Rome has had bishops far more wicked than Benedict could think of being. Even if we learned that Benedict had a same-sex lover 40 years ago, so what: he doesn’t teach the relationship is blessed by God, and, presumably, he would have repented of it. Sadly, for people with an agenda other than the Faith (say, the New York Times editorial board) , “repentance” is a useless concept. If he did something bad, he is bad and forever unworthy in all things. Except, of course, if they like someone, then he isn’t bad, he just makes bad choices. And they will like the pope!
Perhaps the saddest part of the Catholic sex scandals is that the bishops have bought into a pop cultural phenomena not unlike the pop psychology that created the entire mess to start with. In the old days, a priest who couldn’t handle his sexuality went to a monastery and did penance under the careful eyes of monks. One guest house I know has a back section where those priests would stay. Then came the psychologists who convinced the bishops therapy would work. Today, a priest is run out of the priesthood because 20 years ago he kissed a teenage girl, or touches a boy’s butt one time. In the Oprah culture, every “sex offender” is a predator and must be locked away forever. In the Oprah culture (where Oprah makes lots of money displaying victims), there is no repentance, no healing. In the Oprah culture, if you want to sing in the choir of a Catholic parish, you have to spend an afternoon listening to some nun pontificate on “Keeping Children Safe”. Sorry, I keep children safe for a living and have better things to do with my afternoons then make the bishop’s insurance carrier richer.
The Catholic Church (in the U.S. at least) is weakened not by the presence of a relatively few (4% or less) priests, but by bishops who have failed to genuinely repent of the corporatist mentality, materialism, and the individualism that infects the Church. Until the Catholic bishops quit caring about whether they are accepted by the cultural movers-and-shakers, whether they fit into American culture, and begin to preach the Catholic Faith, the Catholic Church truly will be weak.
Still, the Catholic Church has endured for a minute or two now, and I’m reminded of a hymn we will sing on Maundy Thursday; it expresses where I am with this whole mess:
In the cross of Christ I glory,
towering o’er the wrecks of time;
all the light of sacred story
gathers round its head sublime.
Bane and blessing, pain and pleasure,
by the cross are sanctified;
peace is there that knows no measure,
joys that through all time abide.