The Cleaner
Vetran Washer 30 Years Plus
I am catholic myself and I am real sick of the Church hidding behind their cloaks and destroying the lives of innocent children!! I am glad someone had the balls to tell it like it really is.
The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal.
Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed "God's Rottweiler" when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys.
The church has been tone deaf and dumb on the scandal for so long that it's shocking, but not surprising, to learn from the New York Times' Laurie Goodstein that a group of deaf former students spent 30 years trying to get church leaders to pay attention.
It was only when the sanctity of the confessional was breached that an archbishop in Wisconsin (who later had to resign when it turned out he used church money to pay off a male lover) wrote to Ratzinger at the Vatican to request that Murphy be defrocked.
The cardinal did not answer. The archbishop wrote to a different Vatican official, but Murphy appealed to Ratzinger for leniency and got it, partly because of the church's statute of limitations. Since when does sin have a statute of limitations?
And now the pope claims he was uninformed on the matter of an infamous German pedophile priest. A spokesman for the Munich archdiocese said Friday that Ratzinger, running the diocese three decades ago, would not have read the memo sent to him about Father Peter Hullermann's getting cycled back into work with children because between 700 to 1,000 memos go to the archbishop each year.
Let's see. That's two or three memos a day. And Ratzinger was renowned at the Vatican for poring through voluminous, recondite theological treaties.
Because he did not defrock the demented Murphy, it's time to bring in the frocks.
Pope Benedict has continued the church's ban on female priests and is adamant against priests' having wives. As a cardinal he wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners.
But the paternalistic and autocratic culture of Il Papa led to an insular, exclusionary system that became a corrosive shelter for secrets and shame.
If the church could invite women to be priests, nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry, if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children, it might survive. .
Ratzinger devoted his Vatican career to rooting out any hint of what he considered deviance. The problem is, he was obsessed with enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy and somehow missed the graver danger to the most vulnerable members of the flock.
The sin-crazed "Rottweiler" was so consumed with sexual mores — issuing instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion — that he didn't make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests.
American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn't vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren't yet born.
Decade after decade, the church hid its sordid crimes, enabling the collared perpetrators instead of letting the police collar them. In the case of the infamous German priest, one diocese official hinted that his problem could be fixed by transferring him to a girls' school. Either they figured that he would not be tempted, or worse, the church was even less concerned about putting little girls at risk.
The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests. And this is a historic mess. Benedict should go home to Bavaria. And the cardinals should send the white smoke up the chimney, proclaiming Habemus Mama.
© New York Times News Service
The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal.
Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, nicknamed "God's Rottweiler" when he was the church's enforcer on matters of faith and sin, ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys.
The church has been tone deaf and dumb on the scandal for so long that it's shocking, but not surprising, to learn from the New York Times' Laurie Goodstein that a group of deaf former students spent 30 years trying to get church leaders to pay attention.
It was only when the sanctity of the confessional was breached that an archbishop in Wisconsin (who later had to resign when it turned out he used church money to pay off a male lover) wrote to Ratzinger at the Vatican to request that Murphy be defrocked.
The cardinal did not answer. The archbishop wrote to a different Vatican official, but Murphy appealed to Ratzinger for leniency and got it, partly because of the church's statute of limitations. Since when does sin have a statute of limitations?
And now the pope claims he was uninformed on the matter of an infamous German pedophile priest. A spokesman for the Munich archdiocese said Friday that Ratzinger, running the diocese three decades ago, would not have read the memo sent to him about Father Peter Hullermann's getting cycled back into work with children because between 700 to 1,000 memos go to the archbishop each year.
Let's see. That's two or three memos a day. And Ratzinger was renowned at the Vatican for poring through voluminous, recondite theological treaties.
Because he did not defrock the demented Murphy, it's time to bring in the frocks.
Pope Benedict has continued the church's ban on female priests and is adamant against priests' having wives. As a cardinal he wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners.
But the paternalistic and autocratic culture of Il Papa led to an insular, exclusionary system that became a corrosive shelter for secrets and shame.
If the church could invite women to be priests, nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry, if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children, it might survive. .
Ratzinger devoted his Vatican career to rooting out any hint of what he considered deviance. The problem is, he was obsessed with enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy and somehow missed the graver danger to the most vulnerable members of the flock.
The sin-crazed "Rottweiler" was so consumed with sexual mores — issuing instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion — that he didn't make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests.
American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years, opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion wasn't vehement enough, and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research. They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who aren't yet born.
Decade after decade, the church hid its sordid crimes, enabling the collared perpetrators instead of letting the police collar them. In the case of the infamous German priest, one diocese official hinted that his problem could be fixed by transferring him to a girls' school. Either they figured that he would not be tempted, or worse, the church was even less concerned about putting little girls at risk.
The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests. And this is a historic mess. Benedict should go home to Bavaria. And the cardinals should send the white smoke up the chimney, proclaiming Habemus Mama.
© New York Times News Service