Attorney Jeff Anderson Leaked Benedict-Milwaukee Sex Abuse Story to New York Times

Jeff Anderson has long been a very active person attacking the alleged "medievalism" and culture of "secrecy" of the Catholic Chuch. Now he's been responsible for conspiring with Pinchy Sulzberger's very anti-Catholic New York Times in the latest Milwaukee press release involving that old abusing boogey man hinmself, Arcbishop Rembert Weakland.

Standing beside a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr., the increasingly vocal antagonist of the Catholic Church has shown himself to have a reach extending beyond the street and quiet graceful neighborhoods of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jeff Anderson's Crusade Against the Catholic Church

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jeff Anderson has filed thousands of lawsuits alleging sex abuse by priests and won tens of millions of dollars for his clients, but he has had a bigger goal in mind for nearly two decades. He wants to bring his career-long legal crusade against misconduct in the Roman Catholic Church right to the top. He would love to question Pope Benedict XVI himself under oath. Though that is extremely unlikely given that the pope is a head of state, documents Anderson has unearthed have the potential to take a scandal that has plagued dozens of dioceses around the world and place it at the doorstep of Vatican leadership. The documents, which became publicly known in the past week after Anderson shared them with The New York Times, show that a Vatican office led by the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, halted a church trial against a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting some 200 boys at a school for the deaf. “This is a tipping point,” Anderson said. He found the documents in handling one of the dozens of lawsuits he has pending against various church officials, and hopes to use them to bolster a separate federal lawsuit against the Vatican itself. Since 1983, Anderson and the five other attorneys at his downtown St. Paul firm have sued thousands of Catholic priests, bishops, and dioceses over allegations of sexual abuse by priests and other church leaders. He claims to have no idea how much he has won in settlements; in 2002 he estimated that it was around $60 million. “It’s not about the money,” Anderson told The Associated Press. The self-described “former atheist” who rediscovered faith in God through his recovery from alcoholism professes a deep empathy with abuse victims – he calls them “survivors.” More than a decade after his legal battles with church officials began, Anderson’s adult daughter revealed that as an 8-year-old she was molested by a therapist she was seeing as Anderson and his first wife were going through a divorce. The therapist, Anderson said, was a former Catholic priest. Anderson, 62, said the pain of that revelation “brought another dimension to the experience.” But he said he concluded years earlier that the responsibility for shuffling around problem priests and covering up their indiscretions would extend to the Vatican. “I came to the stark realization that the problems were really endemic to the clerical culture, and all the problems we are having in the U.S. led back to Rome,” Anderson said. “And I realized nothing was going to fundamentally change until they did.” The Wisconsin documents tie Benedict, who as cardinal led the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to the decision in the mid-1990s not to defrock the Rev. Lawrence Murphy despite allegations that the Milwaukee priest molested some 200 deaf boys from 1950 to 1975. The Vatican is defending that decision, saying the case reached the Vatican only in 1996, two years before Murphy died. Church officials also say Murphy had repented in a letter to Ratzinger, and that the case’s statute of limitations had run out. They decry criticism over the case as an effort to smear the pope. The Milwaukee lawsuit does not name Pope Benedict or other Vatican leaders as defendants, but Anderson hopes to use it to bolster a separate lawsuit filed eight years ago in U.S. District Court in Oregon. In that case, an unidentified plaintiff claims he was sexually abused as a teenager in 1965 or 1966 by the Rev. Andrew Ronan at St. Albert’s Church in Portland, Ore. According to court documents, Ronan was accused of abusing boys in the mid-1950s as a priest in the Archdiocese of Armagh, Ireland. He was transferred to Chicago, where he admitted abusing three boys at St. Philip’s High School, and after that was sent to Oregon. The church removed Ronan from the priesthood in 1966. He died in 1982. The lawsuit says the Vatican had to approve the international transfer. The Holy See claims it is protected by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which prohibits U.S. lawsuits against foreign countries. Several lower courts have produced differing rulings on the suit, and the Holy See has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the question. The high court has not decided whether it will hear the case. Anderson said his legal team will attempt to use documents from the Milwaukee lawsuit to show the Vatican was heavily involved in decisions about how to deal with problem priests. Legal scholars have long been skeptical of Anderson’s chances of penetrating the Vatican’s foreign sovereignty. He said it may be difficult to persuade judges to consider documents from another lawsuit, but added that he feels “closer than we’ve ever been before.” “If there’s anyone to press this case, it’s Jeff,” said David Clohessy, national director for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a longtime ally of Anderson. “Jeff doesn’t get sole credit, and he wouldn’t claim it, but he was among the very first to see the magnitude of this cover-up and is still among the most dedicated to its undoing.” Jeffrey Lena, the Berkeley, Calif.-based attorney for the Holy See in the Oregon case, declined to comment for this story. Andrew Eisenzimmer, a lawyer for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, has sparred frequently with Anderson and declined to be interviewed. In earlier interviews with the AP, he described Anderson as “prone to exaggeration” but also said he’s been undeniably successful. Anderson has always had a flair for the public relations aspect of his work, and a visit to his office the day after the Milwaukee story broke found him fielding interview requests from numerous media outlets as lawyers and researchers combed through documents on the large, dark wood table in his office. Anderson was raised Lutheran and his first wedding was in the Catholic Church, though he said his spiritual journey no longer involves church attendance. His office, however, is full of religiously symbolic art and sculpture, as well as items salvaged from churches – including a kneeler and confessional booths. Anderson downplays the significance of the Christian objects, pointing out he also displays Buddhist and Native American religious relics. “I like religious iconography,” he said.

Read further...

Televised Press Conference by Jeff Anderson:

Maine Rag Accuses Diocese of Uncharity for Cancelling CCHD Grants

Catholic Charities and social justice types have done a good job in general of convincing people that they care about the poor, but they haven't actually done very well at either their stated task or being true to the name, Catholic. They are like thieves who blame society for their larceny and rage, "how dare they hold us accountable for being anti-Caholic!"

Here's another attempt to misinform the public, in the liberal Demorat (Can there be any other kind of Democrat?) accusation that it is the party of the poor, since they're pretty good at extorting money from individuals to pay for their charity.

Disagree with us, and we’ll punish the poor. That’s the attitude of the Catholic Diocese of Portland, Maine and the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) in Washington, D.C. In an act of pure spite, the two groups have withdrawn their funds from Homeless Voices for Justice (HVJ), a Portland-based social service agency that serves the poor - because its fiscal sponsor, Preble Street Resources Center, came out against an antigay marriage initiative that was on the Maine ballot last fall. The Church championed that homophobic proposition.

HVJ had nothing to do with Preble Street’s stance on gay marriage. Its members voted not to take a stand on the measure, which successfully overturned Maine’s gay marriage law.

The staff of Preble Street decided to support efforts to defeat the antigay referendum because homophobia is a leading cause of queer youth homelessness in their city (as it is here in San Francisco). Preble Street joined with other social service providers in denouncing the measure.

Read further...

After the abuse scandals, EU takes action on child pornography.

After the abuse scandals, EU takes action on child pornography.

Church to celebrate feast of long-time prostitute turned hermit :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Church to celebrate feast of long-time prostitute turned hermit :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

FOXNews.com - Homicide Bombers Kill 37 on Moscow Subway

FOXNews.com - Homicide Bombers Kill 37 on Moscow Subway

Posted using ShareThis

Personal Aside: It’s the Lavender Priesthood that Causes Catholic Church Scandals—but Nobody Wants to Say So.

In reality, The Wanderer, New Oxford Review, Catholic Order among oters have been saying just this for years.

The Lavender Emerges.

Largely the institutional laxity of curia and diocesan functionaries is responsible for undue toleration of the Lavender Priesthood including failure to discipline the seminaries, religious orders and so-called “Catholic” universities…due to a largely absentee and compliant papacy, aided by weak, bishops, putty in the hands of their bureaucracies —dominated by a mindset that prattles “we must not allow scandal that engulfs the Church to scandalize the world.” Important: not all homosexuals are child abusers—but all child abusers…especially of little boys…are homosexuals. Spurious so-called statistics from the psychological industry are politically correct accommodations.

Permissiveness of the Lavender Priesthood has been… and will continue to be… disastrous unless it is corrected immediately. The toleration and winking at it…as with the case of the Chicago jailed pedophile ex-priest Dan McCormack where the then rector of Mundelein told the Sun-Times he would ordain McCormack yet again…and went from there to auxiliary bishop of Chicago…bishop of Tucson and number two in the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—soon to be number one…while the paper’s religious reporter was let go since after its publication she could get no archdiocesan spokesman to return her call--is inexcusable…and shows that in pushing her out, the ultra-liberal paper collaborated with the archdiocese.
--That and the fact that the p. r. spokesman for the archdiocese was quoted as telling the press “well, he didn’t rape anybody”. How’d you like to have your 8-year-old boy sexually fondled and hear that comment?

Link to Tom Roeser....

Pope John Paul II ignored Ratzinger's pleas to pursue sex abuse cardinal

Cardial Schoenborn's defens actually hearkens back to a scene in Father Malachi Martin's, The Jesuits, where then Cardinal Ratzinger was presenting John Paul II with a list of problematic reports from various places and John Paul II didn't want to act, and actually shouted at the then Cardinal of the CDF.

Pope John Paul II ignored Ratzinger's pleas to pursue sex abuse cardinal

Meet Fr. Mike Papesh!

Here's the blurb:

Award winning author, Diocesan Director, Priest, Scholar Michael Papesh is a presbyter of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He has served in parishes as parochial vicar, weekend assistant, principal, CRE and pastor; in seminary spiritual formation at the undergraduate and graduate school levels; and on numerous diocesan committees and boards related to priestly life and ministry. He also spent five years as a layman in campus ministry before ordination. He is author of Good News Parish Leadership from Twenty-Third Publications, and of Clerical Culture: Contradiction and Transformation from The Liturgical Press, as well as articles on clerical culture and liturgical presiding. He has won two Catholic Press Association Awards, one for Clerical Culture and one for Good News Parish Leadership. He is currently Director for Lifelong Catechesis, Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado.

Here's his non-solution for the problem with sex abuse, coupled with a non-diagnosis from New Oxford Review in 2002. But wait, this is why there's a vocations crisis, because these are, we're told, the cream of the crop:

By now you’ve probably heard every conceivable remedy — and quack remedy — for the priestly sex scandals.

Bet you haven’t heard this one: Writing in the Jesuit weekly America (May 13), Fr. Michael L. Papesh blames the scandals on “a repressive clerical culture” and says the remedy is for priests to get together for “forthright, discerning and free discussions about male sexuality.”

Fr. Papesh, who was ordained in 1983, takes us back to his years as a seminarian: “When a friend was propositioned by a priest one evening, my friend winked and we winked. Even when, after being plied with alcohol, I was sexually assaulted, I winked. My seminarian friends winked…. Before I was 19, I learned that when it came to sexual matters, the clerical culture winked.”

Fr. Papesh doesn’t like the winking, nor do we. But his remedy is zany: “open discussion about sexual curiosity, orientation, experience, joy, fear and anxiety” among priests.

Child abuse scandal is war 'between church and world', says Italian bishop

Allegations of cover-up reach Pope in case of abusive priest who was assigned pastoral work

Members of Snap, an American group that supports those who have been abused by priests, at a demonstration in front of the Vatican.

Pope Benedict was today accused of being involved in the mishandling of the case of a child-abusing priest in his former archdiocese of Munich, an allegation which directly links him to the burgeoning scandal in the Catholic church.

The accusation, which has been only partly denied by church representatives, cast a deep shadow over the pontiff's approaching visit to Britain. It also elicited heated protests from Roman Catholic leaders and Italian politicians.

Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said on his Facebook site that the pope was being subjected to "scandalous and disgraceful" attacks. One churchman, Antonio Riboldi, the emeritus bishop of Acerra, declared that it marked the start of a war "between the church and the world; between Satan and God".

Link to original...

When Skateboards Are Free

What you have is a classical Marxist household with the Father deserting the family, the Mother so inculcated in the movement that she couldn't put her son's welfare before that of the party's. The interesting thing about this is that people having read this might think that socialism is no longer the boogeyman it once was because one corner of the International movement is no longer as active, or credited with as much historical significance as it appears.

If these organizations are no longer relevant or as active as they once were, it is because the Communists have successfully infiltrated for a long time significant portions of the government, media, military and education to have accomplished virtually all of the goals set forth by Karl Marx in the first place.

One of the few things it hasn't accomplished is the effective dismantling of the Catholic Church, which still stands in its way those issues which it considers practically above holding political power itself.

A month after novelist Zoe Heller’s The Believers sketched a family of sniping New York socialists, Said Sayrafiezadeh is coming out with the real thing. When Skateboards Will Be Free is the 40-year-old playwright’s unsparing memoir of growing up in the shadow of the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party — an Iranian-born father who abandoned him and Mom in the name of permanent revolution (and for another woman), and an American-Jewish mother who gave decades of her life and happiness to the party before finally breaking ties. Sayrafiezadeh, who hasn’t heard from his father since first telling all in Granta, spoke with Vulture about his father fixation, his battle with kleptomania, and his well-earned political apathy.

Do you think your life might have turned out differently if your parents hadn’t become Trotskyites?

I think it would have been the same. They were just two young, incomplete people who didn’t know what they were doing, had their own demons, and then were being inflamed by a political philosophy that says family is not important, home is not important, the only thing that matters in this world is the worker’s revolution.

Read more...

Clergy abuse threatens to tarnish pope's legacy

This could well spell the end of the cause for John Paul II's beatification.

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON
The Associated Press
Friday, March 26, 2010; 9:06 PM



VATICAN CITY -- The Vatican is facing one of its gravest crises of modern times as sex abuse scandals move ever closer to Pope Benedict XVI - threatening not only his own legacy but also that of his revered predecessor.

Benedict took a much harder stance on sex abuse than John Paul II when he assumed the papacy five years ago, disciplining a senior cleric championed by the Polish pontiff and defrocking others under a new policy of zero tolerance.

But the impression remains of a woefully slow-footed church and of a pope who bears responsibility for allowing pedophile priests to keep their parishes.

In an editorial on Friday, the National Catholic Reporter in the United States called on Benedict to answer questions about his role "in the mismanagement" of sex abuse cases, not only in the current crisis but during his tenure in the 1980s as archbishop of Munich and then as head of the Vatican's doctrinal and disciplinary office.

Read further...

A Jewish Knight's Support for Pope Pius XII

Currents

Contentious is one way to describe the debate surrounding the life of Pope Pius XII. Critics claim he did not do enough to save Jews during World War II. And recently, a group of Catholic scholars sent a letter to Pope Benedict – asking him to “slow down” the process for Pius’s canonization.

Support for Pope Pius XII – 3/16/10 : Currents

Support for Pope Pius XII – 3/16/10 : Currents

Support for Pope Pius XII – 3/16/10 : Currents

Church Against the Right

More than 1,000 participants from Church and other community groups are protesting this Saturday and Lubeck in a countermarch against "right-extremists" According to the report in Lubecker "Propstreikirche Herz Jesu" the Hamburg Archbishop Werner Theisen warned of antagonism to immigrants. Refugees must be able to find a home in Germany, "as this has happened even after the end of the Second World War", maintains Thissen. "We are going then to the streets, so that the ""other" and the foreigner may not be persecuted, rather experience friendly welcome.", said the Archbishop. - This "right-extremist" demonstratsion falls upon the bombing of Lubeck in March 1942.

Link to original...

Muslim Inmates in Britain's Prison System Enforce Sharia

Officers at Britain’s high-security Long Lartin Jail have received reports of Muslim inmates forcing younger inmates to convert to Islam, while a Muslim gang has begun to enforce sharia law in the prison. The report says a similar gang culture is brewing at other high-security prisons in the UK, reports Christian Concern for our Nation.

Speaking to Radio Five Live’s Donal Macintyre show, an officer from the prison told how younger prisoners were targeted for forced conversion to Islam by the Muslim gangs.

‘They went along because they were intimidated. They genuinely weren’t of the Muslim faith. I knew one lad quite well, who was approached by the radical Muslims and he changed. He was being controlled and bossed around and he wasn’t even allowed to look at me or speak to me.

Link to original...

Pro-gay marriage CCHD group de-funded

Now, we're starting to see some results.

March 26, 2010

American Life League had made the USCCB and Portland Diocese aware that an organization called Preble Street, which was supposed to help the homeless, also actively lobbied in favor of gay marriage. The group had been receiving CCHD grants for some time, and was scheduled to receive $50,000 this year. The Portland Diocese just announced that they are pulling this funding. That’s good.

What is not good is that the USCCB and Bishop Morin, who heads the part of USCCB that oversees CCHD, continue to react with hostility whenever ALL or any other group points out these problematic CCHD grantees. Several months after ALL will point out these groups that don’t support Church doctrine or actively work against it, funding will be quietly pulled, then more groups will be found, Morin will feign outrage, and then quietly defund those again. On and on ad infinitum. Meanwhile, more and more Catholics are losing faith in many of the charitable organizations with ties to the USCCB and are either reducing donations or not giving at all. We need strong leadership from Bishop Morin and/or the USCCB to finally put an end to these really poor CCHD practices. I, for one, shall not hold my breath.

Dallas Catholic Blog...

The Ayn Rand follies - The New Criterion

The Ayn Rand follies - The New Criterion

Cardinal Ratzinger acted powerfully against abusers, says Archbishop Vincent Nichols

Cardinal Ratzinger acted powerfully against abusers, says Archbishop Vincent Nichols

SNAP Arrested in Rome

March 25, 2010 (ROME) (WLS) -- As Pope Benedict XVI pleaded his own public innocence in the latest allegations of a Vatican sex scandal cover-up, four top leaders of a Chicago-based group for the victims of clerical sex abuse were detained by police.


Barbara Blaine, Peter Isely, John Pilmaier and Barbara Dorris from the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) were detained by Vatican City police after holding an "unauthorized" demonstration on the edge of St Peter's Square.

They were mid-conversation with news reporters during a protest against decades of Church "silence" when uniformed officers took them away in a police car. Before being detained the group hoisted banners and placards reading "Stop the secrecy now" and "Expose the truth."

Link ....

Conway Concerned with Homosexuals in the Barracks

They seem to be resigned to the fact that this is something which will happen.

The Marine Corps' top officer said March 25 that even if the ban on openly-serving gays in the services is lifted, he would draw the line at forcing heterosexual Marines to bunk with gays on base.

"We want to continue [two-person rooms], but I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual if we can possibly avoid it," Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway told Military.com during an exclusive interview at the Pentagon. "And to me that means we have to build BEQs [bachelor enlisted quarters] and have single rooms."

Conway's comments came the same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates reprimanded the Army's Pacific commander for publicly exhorting servicemembers and civilians to write to Congress to oppose repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Army Lt. Gen. Benjamin Mixon made his views known in a letter published in Stars and Stripes on March 8.

Link to military today...

The Death of Math

At some point in the early 20th Century, America started to become enslaved to educational ideas that swept in from the East. These ideas are meant to make slaves of Americans by retarding their educations.

With the Boomer Revolution came the reinvention of everything we used to take for granted. The first old guard institution they decided to shut down was, “Doing the math.” Now we have New Math and the word “Science” applies to everything from astrology to having your hair done. You can take classes in “How to be Gay,” “What not to Wear,” and “The History of Feminist Tweets.”

Of course, the side effect of all this “Nobody’s Wrong” culture is “Everybody’s Correct”—even dropouts like Michael Moore, Sean Penn, and Janeane Garofalo. You can say anything is a life-threatening epidemic because nobody took real math after freshman year of high school so nobody knows how much is too much. All of a sudden, people who did water colors of farts in college are telling you: how steel behaves under certain temperatures, how CO2 affects the global environment, how investment firms need to deal with bundled mortgages, and their favorite parts of a 2,300 page health care bill.

These same people believe: CEOs are the ones taking all our money, we need to pay more tax, our schools are underfunded, and our children aren’t safe

Link to Taki's...

ADL'S Foxman Under Attack

Goldberg is awesome. He smokes Foxman again! Now if someone would take on other legal hucksters of this kind.

The prestige of Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has never been lower. A recent biting article by J. J. Goldberg in the Jewish Forward reveals that criticism of Foxman continues to expand, especially from leaders of the American Jewish community. Increasingly, American Jewish intellectuals fear that Foxman, while decrying the anti-Obama “paranoia” of the religious right, may be a victim of his own paranoid obsession with anti-Semitism where it doesn’t exist. (See Goldberg article Foxman Fever Doesn’t Discriminate)

Goldberg: “Foxman is the country’s most prolific anti-Semitism spotter, the gestalt guy who sees Jew-haters under every bed and invents them if he can’t find them.” He writes of respected journalist James Traub’s 2007 New York Times Magazine profile:

In his telling, Foxman is “the hanging-judge of anti-Semitism,” an “anachronism” who continues to “harp on Jewish insecurity” in a world where Jews have become “the most widely admired religious group in America, as well as the most successful.” Portraying him as a blustering alarmist, Traub seemed bemused by Foxman’s warnings about “jihadist” anti-Semitism as a serious threat in today’s world and troubled by Foxman’s focus on “good for the Jews, bad for the Jews” to the exclusion of broader goals of “promoting tolerance and diversity.”

Goldberg says this critique is abounding.

Link to NPN...

Whoever sows hatred of the Church, will reap damaged Churches

The first effects of the media reports? -In Bavaria there are reports of more vandalizations of Churches.

Dinkelsbühl (kath.net/KNA) In the middle franconian hamlet where the consecrated remains of the of the Martyr Aurelius rests in a Shrine at St. George Minster, vandal(s) tore him from his glass shrine and twisted his left leg. In the upper Bavarian Bad Aibling a suspect used a songbook as toilette paper and smeared it with feces. He also urinated in the church.

In Oberpolling at Passau on the following Saturday at the daughter church, St. Hartmann, prayer books, an altar cloth, pews and clock counterweight were lit on fire, and windows were also broken. Blind destruction on the weekend visited also a lea cross in the lower Bavarian crossroads at Kelheim. The three meter high Christ figure in the Sandharlandener Meadow by Abensberg had its arms and legs struck off. Weidener detectives have become involved due to the heavy arson in a church in upper Pfalz, Bärnau. Damages for the more than eight days of acts are estimated at 30,000 Euros.

There's a petition you may sign at Ja! zur KIRCHE on facebook.

I'm not the Messiah, Says Food Activist

The trouble started when Raj Patel appeared on American TV to plug his latest book, an analysis of the financial crisis called The Value of Nothing.

The London-born author, 37, thought his slot on comedy talkshow The Colbert Report went well enough: the host made a few jokes, Patel talked a little about his work and then, job done, he went back to his home in San Francisco.

Shortly afterwards, however, things took a strange turn. Over the course of a couple of days, cryptic messages started filling his inbox.


Link to Guardian...

Bishop Weakland says Pope Wasn't Aware of Case

The guy that the BBC was calling the Sex Scandal Bishop back in 2002 is being interviewed by the CBC. In the interview he admitted that Pope Benedict didn't know much about what was going on and wasn't very involved in these processes when they were ongoing.

Unfortunately, +Weakland stretches credulity a bit. You don't need to contact Rome to suspend someone a divinis, indeed, such a priest is automatically excommunicated, so it's interesting that +Weakland, who's never been very credible anyway, would make the claim that the Vatican was slow to react on many different issues, which may be true, but they were pretty quick to suspend Father Gruner or Father Leonard Feeney.

Link to CBC...

The Crimes of Modernism Healed by Penance: The Real Import of Benedict's Letter

Christ said to the adulterous woman, "do penance and sin no more". Despite this message of redemption and the elevation of womankind which the Church has promulgated, defended and taught the world for centuries, the villainous media expects a pound of flesh from the Church, a Church which has always preached penance for sins. It remains unclear what punishments those behind the media blitzkrieg have in store for the Church, its adherants and ministers. Perhaps it will be content to preserve the deceptive mercenaries who are its own chaplains within Its bosom? But the Church is surely being persectuted elsewhere as it is from Iraq to California. Like the Bishops' Conferences throughout the world, those who hate the Church and have power, no doubt must have in the back of their collective mind some sort of legislation. At last; Herod in the West would feel bold enough to murder grown men, and not be satisfied with helpless babes as he is now.

Benedict XVI made promises to clean up the filth in the beginning of his pontificate. He's been doing that. Homosexual priests who are caught are dismissed and increasingly, Bishops and pastors hostile to Orthodoxy are being sent out to pasture, early, to be replaced by Bishops and priests who are Catholic, who don't give fawning interviews to the international press telling people how they struggle with what Rome expects of them.

The following article by Sandro Magister deals with the issue of the sexual revolution which came (like nouveau theologie) out of the post-war years with new musical styles and ways of living facilitated by personal transportation and mechanization.

Along with the plastic and radiation of the post-war years, there came cultural novelties dealing with psychology and sexuality. Like bad parents, many Bishops and priests succumbed to the spirit of the age and introduced these novelties with the conspicuous and damnable results we're experiencing today.

There are many now pointing an accusing finger at the Church for the failure of some of its ministers in sexual morality, who would not like the penitential antidote fitting for bad parents of all kinds, the kinds of penitential practices suggested by our current Pope have long been suppressed in deed if not by law in many Diocese throughout the world.

If good can come out of evil, it is that many, to include the laity, are called this year to beg God's forgiveness and make reparations for the crimes committed because we omitted to do what was demanded by justice as parents and leaders, or because we broke God's law and thought we could escape His wrath.

The Genesis of a Crime

Genesis of a Crime. The Revolution of the 1960's. The scandal of pedophilia has always been there, but it was magnified by the cultural revolution of half a century ago. Benedict XVI makes the claim in his letter to the Catholics of Ireland. Two cardinals and a sociologist comment

by Sandro Magister

ROME, March 25, 2010 – Law and grace. Where earthly justice does not reach, the hand of God can. With his letter dated March 19, Benedict XVI has given the Catholics of Ireland an order never before given by a pope of the modern era to an entire national Church.

He told them not only to bring the guilty before the canonical and civil courts, but to put themselves collectively in a state of penance and purification. And not in the privacy of their consciences, but in a public form, before the eyes of all, even of their most implacable and mocking adversaries. Fasting, prayer, reading the Bible, and works of charity on all the Fridays from now until Easter of next year. Frequent sacramental confession. Continual adoration of Jesus – " himself a victim of injustice and sin" – present in the sacred host, exposed on the altars of the churches. And for all the bishops, priests, and religious, without exception, a special period of "mission," a long and strict course of spiritual exercises for a radical review of life.

Link to Chiesa...

Bill Donahue Promotes New Book on CNN

Editor's note: Bill Donohue is president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and author of four books, including "Secular Sabotage: How Liberals are Destroying Religion and Culture in America."

New York (CNN) -- The rash of stories about priestly sexual abuse in Europe, especially in Ireland and Germany, has put many Catholics on the defensive. They should not be. While sexual molestation of any kind is always indefensible, the politics surrounding this story is also indefensible.

Employers from every walk of life, in both the U.S. and Europe, have long handled cases of alleged sex abuse by employees as an internal matter. Rarely have employers called the cops, and none was required to do so.

Link to CNN...

A Response to Christopher Hitchens' 'The Great Catholic Coverup'

A Response to Christopher Hitchens' 'The Great Catholic Coverup'

George Weigel Likes Pope Benedict's Letter

In a March 20 pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI vigorously condemned the physical and sexual abuse of “children and vulnerable young people” in which Irish priests and religious women had engaged for decades, and mandated an Apostolic Visitation of various segments of the Irish Church.

The visitation seems likely to result in major changes in the Church’s leadership in what was once one of the world’s most intensely Catholic countries, and is now one of the centers of aggressive secularism in Europe. “Sinful and criminal acts” against the young “and the way Church authorities dealt with them” are, the Pope suggests, among the reasons that Irish Catholicism has imploded in recent decades. And Benedict does not hesitate to draw the necessary conclusion from that analysis — radical reform is the only path back to a vital and vibrant Catholic Church in the land of St. Patrick.

There is very little euphemism in Benedict’s pastoral letter; its language is both unprecedented and unsparing, as is its candor about the failures of bishops in dealing with abuse. Abusing priests and religious women are told, bluntly, that “you betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals.” Moreover, the Pope writes to the abusers, “you have forfeited the esteem of the people of Ireland and have brought shame and dishonor upon your confreres. Those of you who are priests violated the sanctity of the sacrament of Holy Orders in which Christ makes himself present in us and in our actions” — which is to say, you have profaned holy things.

Link to original...

Glenn Beck on Marxist Ministers

Glenn Beck is so right about the American Catholic Church; he's wrong about Catholicism and politics, however, contrary to what he says, it would be great if an orthodox (how sad that we have to specify that nowadays) Catholic priest made public policy. Wouldn't it be nice though, if instead of promoting socialist causes, that the Catholic Bishops in America just did their jobs? They really have, for the most part, aligned themselves with certain Devils with Washington addresses who insist on telling us that the government extorting money from taxpayers amounts to what was taught in the Gospels. Never mind that they can't convince most Christians that abortion for everyone who wants one isn't something the Gospels would have taught either, but the American people are gullible. They've been acquiescing to the tyrannous whims of our Marxist-Leninist masters and mistresses for a very, very long time. It's high time, even if it has to come from a non-Catholic, that someone actually took the USCCB to task for this and was paid attention to.

Some of us have been mentioning this for years. Still, the USCCB loves to make ineffectual statements from time to time on behalf of liberal causes.

[Foxnews] GLENN BECK, HOST: I know it seems like I'm off the rails today because I'm not talking specifically about education or immigration or health care. But this is — this is the — this is the kind of show that makes you understand the news and understand what's coming.

There is another attack coming now on me. And I'm not responding to the attack. I have to tell you the truth.

But I want you to know what the truth is, from me first. Because I have yet another, a close Obama adviser — first it was Van Jones that started a campaign against me. And now, it's a new one. Reverend Jim Wallis is starting a campaign against me.

Link to original...

Archdiocese of San Francisco Paper Drops a Bomb - Today

At last, a Diocesan apparachik admits the truth that Catholic hospitals provide abortions, thanks to the Fifth Columnists who run it for the benefit of something wicked this way coming.

h/t: Father Z (who never criticizes the Diocesan organs or their leaders, but can't resist taking shots at radicals outside of that protective dome. Here, we can both agree with the authorities and avoid any undue scruples about being disloyal.)

Archdiocese of San Francisco Paper Drops a Bomb - Today

NARAL Supporting Socialist Chancellor of Portland Promotes Judaism

The premise of interfaith dialogue of the kind we are seeing here is that it's supposed to make us more "comfortable" with each other and more "tolerant" of our differences. The unspoken conclusion is that our beliefs don't actually matter, and it's not a suprising conclusion considering that the organizer of the event is an advocate for NARAL, socialist moveon.org, hommosexual enabling Oregon Catholic Press for which she's a boardmember and a really bad Catechism which diocesan funds no doubt purchase to disedify children when they are unfortunate enough to enter one of Portland's religious education programs.

Mary Jo Tully, a modernist who bosses Bishops around, who connects Catholics with moveon.org and NARAL is also connecting Catholic seminarians to a Jewish Rabbi who presumes to teach them about the importance of the Seder meal. At one point he erroneously asserts that for Jews the celebration of the liberation from Egypt is as "earthshaking for Jews as the Resurrection is for Christians". Actually, the liberation from Egypt is a prefiguration of the Resurrection, which the Jews reject. What the Rabbi doesn't discuss, and most likely isn't asked, is whether or not the Jews will apologize for the slurs against Our Lord and His Mother contained in their Talmud, the stoning of St. Stephen, or how they call non-Jews, goyim.

But, the sheepish seminarians will be herded in for the meal and will have to sit quietly and politely, while the Rabbi makes them more confused and easily manipulated than before.

Incidentally, Oregon is one of the most liberal States in the Union and it's also, coincidently, leading the Union in Sex Abuse claims against the Catholic Church.

Seminarians experience a key Jewish rite

by Ed Langlois

ST. BENEDICT — As the sun set and Mount Hood glowed in the distance, more than 130 students from Mount Angel Seminary sat shyly to pay heed to a rabbi. Within two hours, the future priests were singing traditional Jewish songs with gusto and giving Rabbi Daniel Issak thankful embraces.

Rabbi Issak, leader of Congregation Neveh Shalom in Southwest Portland, accepted an invitation to lead a Passover Seder at the place where Catholic priests are formed.

The ritual meal commemorates the liberation of the Israelities from Egypt. Rabbi Isaak explained that the historical release from bondage is as earthshaking for Jews as the resurrection of Jesus is for Christians.

Link to Portland's Diocesan Paper....

Eyewitness Account of Cardinal Mahony's Opening Liturgy for Religious Education Conference

Well, Oregon Catholic Press was there, and that says a lot. As one blog commenter mentioned, even if this does appear to be trendy, the youth aren't terribly interested, but one of the speakers seems to have an antidote for that, or not.

We're so used to there not being Catholic Speakers at the Cardinal's amazingly heterodox gatherings that we might never think to ask whether or not there was actually someone present who believes and teaches the Catholic Faith in its perfection.

Surely, when the Cardinal's not advocating for "social justice" what else would he be doing, besides planning on avoiding taking any responsibillity for the sex abuse scandal which is a direct result of him protecting his homosexual confreres who preyed on children; mostly boys.

What's even more amazing is that he's allowed to perpetuate the illusion while being responsible for almost $660 Million Dollars in sex abuse claims with more than 508 victims.

It should be more than an idle suggestion that the following account is upbeat, positive and supportive of the Cardinal, since the Benedictine Abbey in Collegevill has the same problem and has thus far, like +Mahony and his modernist confreres and supporters in LA, managed to diffuse any criticism and enjoy the harvest amid their elderly and overly credulous patrons and collaborators in politics and the media.

Ok, it's true, we admit it. Despite promulgating a campy little blog designed to celebrate the diversity at the Modernist Monastery, when they're not promoting Planned Parenthood, protecting evil child molesters, dispensing psychological advice under false pretenses, making hideous music,devoting themselves to collecting waterford crystal and executing ugly modern art, they're doing things like throwing light on the evil which is Cardinal Mahony.


From the "Pray, Tell" blog...

“In-cre-í-ble,” called the cantor, in Spanish. A barely audible and somewhat confused response came from some members of the gathered assembly. “A-bun-dan-cia,” called the cantor. “¿A-bun-dan-cia?,” responded some of the assembly, almost questioningly. Perhaps it was because people were distracted by the parade of Asian drummers ascending the stage in their colorful costumes of blue, red, green, yellow and gold. Or maybe they were still working out what the spiraled and curved figures hanging from the ceiling were intended to represent. In any case, thus began, hesitatingly, the opening session of the Los Angeles Religious Education Conference 2010.

Once it got going, however, as the drummers were drumming, and the dancers processed, lifting and swirling with flaming braziers in their hands, it was clear that something exciting was under way. I confess that, for a few moments, it seemed to me like the world’s biggest pep rally, what with all those drums, and the cheers that went up when they finished! We sang of being the “pueblo de Dios,” the people of God, and Cardinal Mahony opened the conference officially with the Sign of the Cross and a prayer.

A reading of Romans 8:35-39 reminded us that neither death, nor life, nor anything else can ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The power of this reading was hindered somewhat, in my opinion, by the technique using two lectors to deliver the text in alternating phrases of English and Spanish. I speak both languages fluently, but still found the movement back and forth between the two in phrases and half sentences somewhat distracting. Our response to the reading was a song by Steve Angrisano, Falling Into You—a beautiful melody that made me want to sing (though the rhythm was very syncopated and a little difficult), with words that reminded me, at least, of Psalms 139 and 116.

Sister Edith Prendergast, RSC, Director of the Office of Religious Education for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, delivered an inspiring reflection that set the stage for the conference. We were encouraged to make the weekend, and indeed all of life, a celebration of God’s incredible abundance—of love for creation, abundance in joy, abundance in sorrow, abundance in beauty, abundance in disadvantage. We were reminded of God’s presence in all of creation, at all times, and challenged to look for God, even in those places or situations where we least expect to find the divine presence, remembering that God’s love enfolds no matter the time, the place, or the circumstance, just as St. Paul tells us in his letter to the Romans.

Given this message, maybe the pep rally atmosphere at the beginning of the opening rite was more appropriate than I had thought at the time. Perhaps I need that motivation to remind me of the presence and the love of God all around me, all day long. As I head out to another day, my challenge is to try to fall into God’s love, to let it wrap around me like a blanket, so I’m forced to be aware of it. It is not a tent to shelter me, where I shouldn’t get too close to its walls. It fabric is incredibly abundant—there’s enough to go around for everyone, if we allow ourselves to be wrapped in it.

Brother Aelred Senna, OSB
Saint John’s Abbey

Jesuit Georgetown University Student Government Votes to Fund Pro-Abortion Panel

If one belonged to one organizaiton that had very strong and principled opposition to a certain practice, to which one gives at least nominal assent to by one's public witness, and one belonged to another organization which contravened those principles by its frequent dissent and contempt for them, one would have to chose sides, but then, if one didn't, one would probably be a Jesuit. They have an excuse for everything.

Georgetown University Student Government Votes to Fund Pro-Abortion Panel

Mainstream Muslims Burn Christian Alive for Refusing to Convert

Islamabad (AsiaNews) – Arshed Masih, 38, is still fighting for his life in Holy Family Hospital in Rawalpindi, a city not far from Pakistan’s capital. With the help of police, Muslim extremists last Friday set him on fire for refusing to convert to Islam and raped his wife, local sources told AsiaNews. The incident occurred in front of a local police station.

In 2005, Masih and his wife began working for a wealthy Muslim businessman, he as driver and she as his wife’s maid. Recently, the two fell out of favour with their employer and his family because they insisted on remaining Christian.

During the incident, Masih’s wife, Martha, “was raped by police agents,” local sources said. The couple’s three children, ranging in age from 7 and 12, were forced to watch their parents being brutalised.

“Masih and his wife are currently being treated in hospital,” Holy Family Hospital officials said. “He was listed in serious condition with about 80 per cent of his body burned,” the BosNewsLife agency reported. With that kind of burns, hospital officials said the 38-year-old victim (pictured) is not likely to survive.

Link to Asia News...

Real Catholics Upset Rabbi's Talk at Notre Dame

These demonstrations of this year, at Thieberville, the interruption of a Gay protest at Notre Dame and now this, really demonstrate the undeniable and admirable nature of the French martial, Catholic spirit.

Liberal prelates still don't seem to understand that this kind of "ecumenical" activity is what is turning their churches into mere museums and is a significant contributor to the "vocations crisis" they like to blame on non-factors like celibacy and the "monarchical" nature of the Church.

The warm round of applause that Krygier received when he returned to the nave after the lecture bore that out. At the same time, arch-traditionalists such as Rev. Régis de Cacqueray, head of the French section of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) congratulated protesters for their “courage” and said: “The Paris cathedral is neither a synagogue nor a Masonic temple.”

An ultra-traditionalist blog called “Les Intransigeants” (The Intransigents) spoke its mind more openly: “Notre Dame again defended against the outrage by the merchants of the Temple.” The rest of the post was worse anti-Semitic venom.

Link to Reuters...

Also, check out the differences in ages between the people there who are participating in the Religious Indifferentism and the people who are using the Cathedral for the purpose it was intended when it was built almost 1000 years ago, praying.

Sr. Keehan receives presidential pen for supporting health care despite bishops' objections :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

I betrayed my religious vocation and all I got was this stupid pen.

Sr. Keehan receives presidential pen for supporting health care despite bishops' objections :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Russians Forced to Confront Implications of Large Number of ‘Ethnic Orthodox’

Paul Goble

Russians for a long time have dismissed many of the traditionally Islamic peoples of their country as “ethnic Muslims,” a term that refers to the fact that, as a result of Soviet anti-religious policies and modernization, many members of these nations identify as Muslims but neither know much about Islam or practice the faith.

Now, largely in reaction to a new poll, Russians and especially Russian religious leaders are having to focus on the reality that alongside “ethnic Muslims,” there appear to be an increasing number of “ethnic Orthodox” Russians who identify with the religion but neither know much about it or take part in religious practice.

The confrontation with that somewhat uncomfortable reality has at least two serious consequences. On the one hand, it calls into question the claims the Moscow Patriarchate makes and that some in the Russian government accept that the Russian Federation is genuinely “an Orthodox Christian” country.

Link to Georgian Daily...

Skateboarding Friar Bridges Countercultural Worlds - Catholic Online

Skateboarding Friar Bridges Countercultural Worlds - Catholic Online

Cardinal Schönborn Honors Dissident Group in Stepansdom

Despite his own criticism of 'We are Church' and that of his brother Bishops and the Spanish Bishops Conference, even, Cardinal Schönborn will host this group which by most estimates is nothing more than a different confession, certainly outside the Church. Kathnet won't come out and criticize Cardinal Schönborn for this, but perhaps even the people at Regnum Christi are starting to wonder about just who or what this Cardinal is about.

Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn is invited with the controversial organization "We are Church" to a Penance Service in the Vienna Stepensdom.

Wien (kath.net) The Vienese Cardinal Schönborn will hold a meeting next week on Wednesday, the 31st of March, together with the controversial group "We are Church" (WSK) in the Stepensdom a complaint and penance service under the motto "I am angry, God". There will be victims of sexual violence by priests who will have the opportunity, to formulate their pain in the presence of the Cardinal. Hans Peter Hurka, the director of the Austrian Group, informed the "Presse" of this event on Sunday.

"We are Church" is not an officially recognized group of the Church and has in the past years increasingly made initiatives against the Church, which have been clearly rejected by Rome. The Diocese Regensburg reported "We are Church" in November 2006 as a "problematic splinter group". The Salzburg Archbishop Alois Kothgasserr has prohibited in 2005 the organization "We are Church" in the Cathedral Book Store from presenting a so-called "Pastoral Letter". Kothgasser then said, orally: "Who follows Christ, must also follow Peter, and whoever remains by Peter, there is also the Church." [Wow]

Even the Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn had criticized the group on a number of occasions in the past. Among them, in 2003 he criticized the group at a press conference, that the Platform of an Initiative supported, belonged to a network of Freemasons, of the "European Humanity Federation", which seeks the omission of article 51 from the EU-Constitution. Article 51 is concerned with the status of the Church and cultural societies. It will have been stated that they respected and did not vitiate, that the Union will grant "according the legal status, to Church and religious Unities or Communities in the member states." Otherwise it is certain, that the Union led a "open, transparent and fair Dialog" with the Church. "This Dialog Clause was put into question by "We are Church", said Schönborn: "One wonders." It needs a "more specific and thorough explanation."

A number of other Bishops, like Archbishop Ludwig Schick who said that "Weisner and his confederates need to do penance and go to confession. 'We are Church' could tell everyone, that through the triple bonds of Faith, the Sacraments and the pious and obedient unity with Pope and Bishops, builds a church community. From this Communion, Weisner and his followers appear to have separated themselves."

Augsburg Bishop Walter Mixa said in 2003 clearly, "'We are Church' is not in the soil of the Catholic Church."

The famous Catholic journalist Guido Horst said in a commentary: "The church-whiners, who in the last years trusted themselves to the "spirit of the Council", were unfruitful. "We are Church" consists of a post-office box and an E-mail server, Church-People-Demanders, who found their organ in the public forum, are remaining today, grey and (spiritually) childless.

I am angry, God...Kath.net...

Berlusconi Lauds Holy Father's Sincerity and Humility

INTERNATIONAL REACTION: POPE BENEDICT’S pastoral letter to the Irish yesterday prompted the unexpected approval of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

In a remarkable communiqué, which may or may not be influenced by forthcoming regional elections, Mr Berlusconi expressed admiration for the “humility and sincerity” shown by the pope in the letter.

“Benedict XVI, like many of his predecessors, is often called on to confront very difficult situations . . . The way in which he responds is remarkably efficient, at least for all those who are not guided by totally hostile sentiments, and it is efficient both for its humility and sincerity and for the sound reasoning of the pope,” he said.


Link to original...

Ottawa archbishop lays down law on kneeling

Ottawa archbishop lays down law on kneeling

Polish Court Upholds Verdict Against Catholic Magazine for Calling Abortion "Killing"

By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

KATOWICE, Poland, March 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Katowice Appeal Court has today upheld the verdict of the Katowice District Court which ruled in September '09 that the Polish Catholic newspaper Gosc Niedzielny (Sunday Visitor) and its editor-in-chief Fr. Marek Gancarczyk were guilty of making offensive comments by saying abortion is the killing of an unborn child.

A further appeal is expected to go to Poland's Supreme Court.

Fr. Gancarczyk had appealed the earlier decision in the case brought against him by Alicja Tysiac, a woman who had previously won a "wrongful birth" suit against the Polish government at the European Court for Human Rights because she was refused an abortion. Poland permits abortion only in cases of rape, serious handicap in the baby, or serious health risk to the mother.

Link to Lifesite...

Pope's Critics Must Get their Facts Straight

THE evil of sexual abuse has no place in the Catholic Church and no one should doubt Benedict XVI's resolve to see it eradicated. His unprecedented pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland reflects his deep compassion for the victims of sexual abuse and his strong commitment to seeing that justice is done.
The Pope has met victims of sexual abuse in Australia and elsewhere. He has heard first-hand what they have suffered.

He is a man of immense compassion and goodness, and is personally committed to doing all he can to bring justice and healing to the victims.

The Australian...

Denver archbishop criticizes CHA 'counter-witness' against bishops on health care :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Denver archbishop criticizes CHA 'counter-witness' against bishops on health care :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Zenit says Lifesite is too "Negative"

Zenit is controlled by the recently discredited Legionares of Christ, btw.

Dear readers,

This letter is hard to write, and it is long, but we are sure you will find it compelling reading.

LifeSiteNews is under attack - a sustained and focused attack, and we need your help and support at this time. Let me explain.

Over the last year we witnessed the President of the United States manipulate and undermine the very system and society he was elected to defend. With the majority of the country opposing his health care bill, Obama has been willing to put his presidency on the line, not to mention democracy - in order to implement the ideology of extreme anti-life groups.

We published many revelations about the national and international dangers of the Obama presidency related to the issues of life, family, faith and culture. These revelations have caused some to view LifeSiteNews as being too negative and prone to sensationalism or having a political agenda - which we do not.

They refuse to believe that the presidency of this man, who appears so reasonable and concerned about the downtrodden, could actually be the subject of so many alarming reports.

We hoped that the facts would speak for themselves. However, the attractive image and inspiring, but too-often deceitful words of leaders such as Barack Obama, have in the past fooled the people of many nations. Hence LifeSiteNews is seen to be the bad guy - for merely reporting unwelcome and uncomfortable truths.

Last year we also saw Catholic Church officials in Massachusetts allow a scandalous near-canonization funeral for Ted Kennedy, arguably for many years the leading Catholic U.S. political proponent of abortion and same-sex 'marriage'.

The entire pro-life movement and many others were aghast that the Catholic Church would allow the funeral to be so blatantly used to idolize a man who was in many ways an arch-enemy of the Church, of life, of traditional morality. LifeSiteNews reported extensively on this scandal. For this we have received intense and still continuing backlash from some well-connected persons within the Church.

They are doing everything they can to falsely malign LifeSiteNews and its credibility and, it seems, have been spreading this poison everywhere they go. And they have been succeeding in convincing some people to believe their malicious propaganda.

And over the last year we have watched the executives of Development & Peace (D&P), the official international development organization of the Canadian Bishops' Conference, scandalously deny mounds of evidence proving they have been using Catholic donations to fund pro-abortion social justice groups.

In the most recent part of the saga, D&P has released a document, "Questioning Development and Peace," that significantly adds to their on-going verbal barrage of assaults against LifeSiteNews.com - a barrage that is having adverse and tangible effects on our organization.

D&P writes, in reference to LifeSiteNews and another pro-life organization, Campaign Life Coalition, that, "These groups are part of the far right wing fringe element of North American society and have themselves been associated with groups and individuals who have resorted to violence to publicize their cause and achieve their objective."

What does the reckless proclamation of such harsh and completely unfounded charges say about those who are making them? Remember, this is supposed to be an official arm of the Canadian Bishops' Conference!

Reason and facts appear to be making no impression whatever upon the intransigent leadership of D&P and its proponents, who are sowing considerable confusion among the faithful.

Despite volumes of compelling Internet, photographic, and direct interview evidence, this situation remains unresolved, and we are amazingly still being attacked for allegedly misrepresenting the truth.

Unfortunately, Development and Peace has a far greater access to Canadian Catholic Church institutions, publications, parishes and bishops across Canada than does LifeSiteNews. They are also networked internationally to other Church media and institutions. The vast majority of these have not read the LifeSiteNews reports on D&P and therefore, in most cases, have sadly mistakenly accepted the outrageous D&P claims at face value.

It is our obligation to continue with hard hitting news reports on the Obama administration's dangerous actions; on scandals such as the Kennedy funeral; and D&P and, in the US, CCHD funding of abortion advocacy groups, and in Rome, the Recife affair. However such reports have resulted in scathing assaults against LifeSiteNews.com and, in some cases, downright hatred.

Some who are startled by the influence of our reports and the loss of control over messaging and media they once had, are increasingly seeing LifeSiteNews as the enemy. Hence our motives and credibility are being attacked, while the solid facts in the reports are ignored or glossed over.

One result is that donations during this crucial fundraising campaign, a campaign we rely upon to sustain us until mid-June, have been lower than they should be. For instance, some of our previous donors have informed us that it is due to their confusion over the Development & Peace matter that they are not donating. They have never had to question the honesty of some notable Church representatives and find this difficult to deal with.

Additionally, there are other negative results of the determined slander campaign. An example of one of these is the very sensitive issue of Zenit News agency refusing to run a paid ad for LifeSiteNews. This was totally unexpected and is painful to report.

Late last year Zenit, with whom we have always had a positive relationship, began a new program of adding a paid ad to the top of their daily news email to their hundreds of thousands of subscribers in many nations. We immediately saw this as a great opportunity to expand our readership into an international market that would likely be very receptive to our news service.

Here is the ad text that we placed into Zenit's automated ad creation system:

Title: "Indispensible" News on Life, Family, Culture
Text: Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, Human Life International - "LifeSiteNews is literally the best and most reliable source of information on the Church as it engages in mortal combat with the culture of death."
Austin Ruse, C-Fam - LifeSiteNews is "indispensible."

News on our website or free daily news emails - comprehensive, truthful, faithful to Catholic principles.
Link: http://www.lifesitenews.com/

When the Jan. 11 date came on which our ad was supposed to show, the ad was surprisingly not there.

I called Zenit and to my shock learned that it had been declined, although we were never advised of this. When I spoke with Zenit's US Bureau Chief and asked the reasons behind their decision, which I found odd since they have used LifeSiteNews stories in the past, she told me it was based on our conflicts with various bishops over D&P. A number of calls and respectful emails to Zenit management for further clarification received no response.

And yet, Zenit had published an article on the D&P controversy written by Salt&Life television, which is managed by Fr, Tom Rosica who has been a severe critic of our D&P reports. Zenit did not contact LSN for our side of this issue or publish any of our reports on it - even the one from the Peruvian bishops pleading for a halt to D&P funding of pro-abortion groups in their country - or the one about a D&P funded group backing a family planning bill intensely opposed by the bishops of the Phillipines.

However, it is not my intention to point fingers at Zenit. They are an excellent service to the Catholic Church, their staff are exceptional and we still hold them in high regard. But this situation is important to mention because it demonstrates the continuing negative effect of the campaign by Development and Peace and its allies to poison others with unfounded information, unjustly malign our reputation and divert attention away from the facts.

While we are used to verbal backlash, and proudly stand on the side of Truth, D&P's scathing attacks are truly costing us. We have been shut out of an important opportunity to reach a large international market of people who would very likely benefit from reading our reports and consequently bring about much needed cultural change.

I am sure that you can relate with me when I tell you that often times I feel powerless in this fight for the Truth. But at the end of the day, we both know where true power comes from.

We have also received fewer donations than expected over the course of this crucial fundraising campaign, and some of our previous donors have informed us that it is due to their confusion over some of the issues mentioned above. For this reason we are asking for your help and need you to make a financial gift to LifeSiteNews if you have not already done so.

Obama has shown he will not relent on his radical push for anti-life and anti-family measures. Some Church leaders have shown that they do not comprehend the great social and spiritual dangers of our times - the D&P and US CCHD scandals have demonstrated that more than a few within those organizations have no understanding of the Christian principles they supposedly strive to promote and would rather continue their "inadvertent" funding of pro-abortion and otherwise anti-Christian groups than admit the truth.

Simply put, if Obama, weak or even corrupt Church leaders and D&P or CCHD get their way, it is truth and the innocent who will suffer.

For the sake of all that is at stake, LifeSiteNews will continue to reveal and report the Truth, not what is politically correct or what pleases the largest number of people or what is safe. And we will continue to take the hits that come our way. The times we are in call for this.

As French theologian Godefroid de Fontaines put it: "It is better to preserve the truth, even at the cost of a scandal than to let it be suppressed through fear of a scandal."

But we need you to help us carry the burden because as we have described, the material means supporting this work are lacking.

I know that many of you have donated already and we are so thankful that you have responded to our call. Please forgive us for sending you these appeal letters even after you have donated. This is in no way a sign of ungratefulness on our part as we simply send all communications to our entire list.

If any of you are yet to donate, or can spare another contribution, please do not hesitate. Our critics' strategy of trashing anyone who dares to question their questionable deeds is seemingly working.

More than ever, we need your continued support to carry on this mission of exposing this and other grave scandals.

John-Henry Westen
Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief
LifeSiteNews.com

Increased Interest in Beatifying Marxist Archbishop

Homosexuals Highly Susceptible to Fatal and Debilitating Diseases

tlanta, Ga., Mar 23, 2010 / 06:19 am (CNA).- A new data analysis by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows HIV/AIDS and syphilis are taking a “heavy toll” among men who engage in homosexual relations. Their risk of HIV and syphilis infection is 40 times greater than that of men who do not practice homosexuality. The data, presented at the CDC’s National STD Prevention Conference, finds that the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sexual relations with men (MSM) is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women, a CDC press release reports.

According to the analysis, there are between 522 to 989 cases of new HIV diagnoses per 100,000 MSM, compared to 12 per 100,000 other men and 13 per 100,000 women.

The CDC analysis says that the rate of primary and secondary syphilis among MSM is more than 46 times that of other men and more than 71 times that of women. While two per 100,000 other men and one per 100,000 women are infected by the disease, the rate among men who have homosexual relations is 91 to 173 cases per 100,000.

Link to CNA...

Catholics Are Packing Churches in the South

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The pews are packed at many Charlotte-area Roman Catholic churches, but a scarcity of priests is leaving even some of the biggest parishes short-staffed and scrambling for help from retired and visiting clergy.

Recent examples aren't hard to find:

Just one full-time priest for months at 13,000-member St. Gabriel in Cotswold.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/21/90786/catholics-once-rare-in-the-south.html

Cardinal Levada on the Pope

Cardinal Levada on the Pope’s Anglican initiatives – Complete transcript

Posted using ShareThis

Statement by CCCB President on articles in Canadian newspapers

Statement by CCCB President on articles in Canadian newspapers

Posted using ShareThis

More Orthodoxy, less Hipsterism in a Collar

It's probably obvious to everyone except the especially guilty ones. Evil tends to make you short-sighted.

Catholic sex abuse scandal: time to sack trendy bishops and restore the faith

Gerald Warner

[The Telegraph] It has become fashionable to claim that the sex abuse scandal currently afflicting the Catholic Church is “its biggest crisis since the Reformation”. Oh, really? Tell me about it. The abuse issue is just a small part of the much larger crisis that has engulfed the Church since the Second Vatican Catastrophe and which is more serious than the Reformation.

Abolish clerical celibacy? The last thing a priest abusing altar boys needs or wants is a wife. There is no compulsory celibacy in the Church of England, but that has not prevented vicars and boy scouts furnishing gratifying amounts of copy to the tabloid Sunday papers for the past century. Celibacy goes against the grain of today’s “unrepressed”, “non-judgemental”, let-it-all-hang-out attitude to sex; its continued existence is a reproach to the hedonist Western world; so Rome must be persuaded to abolish it – likewise its condemnation of divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexuality and all the other fetishes of liberal society. Dream on, secularists.

“Irish abuse victims disappointed by Pope’s letter.” Of course they are. They were disappointed by it before they had read it, before it was even written. Any other response would diminish the power they find themselves wielding against the Church. Have they a legitimate grievance? In most cases, yes. They have a ferocious grievance against the “filth” (Benedict XVI’s term, long before he came under public pressure) who defiled them and treated them like animals.

Link to Telegraph...

+Mahony Plans to Destroy St. Charles Borromeo in LA

Like a mortally wounded dragon, Cardinal Mahony is attempting his last acts of malice before he retires.

Link to LA Catholic...

Anglicans want to go Catholic

Anglicans want to go Catholic

Reflections on Kappelmeister Ratzinger from a former Student

Choirs of the kind the Pope's brother teaches are very demanding and perhaps unfamiliar to those outside of Europe. Practice lasts often as much as 6 hours a day, and the highest standards of persona comportment and virtuosity are enforced. The boys work hard because they look forward to the choir trips where they are stay with guest families to far away places. It is a scene of comradery, discipline and great fun.

Severe -- Sometimes very Severe

"Like a grandfather to his grandchildren, he blessed us with the wondrous world of musical life, and most of us understood, that we had one of the best teachers anyone could want."

[Kreuz.net] On March 9th, the Bavarian musician and publicist Tobias Weber (43) on his Blog 'Musica in tempore' told of his experiences at the Regensberg Cathedral Choir under Prelate George Ratzinger.

Weber is a former member of the Cathedral School and current director of the 'Tobias Weber Musk & Buch Verlages' in Hofkirchen. He has been closely connected to the Cathedral School for 33 years.

A Commander's Address


"Sometimes under the Cathedral Choir Master things were very strict -- sometimes even very strict.

Weber reports that his first choir practice at the Cathedral School in January 198. The Kappelmeistr began with a "Commander's Address":

"For a choir which wants to have and hold a certain acme, there is only a on conceivable system of government: the unrestricted dictatorship of the choir leaders" - the Prelate explained.

Weber comments: "The authority of the "chief" in musical interests was inviolable for us, everyone subordinated himself to his wishes."

But Prelate Ratzinger never had to maintain authority by doubtful means:

"However, some schoolmates had their confrontations with him, which was also not discrete: mostly such, which discipline was not indiscernable from his view of the good of the choir."

If the reliabillity of the character of a singer was not certinly free of doubs with Prelate Ratzinger, even good singers were not permitted on concert journeys:

"He did not like exposing his singers in concerts or guest families because they lacked character or decorum," he says.

Beloved -- nearly like a Grandpa

But outside of the concert hall or musical obligations there was still another Prelate Ratzinger:

"And we - at least most of us - have this 'sense' that we loved him nearly like a Grandpa".

Before practie small groups of singers pushed themselves before the conductor's stand, to snatch up a gumdrop or a cookie, always available and generously distributed.

He always attached importance to respectful address, "schoolboy insolences like, 'Hey chief', "were heard sometimes, but surreptitiously." -Weber writes.

Prelate Ratzinger had an unpretentious friendliness and had an ear for each request.

"If the singers, voiced by either boy or adult, during or after practice he was ever ready, despite his stressed authority, to establish guidelines to deal with constructive proposals."

Weber betrays the secret of the success of the clergyman: "without the mutual cordial affection between us singers and our Cathedral Kapellmeister, the great expeiriences of these years woud not have been possible."

And: "Like a grandfather, he bequethed to us grandchildren a miracle of words of the musical life, and it was clear to most of us that we had one of the best teachers, whom anyone could imagine."

For one respected - for the other one loved.

Weber reflects on the Prelate since early childhood also personaly:

"And brilliantly he told humourous anecdotes from the treasurehouse of his imagination, and the deep love of music and of "his" Cathedral Choir always came through, which in turn shaped its life."

However, he admitted once that one year as a director of such a boys choir's training counts at least as three years with its physical and mental demand as three normal years of life.

Weber's time with the Cathdral Choir was summed up by severity and discipline in the Choir and simultaneously of the great humanity and warmheartedness of the Chathedral Kappelmeister:

"For the one we obeyed and respected, while the other we loved - and the majority of his former students respect and love him even still today."

The Twisted Agenda of the Girl Scouts

[Worldnet Daily] A witness who attended the 54th session of United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women has unleashed a firestorm of controversy after reporting copies of Planned Parenthood's teen-sex promoting guide, "Healthy, Happy and Hot," were provided for Girl Scouts in attendance.

The Girl Scouts organization, in turn, has issued a denial statement, distancing itself from any involvement in "family planning," despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Sharon Slater of Family Watch International and Stand for the Family was at the New York City event when organizers ushered all adults – save for one from each of seven sponsoring organizations – out of the room for a "girls only workshop" that the Girl Scouts of the USA reports 30-35 teenage girls attended.

Read further...

TRAITOR!

VIDEO: Obama to meet with lawmakers on health

In Defense of the Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?) -- Politics Daily

Reflection on a Great Article Relating to Americanism and Jacobinism

Some "commentators" like to mention that the American Revolution was less violent, particularly toward the Church, owing perhaps to some idea that the principles enshrined in the American Constitution guarantee "Liberty". We have a different view in the US about these things regarding our own history, preferring to remark upon our inevitable steps of progress from Republic to Empire in the 19th Century and our present "desirable" situation, we tend to forget (or never knew about) the slaughter of Catholic Indians and Mexicans during the Mexican-American War, and of course, we forget the slaughter of fellow Americans which also took place in the revolutionary furor launched by a man who has a stronger resemblance to Joseph Stalin, Oliver Cromwell and Fidel Castro, than he does to the mythical and paternal Abraham Lincoln.

If the American Government didn't massacre any Catholics in the wake of its revolution as the French did, it is only because they didn't have many to slaughter; there was still plenty of time for the United States to accomplish that as it finally did in the Spanish-American and Mexican-American wars, which were as bloody and full of anti-Catholicism as would please any erstwhile Jacobin of the French Revolution allied to Robespierre on the march to the Vendee.

All the same, we pray for a country which at least permits its Bishops to be Catholic without too much meddling. So few American Bishops have been worthy of imitation, but there is still time for our present Bishops to mend their ways and abolish the Americanism which they continue to foment and promote at the expense of souls which must surely go to Hell without the benefit of the Sacraments. Really, what we need are more saints and fewer bank managers and episcopal salesmen.

[Politics Daily] In 1790, most of the world was congratulating France for what seemed like a successfully completed revolution. The hated King had been brought to heel, and change had swept through an oppressed nation, offering hope for a brighter future under better government.

Newspapers, then coming into their own, proclaimed the dawn of a new era of peace and prosperity while proto-pundits compared the change of rule to England's Glorious Revolution of 1688.

One observer however, English statesman Edmund Burke, wasn't fooled by the triumphant images produced by revolutionary PR teams; he saw gathering clouds for the darkest storm yet. His first clue that the Revolution had yet to run its course? The sustained hostile attacks on the Catholic clergy.

In Defense of the Catholic Clergy (Or Do We Want Another Reign of Terror?) -- Politics Daily

Unless a deal is struck with Stupak, Dems appear to be short on votes - TheHill.com

Unless a deal is struck with Stupak, Dems appear to be short on votes - TheHill.com

Damian Thompson Catches Media in yet another Deception

Not only is the media's malice evident in this story that they intended upon misrepresenting this story before it came out, but the malice of other individuals in professional victim organizations is in evidence as well in the Irish people's supposed response to the letter. Damian Thompson has caught them in their game of deceit.

The terrible truth about this is that the only source for healing which will come of this is from the fullness of the Sacraments and stories like this will further create enmity between the people of Ireland and the Church which has been with them since the 4th Century.

This morning, before the Pope’s pastoral letter on Irish child abuse was published, and apparently before reporters from The Times had read a single word of it, the paper ran a story by Richard Owen and David Sharrock which began as follows:
The Pope’s letter to the Irish faithful will be released today and read at Sunday Mass in an attempt to defuse the spiralling scandal over clerical sex abuse.

However, the pastoral letter has already been judged a failure by many after a week in which the Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, apologised for his role in covering up the activities of a notorious paedophile priest.

Link to Telegraph...

Father Paul Marx OSB, RIP

Retired at the Modernist Monatery that once persecuted him, he was the founder of one of the most effective Pro-Life organizations in the world.

One day, upon meeting him, John Paul II jocularly said, "Is there a little Karl in there?"

Despite his advocacy for the unborn and stolidity on many issues of Catholic principle, he was himself, a friend of "Liturgical Renewal".

Understandably, the Modernist Monastery stripped Father Paul of his faculties (like Christ being stripped of his purple vestments), to which he admitted he felt an "exile" there, certainly had more than passing reservations about their famous fellow Benedictine who brokered no compromises when it came to putting homosexuals in their proper light and of course, challenging what must be, for many of St. John's Abby's habitués, a more significant Sacrament than any of the actual seven, abortion.

He once wrote for Der Wanderer:

"Collectively, homosexuals are acting as a gigantic biological
vacuum cleaner scouring the earth for germs -- and the collecting bag is the United States. AIDS is the first fruit of this ugly process, but we can be certain that it will not be the last. As long as homosexuals travel, we can look forward to an unremitting stream of plagues stemming from these disgusting practices. Homosexuality is the #1 public health problem of our times --"

Front Royal, VA /Christian Newswire/ -- Shortly after 8:00 a.m. on March 20th of this year Fr. Paul Marx, OSB passed from this world into the Life that never ends--this is the hope that the whole pro-life movement nurtures in its heart for the one whom Pope John Paul II called "the Apostle of Life." "In the more than forty-year pro-life career of Fr. Marx, and through his almost three million miles of world travel, Human Life International (HLI) saw the blossoming of the world's conscience about the issues of life," said Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, Fr. Marx's successor as president of HLI. "Father put pro-life 'on the map' in a literal sense and through his efforts gave the world direct and organized opposition to the culture of death." Often referred to as "the father of the international pro-life movement", Fr. Marx visited all 50 states and 91 countries in his over 40 years of pro-life activism. Seeing the advance of anti-life forces before most did, he founded the Human Life Center in 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade. In 1981, the Human Life Center became Human Life International (HLI), the world's first and largest international pro-life organization. Fr. Marx was president of HLI until his retirement in 1999.  Father Marx authored over one dozen books, including The Death Peddlers: War on the Unborn (1971), Death Without Dignity: Killing for Mercy (1982), Confessions of a Pro-Life Missionary (1988), Fighting for Life (1989), The Flying Monk (1990), The Warehouse Priest (1993), and his autobiography, Faithful for Life (1997). President Ronald Reagan once wrote in a personal letter to Fr. Marx, "You can be proud of all you've done to summon this Nation and others to reflection and positive action on issues affecting the sanctity of human life.  God bless you." 

"We pray for the repose of his soul and for the strengthening of the spiritual children and pro-life family that Father leaves as a legacy in more than 100 countries" said Rev. Euteneuer. Father Marx died just short of his 90th birthday. He liked to point out that he was born 10 days before the late Pope John Paul II, who once said to him, "You are doing the most important work on earth." A Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Marx will be held at 3:30 p.m. on Friday, March 26 at St. John's Abbey. Below is the full text of the statement of Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, president of HLI. "Shortly after 8:00 a.m. on March the 20th of this year Fr. Paul Marx, OSB passed from this world into the Life that never ends -- at least that is the hope that the whole pro-life movement nurtures in its heart for the one whom Pope John Paul II called 'the Apostle of Life.' "In the forty-year pro-life career of Fr. Marx, and through his three million miles of world travel, Human Life International saw the blossoming of the world's conscience about the issues of life.

Father put pro-life 'on the map' in a literal sense and through his efforts gave the world direct and organized opposition to the culture of death. He will be missed dearly by all pro-lifers, especially those of us who had a chance to work intimately with him, and whose lives were changed irrevocably as a result. "When that blessed day comes, when the fight for life is finally won, people will look back at this dark age of destruction and wonder who opposed the onslaught. Standing among the greatest champions for life will be Fr. Marx, not only for his own work, but for the work done by the countless other pro-life warriors he inspired." 

"We pray for the repose of his soul and for the strengthening of the spiritual children and pro-life family that Father leaves as a legacy in more than 100 countries."

href="http://www.hli.org/index.php/component/content/article/73-press-releases/832-press-release-hli-mourns-passing-of-founder-fr-paul-marx">http://www.hli.org/index.php/component/content/article/73-press-releases/832-press-release-hli-mourns-passing-of-founder-fr-paul-marx

Child Pornography Rings: Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger is not credible any longer

"The Humanist Union" has cooperated for many years with child abusers. Then the police intervened with a SWAT team.

[kreuz.net] The organization supported by German law minister 'Humanst Union" supported "pedophile working groups".

That was disclosed by the German child welfare organization 'Care Child' on Monday on its web page.

The Federal leader of the 'Humanist Union', Rosemarie Will, is a Soviet trained former member of the DDR-State Party "SED".

The most well-known advisor of the 'Humanist Union" is the German law minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger(FDP).

She is being used at present by Chancellor Angela Merkel as an axe against the Catholic Church.

'Humanist Union' supports Child-Porn Rings

'CareChild' reports frightening detals: In at least one case the police with a SWAT team had to proceed against a "Pedophile Working Group" supported by 'Humanist Union'.

'The Humanist Union' has - according to 'CareChild' - for many years tried to get "more social acknowledgement" and "quasi-legalization of sex with children" through legal means.

Furthermore, the organization, according to suppositions of 'CareChild', "tried to get its porno ring presented as a self-help group".

The child welfare organization knows from first hand that one of the most notorious members of these Child-Porn rings in Munich was supported by the 'Humanist Union'.

'Humanist Union' even left their premises at his disposal: "the police made an end for the spook in 2003".

"Predominantly Pedophile"

In this connection 'CareChild' mentions also the notorious working group 'Human Sexuality' - which is the last word in child abuse.

Their board of trustees has an advisor of 'Humanist Union', the eminent sociologist Fritz Sack (79).

Sack was from 1997 to 2003 in the executive committee of 'Humanist Union.'

Searches by 'CareChild' determined the 'Working Group Human Sexuality' consisted predominantly of "pedophiles".

A position paper of the Working Group on its homepage explains:

"It gives the adult, who being immersed in the dreams, feeling and imagination o a child could put himself in the other's place, and leave the guiding role to the child. If both sides are ready for it, then eroticism and sexuality can play a role."

Still in the year 1999 'Humanist Union' designated the Godless 'Working Group Pedophilia' as "a meaningful contribution to child protection".

Then in 2000 the executive committee 'Humanist Union', tried to use the child abusers as social scapegoats.

Only at the open conference of "Humanist Union' was it requested that the executive committee not publish this as the official position of the association.

The German Pedo-Justice Ministress

Without prejudice to this fact, the executive committee continued to promote their "Pedophile Work groups".

Only in 2004 did the 'Humanist Union" disassociate itself according to data from 'CareChild' "a little reliably from the 'Child Abuse Work Groups' and from the 'Work Group Human Sexuality'".

The conclusion of 'CareChild':

Law Minister "Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger helps an organization, which actively supported pedophilia and consistently exempted from punishment those sexual contacts of adults who expressed themselves sexually to children."

Mel Gibson says Viking movie (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) may be his last

Mel Gibson says Viking movie (starring Leonardo DiCaprio) may be his last

Posted using ShareThis

Fr Andrew Greeley has the Goods on the Monsters

Someone once said, "even a novel by Andrew Greeley is worth 25 cents", but few of us may have considered the possibillity that he would win the chagrin of his liberal confreres. Unfortunately, liberal though he is, Father Greeley knows who the abusers, not just the abusees, but he's not telling anything. Isn't that irresponsible, cowardly, dishonest or does it also shine a light on the true nature of this issue that those who run the presses are unwilling to discuss?

It's not so terribly hard to surmise. The indictment doesn't just ring against the Church, but against the entire society. Either enforce the existing laws and root these monsters out where they are and stop protecting them or not.

By Matt C. Abbott

As Father Andrew Greeley continues to recover from a serious head injury suffered earlier this month, I thought I'd feature images from two of his (out-of-print) non-fiction books — Confessions of a Parish Priest (paperback edition), from 1986 and 1987; and Furthermore! Memories of a Parish Priest, from 1999 and 2000.

Interestingly, in Confessions (page 131), Father Greeley made some rather keen observations about a certain segment of the clergy — observations that proved all too accurate a decade-and-a-half later.

Link to Renew America...