MSNBC Deceitfully Attempts to Portray Holy Father as a Molester

We've long maintained that Bill Donahue is ineffective. He didn't identify the provinence of the New York Times schmear on Pope Benedict or its own perfidious source, but to his credit, he has identified another problem article. We would add that the press is getting increasingly desperate. Bill Donahue reports:

March 30, 2010

Catholic League president Bill Donohue accuses MSNBC of libeling Pope Benedict XVI:

Go to the home page of MSNBC and click on "World News." From there click on "Americas." Next click on the article, "Losing Their Religion? Catholicism in Turmoil." [Direct Link, here] Scroll down and in the "Click for Related Content" section there is an article entitled, "Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far," here. [They've changed the title of the article since this came up, good show Bill Donahue] Clicking on this piece takes the reader to an article about a homosexual German priest who had sex with males in the 1980s. It says absolutely nothing about the pope. Yet MSNBC paints Pope Benedict XVI as a child molester in the tease to the article.

A retraction, and a sincere apology, are in order. They should also investigate how this happened and who is responsible.

Contact NBC news president Steve Capus: steve.capus@nbc.com

Liberals are to Blame for the Crisis

Suggested by the Devil: Gabriele Amorth on New York Times

The famous Rome Exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth is almost completely convinced, that the attacks on the Pope in combination with the sex abuse cases were suggested by the Devil. The Devil uses even Priests.

Rom (kath.net) The famous Roman Exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth is almost completely convinced, that the attacks on Pope Benedict in conjunction with the sex abuse cases were suggested by the Devil. "There can be no doubt", said the 85 year old Amorth to Italian TV News Service Mediaset as well as reported by ORF. Amorth refered above all to the attack by the left-liberal "New York Times", here and here. The famous Exorcist recalled then, that Benedict is a wonderful Pope and worthy successor to John Paul II. The Devil has used incidentally,  even Priests in order to strike the Church, he referred to the sex abuse cases: "He attacks the Church through the men of the Church," for even these live in the world and might be brought down by temptations.

X-lated from...

US Courts Allows Sex Abuse Cases Against Vatican to Proceed in Rare Legal Move

Since the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal exploded in the United States almost a decade ago, advocates have been trying to find a way to learn the role the Vatican played. Now they have gotten further than ever in their efforts to holding the Holy See accountable in a U.S. courtroom.

Two federal appeals courts in recent months have allowed sexual abuse lawsuits against the Vatican to proceed in Oregon and Kentucky. Vatican attorneys have asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal of the Oregon case. Attorneys for both sides in the Oregon proceeding were in Washington two weeks ago making their arguments before a roomful of U.S. government officials, who could wind up weighing in if the Vatican -- considered a foreign country with immunity to lawsuits -- is found a liable party in an American case.

If the Supreme Court declines to take up the case this summer and lets the federal appeals ruling stand, attorneys could begin subpoenaing decades of documents and calling Vatican officials under oath.

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Troubles at Thieberville Continue

At Rorate-Coeli is the following:

The following is a quick translation of the Osservatore Vaticano article, courtesy of our friend Natasja Hoven of Katolsk Observator:

Everybody knows the very famous Thiberville case, in the diocese of Évreux. This diocese is one of the most ill-fated in France. After Mgr Gaillot and Mgr David, the not so genial Mgr Nourrichard administers the collapse of a land which in times past was Christian, a land where churches are closed one after the other, catechism is deserted, vocations discouraged and finances dried up.

In this desert, a priest, abbé Francis Michel, maintains the most flourishing of parishes, Thiberville. This parish priest, not coming from a traditionalist milieu but profoundly traditionalist, in anticipation had applied the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum since many years back. In his church the masses are celebrated according to the form in our days called “the extraordinary form” and also masses according to the “ordinary” form, but in a manner in conformity with the wishes of Pope Benedict XVI, that is, turned towards the Lord.

And what was the result? Thiberville and the 14 parishes which abbé Michel is serving formed the most living Catholic ensemble and the one with the greatest missionary zeal of the diocese of Évreux : the church of Thiberville is full at all the masses, assuring the service “in turn” for the other churches ( desserte « tournante » des autres églises), there we find sound catechism, active participation of the faithful, abundance of ministrants, confraternities, all the churches magnificently restored, funerals celebrated by the parish priest himself … Those parishes where the communion of all the Catholics are lived in an exemplary way are a model for the application of the pope’s wish.

This is exactly what the “spirit of Vatican II”, with 40 years of delay, is not able to stand. At the end of December of last year, Mgr Nourrichard informed the parish priest … that his parish was abolished and brought together with a “parish ensemble”. By this procedure, the parish of Thiberville would no more have a parish priest of its own, as he was “withdrawn”.

We all know what followed: On January 3rd the bishop went to Thiberville with his collaborators in order to announce “with distress” the decision “beyond recall”. However he met with the revolt of the whole canton, which refused the end of the Catholic faith in this corner of the Norman land. A church full to the brim, on the first row of which were present the mayor and the county councilor together with the whole municipal council, acclaimed their parish priest and hindered the bishop to announce that he was suppressing the parish and its parish priest.

An appeal was then (twice) presented within the prescribed delay, before the Congregation for the clergy. The case was overwhelming for the bishop. It is necessary to understand that such an appeal is a delaying appeal: things remain as they are as long as the Roman decision does not intervene. In similar cases the Roman decision usually comes very late, when emotions have calmed down.

On the other hand everybody knows that Rome strongly disapproves of parish regroupings that are legally indefinable, this being a problem which retains the keen interest of the Roman canonists. Since the Council the rights of the parish priest have diminished. The traditional principal of the irremovability of the parish priest remaining (as in the popular saying: “the parish priest is the pope of the parish”). But the bishops’ conferences of each country have received the faculty of disregarding this right. This is how it is in France: the parish priests are from now on nominated "ad tempus", which is something that notably puts off balance the structure of the traditional diocesan life: the post-conciliar French bishop actually has much more power over his priests through the nomination “game” than the traditional bishop had. Moreover, it frequently happens that bishops do not nominate parish priests but only “parish administrators”, which makes the priests even more dependent on the diocesan administration.

In this case there was thus now the situation where there was a slow process while the Congregation of the Clergy examined the case, and thus there was a recovering of calm and common sense told that the Catholic life would continue in the parishes of abbé Michel and that the unjust – legally – and disastrous – pastorally – decision of the bishop could be nothing but reversed.

And then it was exactly the opposite that happened! The appeal that was presented in the end of February received a reply less than a month later …: On March 26th abbé Michel was informed … that his appeal was turned down and purely and simply rejected! The decision is signed by Cardinal Hummes, Prefect of the Congregation for the clergy: the parish of Thiberville does not exist anymore and thus has no parish priest.

Even in Rome one is dumbfounded. But everybody understands that the pressure exercised by the French bishops’ conference has had an uncommon force. The most eminent French instances have made it a question of principle. And they have won.

At least as yet. This decision is certainly going to be subject to appeal, and other means may be used. There is a rumor already on this matter. I will tell you more about it as soon as possible …

However it remains that for the good people of God, the negative sign that has been given is catastrophic.

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2010/03/thiberville-saga-continues.html

Philosopher: Why we Should Ditch Religion

(CNN) -- For the world to tackle truly important problems, people have to stop looking to religion to guide their moral compasses, the philosopher Sam Harris told CNN.

"We should be talking about real problems, like nuclear proliferation and genocide and poverty and the crisis in education," Harris said in a recent interview at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. TED is a nonprofit group dedicated to "ideas worth spreading."

"These are issues which tremendous swings in human well-being depend on. And it's not at the center of our moral concern."

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The Return of Doctor Stephen Hand

Couldn't find an actual picture of Doctor Hand, but this one should do.  You know you only kid the ones you love.  Stephen Hand has taken a lot of hits in his life and as a Catholic, but he returns continually to the fray with gusto.  He used to write for the Remnant for a time, but left there. Perhaps he'll be returning there.

His new blog is as follows, http://www.stephen-hand.blogspot.com/

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.

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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.

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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

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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".

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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.

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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.

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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