Month: May 2012

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TJ Williams: Mobilizing Black churches for LGBT equality

For TJ Williams, being Black, gay and heavily involved in the church is not a contradiction or an identity of great complexity.

Homophobes in the Black church, he said, “have forsaken the legacy of the Black Church” as a pillar of justice and social change.

Williams is a student, a gay man and an organizer on a mission to amplify the voices of Black gay preachers who support LGBT equality, of which there are many, he said.

“I want folks in the African-American community inspired to understand that LGBT rights are civil rights,” Williams said.

At a time when some have equated Black churches with homophobia, especially in the wake of President Obama’s recent support of marriage equality, Williams is fighting to portray a different image of the Black and faithful.

Williams is a Master of Divinity student at New York Theological Seminary. He is also a member of the Riverside Church in New York City, a church that has been open and affirming towards LGBT people since 1985. Williams married his partner, Brad Williams Hauger, there last year.

Williams grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. His mother was an evangelist who equated LGBT rights with her own struggles as a woman early on.

“She saw this connection between sexism and misogyny and homophobia [in the church],” Williams said.

Williams’ upbringing and his own sense of justice led him to seek out a church that embraced LGBT people and continued to push for fairness. That church, for him, was Riverside.

Riverside has a legacy of social justice. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “Beyond Vietnam” speech there in 1967. Today, the church bills itself as open and affirming on its website, listing same-sex weddings alongside heterosexual ceremonies.

Riverside is not alone. Rev. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago (the church of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, President Obama’s controversial former pastor), made headlines recently by backing the president’s support for marriage equality and calling on other Black churches to do the same.

“The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words,” Moss wrote. “Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education.” [Windy City Times attempted to contact Moss on numerous occasions. However, he had not responded as of the press deadline.]

Other Black churches have added their voices to a growing chorus of those who support marriage equality. But for those not ready to go public with their support for LGBT causes, said Williams, Black churches are increasingly lending support to LGBT movements in a quieter way: they’re backing President Obama on other issues at a time when his leadership has been called into question.

Williams argues that the media has largely portrayed Black churches as monolithic, interviewing homophobic Black ministers but not ones that embrace LGBT people.

“I often ask myself why the media is missing this,” he said. “If you’re going to give press to these homophobic ministers, then call up these clergy that are well-studied and believe in justice for all.”

Williams is taking matters into his own hands. He is planning a large press conference at June 7 that highlights the voices of Black clergy who support President Obama’s stance on marriage equality. The details of that event have not yet been announced.

Williams believes that Black churches, built on a foundation of equality and justice, should naturally step up to support LGBT rights.

“We find it very foreign when we come across folks that don’t understand that civil-rights narrative,” Williams said. “The legacy was always about justice.”

Complete Article HERE!

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Cardinal Authorized Paying Abusers

File Under: This man couldn’t tell the truth if his life depended upon it!

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York authorized payments of as much as $20,000 to sexually abusive priests as an incentive for them to agree to dismissal from the priesthood when he was the archbishop of Milwaukee.

Questioned at the time about the news that one particularly notorious pedophile cleric had been given a “payoff” to leave the priesthood, Cardinal Dolan, then the archbishop, responded that such an inference was “false, preposterous and unjust.”

But a document unearthed during bankruptcy proceedings for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and made public by victims’ advocates reveals that the archdiocese did make such payments to multiple accused priests to encourage them to seek dismissal, thereby allowing the church to remove them from the payroll.

A spokesman for the archdiocese confirmed on Wednesday that payments of as much as $20,000 were made to “a handful” of accused priests “as a motivation” not to contest being defrocked. The process, known as “laicization,” is a formal church juridical procedure that requires Vatican approval, and can take far longer if the priest objects.

“It was a way to provide an incentive to go the voluntary route and make it happen quickly, and ultimately cost less,” said Jerry Topczewski, the spokesman for the archdiocese. “Their cooperation made the process a lot more expeditious.”

Cardinal Dolan, who is president of the national bishops’ conference and fast becoming the nation’s most high-profile Roman Catholic cleric, did not respond to several requests for comment.

A victims advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, sent a letter of protest to the current archbishop of Milwaukee on Wednesday asking, “In what other occupation, especially one working with families and operating schools and youth programs, is an employee given a cash bonus for raping and sexually assaulting children?”

Experts in the Catholic Church’s response to sexual abuse say that payouts to dismissed priests are not uncommon. When a man becomes a priest, the church is expected to care for his needs for a lifetime.

The newly revealed document is the minutes of a meeting of the finance council of the Milwaukee archdiocese from March 7, 2003, which Cardinal Dolan attended. The archdiocese was facing a flood of potential lawsuits by people claiming abuse, and the church’s insurance company was refusing to cover the costs because it said the church had been negligent. The minutes noted that “unassignable priests” — those suspected of abuse — were still receiving full salaries.

The minutes say that those at the meeting discussed a proposal to “offer $20,000 for laicization ($10,000 at the start and $10,000 at the completion the process).” Instead of salary, they would receive a $1,250 monthly pension benefit, and, until they found another job, health insurance.

The first known payment in Milwaukee was to Franklyn Becker, a former priest with many victims. Cardinal Dolan said in response to a reporter’s question at the time that the payment was “an act of charity,” so that Mr. Becker could pay for health insurance.

According to church documents, Mr. Becker was accused of abusing at least 10 minors, and given a diagnosis of pedophilia in 1983. The church paid more than $16 million to settle lawsuits involving him and one other priest.

The Milwaukee Archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January 2011, in the face of potential lawsuits by 23 accusers.

Complete Article HERE!

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Vatican’s assessment of LCWR about fear, not doctrine

COMMENTARY

The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s April 18 doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is not about doctrine. It is not primarily about protecting the faith or ensuring an ecclesiology of communion, no matter how many times these terms are woven through the report. It is fundamentally about fear — fear of the loss of power — and the willful use of dominative control to defend that power.

The abundance of religious themes and language do not mask this punitive effort to shore up the crumbling authority of hierarchical leaders. Nor does the document hide the anger that roils beneath the protestations of gratitude and concern. The final report of the LCWR assessment reveals a desperate attempt on the part of some fearful and angry church leaders to protect their turf — to maintain an all-male church leadership, to keep women and laypeople under their authority, and to shield the homophobic-homosexual subculture in the leadership of the Catholic church.

When fear rules

The pattern of using coercive intimidation to control others in one’s household is called domestic abuse. Domestic abuse does not need to involve physical violence — in fact, many abusers never beat their partners. Instead, the threatened person strikes out psychologically to evoke compliance. Public humiliations, corrections, threats, accusations of disloyalty and demands for absolute obedience make up the typical arsenal of the abusive person. In extreme cases, the abuser monitors the actions of the other, keeps a record of his or her transgressions, restricts his or her activities, discredits his or her reputation, takes charge of his or her decisions, and threatens to withdraw support if unquestioned compliance to demands is not maintained.

These abusive acts will sound curiously familiar to anyone who has read the proposed implementations of the Vatican doctrinal assessment.

While females can and do commit domestic abuse, statistically, they do so at much reduced rates, inflict less physical harm and commonly have different motivations than male perpetrators, making domestic abuse primarily a crime against women. Yes, a crime — like child sexual abuse — something many bishops, archbishops and cardinals in the Catholic church failed to take seriously until they were forced to do so by lawsuits and public outcry.

But has transfer of learning taken place? Do they get it? Do they get that they cannot treat women and children as stepping stones to power, privilege and pleasure?

Whether through hits or humiliations, broken bones or broken spirits, threats of bodily harm or warnings of impending excommunication, the goal of abusers is the same: Assert absolute control. Wear the person down until he or she gives in or gives up. Use punishment if he or she dares to claim his or her own authority.

The most dangerous time in a household where domestic abuse is present is right after the person being abused has stood up to the abuser. Have too many members of LCWR claimed their own authority? The classic domestic abuser seeks one thing above all else: obedience to dictates. It is not surprising that obedience is alluded to on every page of the final doctrinal assessment document.

In fact, the mandate for implementation of the results of the doctrinal assessment reads like a how-to manual for the most common form of domestic abuse — no physical violence, just a resolute campaign to rein in those who have dared disobey the master, or, in the case of LCWR, the pope and bishops: “to implement a process of review and conformity to the teachings and discipline of the church, the Holy See” (page 7). Pretty clear.

Diagnosing the abuser

Mental illness, including personality disorders, compound domestic abuse but are not its primary cause. Domestic abuse is power abuse. In its most prevalent form, it is conscious, coercive conduct by men those believe they have the unconditional right to use forceful tactics to enforce their rules and maintain absolute control over those they deem subject to them.

What kinds of people abuse others? While there is no single profile of the domestic abuser, research has identified characteristics frequently seen among perpetrators of all types. Ironically, there is not much difference between those who use their fists and those who use words alone to demand obedience.

* Abusers believe they are entitled to maintain power and control over those in their households (institutions).
* They may believe they have an obligation to compel obedience for the benefit of the victim and the good of the household (church).
* They do not identify their controlling and hurtful tactics as abusive and are insulted when others perceive them that way.
* Perpetrators tend to perceive all interactions within relationships through a prism of compliance or disobedience.
* Abusers tend to be insecure men who need to establish dominance to feel confident.

The single most conclusive thing we know about domestic abuse is that it is learned behavior. Abusers have gained knowledge of abusive behaviors by seeing them in action, either in their families or in the various cultures to which they belong. This applies to religious cultures where the seminarian is taught early to bow to the wishes of his rector, to obey his bishop and to submit to the cardinal — all of whom kiss the ring of the pope.

All of this bowing, obeying and willful submission programs the brain to normalize hierarchical authority, and in some less secure individuals, to deeply internalize this way of relating and to replicate it.

As in sexual abuse, church leaders who have witnessed domestic abuse in their families or who have experienced such abuse as children may be particularly susceptible to behave abusively themselves. When a fragile ego combines with learned patterns of abuse, the stage is set for domestic abuse.

While abusers do not fit neatly into any particular diagnostic category, their behavior is not considered “normal.”

Psychologically healthy adults do not mandate obedience, forbid dialogue about subjects they do not wish discussed, or use oppressive tactics to gain control over others. Personally secure leaders don’t issue orders to other functioning adults, threatening punitive measures if they are not obeyed.

Often described as having a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality, most abusers can be quite civilized and even charming when they need to be. Their ability to function as CEOs of companies and preside over large corporations does not eliminate them from the pool of the insecure who strike out against those who threaten them. Some male abusers have been found to harbor a secret loathing of females, considering them inferior. Since such attitudes are certainly present in the history of the church (read St. Jerome), it is possible that its influence still inhabits, consciously or the unconsciously, the collective mind of church leaders.

The persistent desire of hierarchical leaders to keep women under their control and out of their sphere of leadership, especially women theologians, suggests that the “Jerome Syndrome” might still be operative.

[Fran Ferder is a Franciscan sister, clinical psychologist, author and professor at Seattle University.]

Complete Article HERE!

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The butler did it!

File Under: You can’t make this stuff up!

Vatican leak inquiry: Pope’s butler named as suspect

The Pope’s butler has been formally named as a suspect in the Vatican’s inquiry into a series of media leaks from the Church’s highest levels.

Vatican magistrates accused Paolo Gabriele, 46, of illegal possession of confidential documents.

A series of leaks, dubbed Vatileaks, has revealed alleged corruption, mismanagement and internal conflicts.

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI set up a special commission of cardinals to find the source.

Mr Gabriele is the pope’s personal butler and assistant and one of very few laymen to have access to the Pope’s private apartments.

Documents found

He lives with his wife and three children in an apartment within the Vatican walls, where Italian media report that a stash of confidential documents had been discovered.

“I confirm that the person detained on Wednesday for illegal possession of private documents is Mr Paolo Gabriele, who remains in detention,” the spokesman for the Holy See, Father Federico Lombardi said, according to Italy’s state broadcaster, Rai.

He added that now the initial stage of the process was complete, Mr Gabriele had nominated two lawyers capable of representing him at a Vatican Tribunal, and had met with them.

He would, the Vatican spokesman added, have “all the juridical guarantees foreseen by the criminal code of the State of Vatican City”.

As the Vatican has no jail, Mr Gabriele is being held in one of the three so-called “secure rooms” in the offices of the Vatican’s tiny police force inside the walled city-state, Reuters reports.

If convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 30 years for illegal possession of documents of a head of state, probably to be served in an Italian prison due to an agreement between Italy and the Vatican, Italian media report.

The Vatileaks scandal has filled Italian media – dominating the columns of Italian newspapers and filling TV programmes and magazines.

The detention comes during one of the most tumultuous weeks in recent history for the Vatican.

Last week a book, entitled His Holiness, was published by an Italian journalist with reproductions of confidential letters and memos between the pope and his personal secretary.

The Vatican called the book “criminal” and vowed to take legal action against the author, publisher, and whoever leaked the documents.

Last Thursday, the president of the Vatican bank – Ettore Gotti Tedeschi – was ousted by the bank’s board.

Sources close to the investigation said he too had been found to have leaked documents, though the official reason for his departure was that he had failed to do his job.

Mr Tedeschi himself said the move had been a punishment for his attempt to make the bank more open.

The BBC’s David Willey, in Rome, says the leak of a string of highly sensitive internal documents from inside the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, including personal letters to Pope Benedict XVI, has been an evident embarrassment to the Pope, prompting the rare investigation.

The leaked documents include a letter to Pope Benedict by the Vatican’s current ambassador to Washington alleging cronyism, nepotism and corruption among the administrators of Vatican City.

Others concern “poison pen” memos criticising Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope’s number two, and the reporting of suspicious payments by the Vatican Bank.

Complete Article HERE!

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Dionne: Is Catholic spring on horizon?

There is a healthy struggle brewing among the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops.

A previously silent group, upset over conservative colleagues defining the church’s public posture and eagerly picking fights with President Obama, has had enough.

The headlines this week were about lawsuits brought by 43 Catholic organizations, including 13 dioceses, to overturn regulations issued by the administration requiring insurance plans to cover contraception under the new health-care law.

But the other side of this news was also significant: That the vast majority of the nation’s 195 dioceses did not go to court.

It turns out that many bishops, notably the church leadership in California, saw the litigation as premature. They are upset that the lawsuits were brought without a broader discussion among the entire membership of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and wanted to delay action until the Conference’s June meeting.

Until now, bishops who believed that their leadership was aligning the institutional church too closely with the political right had voiced their doubts internally.

While the more moderate and liberal bishops kept their qualms out of public view, conservative bishops have been outspoken in condemning the Obama administration and pushing a “Fortnight for Freedom” campaign aimed at highlighting “threats to religious freedom, both at home and abroad.”

But in recent months, a series of events — among them the Vatican’s rebuke of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious encouraged by right-wing American bishops — have angered more progressive Catholics and led to talk among the disgruntled faithful of the need for a “Catholic spring” to challenge the hierarchy’s shift to the right.

Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of Stockton, Calif., broke the silence on his side Tuesday in an interview with Kevin Clarke of the Jesuit magazine America. Blaire expressed concern that some groups “very far to the right” are turning the controversy over the contraception rules into “an anti-Obama campaign.”

“I think there are different groups that are trying to co-opt this and make it into political issue, and that’s why we need to have a deeper discussion as bishops,” he said. “I think our rhetoric has to be that of bishops of the church who are seeking to be faithful to the Gospel, that our one concern is that we make sure the church is free to carry out her mission as given to her by Christ, and that remains our focus.”

Clarke also paraphrased Blaire as believing that “the bishops lose their support when the conflict is seen as too political.”

Blaire’s words were diplomatic. But in a letter to the national bishops’ conference that has not been released publicly, lawyers for California’s bishops said the lawsuits would be “imprudent” and “ill-advised.”

The letter was not answered by the national bishops’ group before the suits were announced.

Already, there are reports that some bishops will play down or largely ignore the Fortnight for Freedom campaign, scheduled for June 21 to July 4, in their own dioceses.

These bishops fear that it has become enmeshed in Republican election-year politics and see many of its chief promoters, notably Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, as too strident.

The irony in the current acrimony is that Catholics were broadly united last January across political lines in opposing the Department of Health and Human Services’ initial rules on contraception because they exempted only a narrow category of religious institutions from the mandate.

Facing this challenge, the president fashioned a compromise under which employees of Catholic organizations such as hospitals and social service agencies would still have access to contraceptive services but the religious entities would not have to pay for them.

This compromise was accepted by most progressive Catholics, though many of them still favor rewriting the underlying regulations to acknowledge the religious character of the church’s welfare and educational work.

But where the progressives favor pursuing further negotiations with the administration, the conservative bishops have acted as if it never made any concessions at all.

Significantly, Blaire identified with the conciliatory approach. As Clarke wrote, “Bishop Blaire believes discussions with the Obama administration toward a resolution of the dispute could be fruitful even as alternative remedies are explored.”

For too long, the Catholic Church’s stance on public issues has been defined by the outspokenness of its most conservative bishops and the reticence of moderate and progressive prelates.

Signs that this might finally be changing are encouraging for the church, and for American politics.

Complete Article HERE!

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My New Book

Dear friends and colleagues

I am pleased to announce the publication of my new book The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying: Enhancing The End Of Life.

(Click on the book art below for a synopsis and to purchase the book.)

The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying is specifically designed for terminally ill, chronically ill, elder, and dying people from all walks of life. But concerned family and friends, healing and helping professionals, lawyers, clergy, teachers, students, and those grieving a death will also benefit from reading the book.

The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying is a workbook that offers readers a unique group/seminar format. Readers participate in a virtual on-the-page support group consisting of ten other participants. Together members of the group help each other liberate themselves from the emotional, cultural, and practical problems that accompany dying in our modern age.

The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying helps readers dispel the myth that they are incapable of taking charge during the final season of life. Readers face the prospect of life’s end within a framework of honesty, activity, alliance, support, and humor. And most importantly readers learn these lessons in the art of dying and living from the best possible teachers, other sick, elder, and dying people.

The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying engages readers with a multitude of life situations and moral dilemmas that arise as they and their group partners face their mortality head on.

The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying offers readers a way to share coping strategies, participate in meaningful dialogue, and take advantage of professional information tailored to their specific needs. Topics include spirituality, sexuality and intimacy, legal concerns, final stages, and assisted dying. The book does not take an advocacy position on any of these topics. It does, however, advocate for the holistic self-determination of sick, elder, and dying people, which can only be achieved when they have adequate information.

Facing your mortality with the kind of support The Amateur’s Guide To Death And Dying offers does not eliminate the pain and poignancy of separation. Rather it involves confidently facing these things and living through them to the end.

This innovative workbook on death and dying is now available on Amazon and in bookstores. I welcome your thoughts, comments, and reviews.

All the best,
Richard

Richard Wagner, Ph.D., ACS
richard@theamateursguide.com
Our website: The AmateursGuide.com
Buy the book HERE!

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Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse In The U.S. Context And Causes

COMMENTARY

CATHOLIC CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE U.S.
CONTEXT AND CAUSES
A.W.RICHARD SIPE
Santa Clara University
11 May 2012

The context of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic bishops and priests is the culture of the priesthood. Roman Catholic bishops and priests constitute a privileged cast. This persists as a centuries-long reality perpetuated by the monarchical structure essential to the operation of the Roman Catholic Church. The world of RC clergy forms the setting, circumstances, and opportunities that surround the sexual activity of bishops and priests with minors and others. Clergy rule supreme in their spheres of operation—ministry of the sacraments (especially hearing confessions and celebrating mass) religious instructions/teaching, and the administration of their institutions. Parishes (and seminaries) are the most common sites of sexual contacts between priests, minors and others. The climate and culture and power of Catholic bishops and priests put the vulnerable and minors at risk for abuse within areas of clerical control.

The causes of sexual abuse by clergy are solidly rooted in human nature as it is fostered, lived, and expressed in clerical culture. Ordination into major orders (and preparation for them) marks the entrance into the clerical culture. Catholic clerical culture is characterized by homogeneity: it is an exclusively male province—males over twenty-five years of age alone are ordained priests—and they form a homosocial society where women are deprived of any authority. Candidates must promise “perfect and perpetual chastity, therefore celibacy” as a prior condition for ordination [Canon 277 #2]. That requirement confers social power on a priest. [“It was from sexual purity that the priesthood was believed to derive its power.”]

Cardinals and bishops vow absolute obedience to the Pope as the supreme authority. They, the pope’s legitimate surrogates, demand this obedience of their subordinates. [Father Yves Congar once said, “In the Catholic Church it has often seemed that a sin of the flesh was the only sin, and obedience the only virtue.”]

If a priest is apparently compliant with the demands of the culture he receives automatic status regardless of any individual merit. The culture provides an assurance of employment and continued material compensation for the duration of his life. The identification with the power system and subordination to it relives individuals of responsibility for the consequences of their individual actions. Truth telling is curtailed and subjected to the welfare of the organization (the good of the church). The prevailing rationale is that clerics’ first duty is to the higher law of God. Secrecy and loyalty are essential binding elements operative to the function of clerical cultural. Men within the clerical culture are labeled “special” since ordination confers an “ontological” superiority. Clerics thus incorporated into the culture often demonstrate qualities of dependency, entitlement, superiority/arrogance, variable degrees of psychosexual immaturity, but in many cases “they posses enormous powers of empathetic discernment—albeit for purposes of self-aggrandizement.”

These are the fundamental elements operative in the CONTEXT and CAUSES of the sexual abuse of minors and the vulnerable in whatever broader secular culture that clerical sexual abusive behavior occurs.

At the First National Conference for Victims & Survivors of Roman Catholic Clergy Abuse held in Chicago, October 1992 I said: The crisis of sexual abuse by Catholic bishops and priests “now visible is the tip of the iceberg. When the whole story of sexual abuse by presumed celibate clergy is told, it will lead to the highest corridors of Vatican City.”1 Those words that might have seemed shocking or prophetic 20 years ago simply reflect known and documented facts today.

Sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clergy is a long-standing problem. It is historical, but not “history”—the crisis is not over as some bishops and others declared in 2004 and since. Detailed historical accounts of priests abusing minor girls and boys and being sexual with each other are reliable and indelible [Basil 4th Century, Peter Damian 11th Century].[i] The U.S. bishops named the situation a “crisis” in 2002 when they set up a National Review Board. That group made a public presentation of A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States on February 27, 2004. That is the same release date of a report on the investigation on the Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950—2002 conducted by staff members of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice under the direction of Dr. Karen Terry. She served as the principal investigator of a second study on the Context and Causes of clerical abuse released in 2011. Both of these studies were sponsored by the USCCB who established the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002. The cumulative force of media exposure [Boston Globe series on priest abuse beginning January 6, 2002] civil and criminal law suites, pressure from victim advocates, and outrage of the general public precipitated and propelled American bishops (and the Vatican) into measured reactive responses. The documentation provided for the John-Jay studies comes from diocesan files. The criminal trial in Philadelphia (2012) provides one testimony to the inadequacy of Church reporting and file production. I am not alone in reviewing thousands of documented cases of clergy abuse from 1908, 1917 and a continuous supply of reports from1923 up to the present day most not listed by bishops

The ongoing phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors is a worldwide problem among Roman Catholic clergy. Clergy abuse is not an American problem as proposed by Pope John Pau II, although it is remarkable here. Over all between six and nine percent (6-9%) of U.S. Catholic priests get sexually involved with minors: ten percent (10 %) have been documented in Boston. Eleven and one-half percent (11.5 %) of all the priests active from the Los Angeles Archdiocese in 1983 were subsequently identified as abusers.3 In 1988 the “Sensitive Claims Committee” of the Tucson, AZ diocese held the names of twenty-three percent (23%) of its priests. Ireland, England and European countries were ten to fifteen years behind the United States in bringing the problem to public attention. That is no longer the case. [On May 3, 2012 an Italian priest, Father Riccardo Seppia, of Genoa was sentenced to nine and a half years in prison for child sex abuse and attempting to recruit minors into prostitution.]

Sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy is a symptom of a culture in distress. It constitutes part of a larger pattern of sexual involvement by priests and bishops with others—some with minors, but more commonly with adult women and men. Although the latter is not illegal, such behavior by a bishop or priest is still marked in most cases by moral negligence, abuse, professional violation and hypocrisy. More importantly, ecclesiastical authority tolerates this behavior in its own ranks as long as it does not cause scandal. This indulgence characterizes the pattern and practice of clerical culture. As one bishop said on his return from a visit to Rome, “The organization to which I belong is rotten to the core and it comes from the top”. [Two conclusions are reasonable: one must assume that in any group of priests a certain number of sexual abusers are active. Second, the clerical system is not capable of monitoring itself. Grand Jury Reports form the most reliable source of the pattern and practice of clergy sex abuse and supervision/cover up by superiors. Also: Cf. Stockton ruling, Judge, May 2012]

Seminary training still does not prepare clergy for celibate/sexual reality. Seminary training produces many psychosexually impaired and retarded priests whose level of adjustment is adolescent at best.4. This tends to create a psychic and moral field and situations in which immature liaisons with young children not only become more possible but are psychosexually over-determined because children are actually on a developmental par with these men.

The celibate/sexual system that surrounds clerical culture fosters and often rewards psychosexual immaturity. Conformists and even sociopaths have a greater chance of ecclesiastical advancement than more mature and healthy clerics.5. [This is one consequence of clerical culture.]

The homosocial system of the Catholic clergy excludes women categorically from decision-making power. At the same time this male-only system glorifies the roles of virgin and mother; this juxtaposition creates a psychosocial structure that reinforces male psychosexual immaturity and malformation.

A significantly larger proportion of Catholic clergy has a homosexual orientation than does the general population.6. This has always been the case, with many saints among them; this is due in part to natural sexual biodiversity [homosexual orientation is a natural variant], a high genetic correlation between homosexual orientation and altruistic drive, and a culture dependent on control and external conformity [Absolute obedience is a cultural factor that can serve both the strong and the weak character.]

By refusing to deal honestly with the reality of homosexuality in the clerical state (and in general), Catholic teaching fosters self-alienation, and psychosexual immaturity of its clergy and encourages and enables identity confusion, sexual acting out, and moral duplicity. Clerical culture is redolent with clergy living “double lives”.

Catholic moral teaching on sexuality is based on a patently false anthropology that renders magisterial pronouncement non-credible. “Every sexual thought, word, desire, and action outside marriage is mortally sinful. Every sexual act within marriage not open to procreation is mortally sinful. In sexual matters there is no paucity of matter.” [This is irrational and unacceptable as are the rationale and pronouncements on contraception.]

Clergy deprived of a moral doctrine in which they can believe founder for moral guidance and leadership in their own lives and behavior. Sexually, priests and the hierarchy resort to denial, rationalization, and splitting in dealing with their own sexual behavior and that of their colleagues. With the laity they often apply the full wrath of the “law” [including the threat of hell].

The hierarchy cannot claim ignorance and deny the sexual practices of their own—themselves and their fellow-priests—and at the same time assert that they are credible and authoritative sources of leadership in sexual morality for the laity. They cannot responsibly [and legally] sidestep their personal and corporate roles as enablers.

Chief justice Anne Burke (IL) who served as the interim Chair of the National Review Board established by the U.S. Bishops in 2002 said after extensive personal contact with the hierarchy, “they do not want to change. They want Business as usual”. [Governor Frank Keating who served as Justice Burke’s predecessor as Board Chair said that the bishops operate like “cosa nostra”.]

In the past ten years the U.S. bishops have instituted some productive and useful educational ventures that alert certain populations to the dangers of abuse. Certainly these will protect some children from sexual predators. [They fail to notify parishioners that priests can be dangerous. Bishops were not included in the Dallas Charter Zero Tolerance policy. There still is no system for holding bishops accountable. The person charged with oversight of alleged bishop abusers is Bishop Robert Brom, a credibly alleged abuser himself.]

The context of child abuse by Roman Catholic clergy—the tip of an iceberg so painfully visible to us now—does not stand on its own. Sexual abuse by clergy is the product of a well-established clerical culture. The fundamental causes of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy are within the clerical culture. Only an honest examination and Reformation of that culture will address adequately the problem of clerical malfeasance about which sex is central.7.

I repeat what I said in 1992: “Difficult as it is to accept, we are certain that the hierarchical and power structures beneath the surface of dioceses and religious societies form the essence of a secret world that selects, cultivates, supports, and will continue to produce and protect child abusers within the ranks of the Catholic clergy. These hidden forces are elements far more dangerous to the sexual health and welfare of Christ’s Church than those already identified”

Complete Article HERE!

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Prosecutor: Pa. diocese ‘disgraceful,’ ‘criminal’

PHILADELPHIA — After eight weeks of wrenching testimony, Philadelphia prosecutors rested their case Thursday in the trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of helping bury complaints that priests were raping and molesting children.

Monsignor William Lynn is the first U.S. church official charged for his handling of the abuse complaints. Prosecutors say the former secretary for clergy of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia helped known predators stay in ministry, and they charged him with child endangerment and conspiracy.

In arguing to send the case to the jury, a prosecutor said the church needed the priests to run the “business,” protecting church assets – and secrets – over the lives of children.

“They turned a religious institution into a financial institution,” Assistant District Patrick Blessington argued. “It’s disgraceful. It’s criminal.”

Defense lawyers counter that Lynn tried to address the problem as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, but he took orders from above. For most of his tenure, he reported to Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Nearly 2,000 internal church documents unearthed from secret, locked archives show that Bevilacqua approved and occasionally overturned priest assignments recommended by Lynn. The archdiocese routinely kept accused predators in parish work, sometimes after a stint at a church-run treatment center.

Jurors have heard painful testimony from more than a dozen men and women who say they were abused. Former altar boys and others said they were molested or raped while working in the rectory, on overnight trips to the shore, and even in the church sacristy.

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina agreed with a defense motion Thursday to drop one of two conspiracy counts lodged against Lynn. But he still faces another conspiracy count and two counts of child endangerment.

“The wild card, obviously, is whether or not we decide to put Monsignor Lynn on the stand,” lawyer Thomas Bergstrom told Sarmina as he sketched out defense plans for next week.

The trial caps a 10-year investigation for Philadelphia prosecutors, who began their work after the priest sex-abuse crisis broke open in Boston in 2002. They produced an explosive 2005 grand jury report that named 63 Philadelphia priests as likely predators but bitterly concluded that no one could be charged because of legal time limits.

But they got a second chance when more recent accusations surfaced, and they charged Lynn last year after a second grand jury investigation. That report alleged that Lynn knew the accused priests had prior complaints in their files but allowed them to remain in jobs around children.

In a blow to the defense, Sarmina let prosecutors tell the jury about 20 other priests whose cases had crossed Lynn’s desk, to show a pattern of behavior.

As early as 1994, Lynn had prepared a list of about three dozen problem priests based on his review of the secret files, and he sent it to Bevilacqua. The list, shown to jurors, classified three as diagnosed pedophiles and 12 more as “guilty” of the abuse. Twenty were inconclusive, Lynn had said.

Many remained active priests in the archdiocese for years. And one led a South Philadelphia parish until March.

The list is the closest thing to a smoking gun in the case.

Prosecutors say it shows that Lynn knew all too well the church had dangerous predators in its midst. The defense says it shows the loyal aide trying to get Bevilacqua to address the festering problem.

Lynn told the grand jury about the list in 2002, but he said he couldn’t find it in his office.

Then a memo surfaced in February – just days after the former cardinal’s death – that shows Bevilacqua had ordered it shredded. A surviving copy of the list was found.

Prosecutors ended their case Thursday with a detective testifying about the list and its belated discovery.

Lynn is on trial with the Rev. James Brennan, one of four co-defendants charged last year. Former priest Edward Avery – deemed “guilty” on Lynn’s 1994 list and defrocked in 2006 – pleaded guilty before trial to sexually assaulting an altar boy in a church sacristy in 1999. He is serving a 2-1/2- to five-year prison term. The two others will be tried separately.

Brennan, 48, denies the charges, and his lawyer attacked the accuser’s credibility when he testified.

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Cardinal’s presence felt at Pa. church-abuse trial

Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died just weeks before his longtime aide went on trial in the alleged cover-up of sexual assaults by priests within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Yet Bevilacqua is very much the ghost inside courtroom 304 at the Philadelphia Criminal Justice Center. Rarely an hour goes by that his name is not invoked.

Witnesses portray him as a regal, sometimes feared authoritarian figure: “the man at the top,” in the words of city detective Joseph Walsh.

After eight weeks of evidence, prosecutors trying to convict Monsignor William Lynn of child endangerment rested Thursday without showing the videotaped deposition Bevilacqua gave two months before his Jan. 31 death. He was 88, and battling cancer and dementia. And he claimed to remember few details of the scores of abuse complaints that came in under his watch, according to a defense motion.

Yet since his death, prosecutors have learned the cardinal ordered two confidantes to destroy a 1994 list Lynn had prepared of 35 problem priests.

The list warned the cardinal they had three diagnosed pedophiles, a dozen confirmed predators and at least 20 more possible abusers in their midst.

Bevilacqua promptly had the list shredded, according to a memo signed by his loyal aides, current Bishop Joseph R. Cistone of Saginaw, Mich., and now-retired Bishop Edward Cullen of Allentown, Pa.

“It was all about the good of Mother Church,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington argued to the trial judge Thursday. “It’s not only criminal, it’s outrageously criminal.”

Lynn was the point person for abuse complaints in his role as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004. He had little training for the job.

“I thought I was dealing with them adequately,” Lynn told a grand jury in 2002, when prosecutors started investigating the archdiocese. “I didn’t get any direction.”

Ten years later, jurors have seen nearly 2,000 documents subpoenaed from secret church archives, an astonishing cache that was long protected by locks, keys and door alarms.

They have also heard from former altar boys, and men and women who worked in rectories growing up, who said they were raped or fondled for years.

Prosecutors call Lynn a key player in developing the archdiocese’s response to the complaints. Typically, that meant taking statements from the accused and accuser, typing up memos, and sometimes sending a priest for counseling before he was transferred to a new parish.

Lynn’s defense lawyers have at times called their client a mere “scrivener” who carried out Bevilacqua’s orders. And even prosecution witnesses agreed the cardinal ultimately decided priest assignments.

Jurors also heard what happened if a pastor refused to take one of the bad apples. Monsignor Michael Picard of Newtown testified that he was called down to meet with Bevilacqua about his “disobedience” in 1996. He spent 14 years “in the penalty box,” denied the title of monsignor.

The evidence paints Lynn, by comparison, as a company man, dutiful and compliant. He alone now faces more than 20 years in prison if convicted.

“I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know whether he broke the law. But he certainly did not do the honorable thing,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “He should have looked Bevilacqua in the eye and said, `You can’t do this. This is wrong, and I’m not going to be part of it.’”

The cardinal, trained in both canon and civil law, made 10 combative appearances before the grand jury in 2003 and 2004, accompanied by high-priced counsel. Prosecutors blasted Bevilacqua in their 2005 grand jury report, but said they couldn’t charge him because the statute of limitations had run out on the accusations.

A second grand jury last year complained there were still dozens of accused Philadelphia priests in ministry. Armed with new complaints and revised laws, prosecutors charged three priests and a teacher with sexually assaulting two boys in the 1990s. They charged Lynn with two counts each of child endangerment and conspiracy.

“You don’t care about the boys. You care about the business of the church,” Blessington said Thursday about the lead defendant.

Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina dropped one of the conspiracy charges when prosecutors rested, finding insufficient evidence Lynn had conspired with the Rev. James Brennan to keep him in ministry. Brennan is also on trial, charged with molesting a teenager in 1996. Defrocked priest Edward Avery pleaded guilty to a 1999 sexual assault, and is serving a 2 1/2- to five-year term.

The defense starts its case Tuesday, with Lynn’s former assistants and several character witnesses expected to testify. It’s not clear whether Lynn will take the stand.

The jury is expected to get the case in about two weeks – presumably, without ever hearing the sealed testimony of “the man at the top.”

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