If you read nothing else this week, read this:
The Catholic Church’s lost revolution
“The magnificent Roman Catholic Church, a millennial font of reasoned faith and aesthetic genius, is on the road to becoming yet another fundamentalist cult.”
U.S. Roman Catholics outraged over child sex abuse scandal; call for bishop’s resignation
Calls for Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation intensified the day after he became the highest-ranking U.S. church official to be convicted of a crime related to a child sexual abuse scandal.
Soon after a Missouri judge found Bishop Finn guilty Thursday of one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child sexual abuse to the state, unhappy Roman Catholics began discussing ways to get the bishop out of office on a Facebook page titled “Bishop Finn Must Go.”
Among the posts was one that listed contact information for the Vatican and urged parishioners to voice their displeasure with Bishop Finn at the highest levels. Pope Benedict XVI alone has authority over bishops. Through the decades-long abuse scandal, only one U.S. bishop has stepped down over his failures to stop abusive clergy: Cardinal Bernard Law – who, in 2002, resigned as head of the Archdiocese of Boston.
Jackson County Judge John M. Torrence sentenced Bishop Finn to two years of supervised probation. If the bishop abides by a set of stipulations from the judge, the conviction will be wiped from his record in 2014.
“Now that our justice system says he’s guilty, he has lost his ability to lead our diocese,” Patricia Rotert, a Catholic church member in Kansas City, said Friday. “He’s lost his credibility. There is turmoil and angst around him and I don’t think he can bring people together.”
Bishop Finn’s attorneys would not comment on the bishop’s future in the church, saying it was a legal matter.
However, Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph spokesman Jack Smith indicated that Bishop Finn wasn’t going anywhere.
“The bishop looks forward to continuing to perform his duties, including carrying out the important obligations placed on him by the court,” Mr. Smith said in an emailed statement Friday.
Bishop Finn’s conviction comes four years after the church paid $10 million to settle 47 pending sexual abuse claims against the diocese and 12 of its priests. When announcing that deal in 2008, Bishop Finn apologized for the abuse that occurred at the hands of current and former clergy members, and promised that steps were being taken to make sure such abuse never happened again.
The diocese posted an update about the 2008 settlement on its website in June 2011 stating that Bishop Finn had written 118 letters of apology to plaintiffs or their families. That same month, Bishop Finn apologized for not responding to warnings the diocese received a year earlier from a parish principal detailing suspicious behavior by the Reverand Shawn Ratigan around children.
Instead of reading the memo and looking into the claims, Bishop Finn left it up to subordinates to handle the matter. He later admitted it was a year before he finally read a five-page document that a parish elementary school principal wrote detailing suspicious activities by Rev. Ratigan around children.
Bishop Finn also was informed of nude photos of children found on Rev. Ratigan’s laptop computer in December 2010, but instead of turning them over to police, Bishop Finn sent Rev. Ratigan to live at a convent in Independence, Mo.
Monsignor Robert Murphy turned the photos over to police in May 2011 — against Bishop Finn’s wishes, according to court documents — after Rev. Ratigan continued to violate Bishop Finn’s orders to stay away from children and not take any pictures of them.
Rev. Ratigan pleaded guilty last month to five child pornography counts, but hasn’t been sentenced. Prosecutors have requested he spend the rest of his life in prison.
Bishop Finn apologized again Thursday in court for the pain caused by his failure to report Rev. Ratigan.
The bishop has avoided facing charges in Missouri’s Clay County, where Rev. Ratigan was charged, after reaching a settlement in November 2011. For five years, Bishop Finn must report to the Clay County prosecutor directly each month about any suspected child abuse in the diocese’s facilities in the county.
“I said for years that we wouldn’t be in the mess we were in today if about 30 bishops had said `I made a mistake, I’m sorry, I take full responsibility and I resign,“’ said the Reverand Thomas J. Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I think we’re at a state in the life of the church when a bishop is convicted of a misdemeanor, found guilty of not doing what he was supposed to do, I think he should resign for the good of the diocese and the good of the church.”
Support for Bishop Finn’s resignation is far from unanimous. Some say they agree he made a mistake, but it’s not one that should force him out, especially with even more stringent safeguards in place to protect children.
“There’s always been fights in the church, and there will continue to be fights in the church,” said Kansas City parishioner Bruce Burkhart, a member of the Serra Club, which supports and promotes priests.
“I think people may walk away, but that’s their business,” he said. “If they think their children are any more safe in public schools, or in another church setting where people are working with youth, the data indicate they’re not. The Catholic Church in America is probably now today the safest place for children.”
While Bishop Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic official to be charged in the U.S. with shielding an abusive priest, Albany Law School professor Timothy Lytton said the June conviction of Monsignor William Lynn in Philadelphia broke the ice on criminal convictions against members of the Catholic hierarchy.
Monsignor Lynn, who supervised other clergy as an aide to the cardinal, was convicted of felony child endangerment and became the first U.S. church official sent to prison for his handling of abuse complaints. He is appealing his three- to six-year sentence.
Still, Bishop Finn’s conviction is significant because it proves Monsignor Lynn’s criminal prosecution was not an isolated event, but instead something that is likely to embolden prosecutors to go after church leaders who fail to protect children.
“Kansas City might mark a trend,” Mr. Lytton said. “It’s no longer good enough to just file civil suits; criminal justice may be much quicker to get involved. Kansas City normalizes this kind of reaction to the scandal.”
Complete Article HERE!
Cardinal Carlo Martini says Church ‘200 years behind’
Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has described the Roman Catholic Church as being “200 years behind” the times.
The cardinal died on Friday, aged 85.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera has published his last interview, recorded in August, in which he said: “The Church is tired… our prayer rooms are empty.”
Martini, once tipped as a future pope, urged the Church to recognise its errors and to embark on a radical path of change, beginning with the Pope.
Cardinal Martini
Thousands of people have been filing past his coffin at Milan’s cathedral, where he was archbishop for more than 20 years.
The cardinal, who had retired from the post in 2002, suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, is to be buried on Monday.
‘Old culture’
Martini, a popular figure with liberal stances on many issues, commanded great respect from both Pope John Paul II and his successor Pope Benedict XVI.
The cardinal – a member of the Jesuit religious order – was often critical in his writings and comments on Church teaching, says the BBC’s David Willey in Rome.
He was a courageous and outspoken figure during the years he headed Europe’s largest Catholic diocese, our correspondent says.
Cardinal Martini gave his last interview to a fellow Jesuit priest, Georg Sporschill, and to a journalist at the beginning of August when he knew his death was approaching.
The cardinal had returned to Italy from Jerusalem, where he had settled on retirement in 2002 to continue his biblical studies.
Catholics lacked confidence in the Church, he said in the interview. “Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous.”
Unless the Church adopted a more generous attitude towards divorced persons, it will lose the allegiance of future generations, the cardinal added. The question, he said, is not whether divorced couples can receive holy communion, but how the Church can help complex family situations.
And the advice he leaves behind to conquer the tiredness of the Church was a “radical transformation, beginning with the Pope and his bishops”.
“The child sex scandals oblige us to undertake a journey of transformation,” Cardinal Martini says, referring to the child sex abuse that has rocked the Catholic Church in the past few years.
He was not afraid, our correspondent adds, to speak his mind on matters that the Vatican sometimes considered taboo, including the use of condoms to fight Aids and the role of women in the Church.
In 2008, for example, he criticised the Church’s prohibition of birth control, saying the stance had likely driven many faithful away, and publicly stated in 2006 that condoms could “in some situations, be a lesser evil”.
Complete Article HERE!
Archbishop Nienstedt’s latest marriage-amendment letter adds to Catholic turmoil
On Sunday, priests in a number of Twin Cities Roman Catholic parishes read a letter from Archbishop John Nienstedt re-stating the church’s support for the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
On Monday, Michael Bayly, the director of Catholics for Marriage Equality, noticed a spike in requests for the group’s lawn signs, which read, “Another Catholic Voting No.”
Some of the people who stopped by his south Minneapolis office to pick them up told him people had walked out of their churches during the reading. A parishioner at the nearby Church of the Annunciation said half a dozen left her service.
On Thursday, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’s official publication, the Catholic Spirit, carried the text of the letter.
Meanwhile, the Facebook site “I am Catholic. I am Voting NO!” acquired a list of parishes where the letter was not read. The most prominent of the 17 churches listed: Minneapolis’ Basilica of St. Mary.
In the letter, Nienstedt asserts that the purpose of the ballot initiative has been misconstrued. “Our effort to support God’s unchanging plan for marriage is not a campaign against anyone, but rather a positive effort to promote the truth about marriage as a union between one man and one woman,” he writes.
“But the reality is that marriage is not ours to redefine, just as another human life is not ours to take,” the archbishop continues. “God is both the author of life and the author of marriage. It is this most fundamental understanding of the natural order that animates who we are as Catholics. … It is also why we fight to defend God’s plan for marriage, because his providence is as clear for what marriage is as it is for the dignity of each human life. …
“Now, Minnesota for Marriage needs your help to get the message out. We must ensure that Minnesotans know what is at stake and have the correct information about why they should vote ‘Yes’ for the marriage amendment. (Remember that if you leave the ballot box blank, the government votes ‘No’ for you!).”
The Archdiocese did not return calls seeking comment Thursday.
Bayly hears something different. “He seems to have softened his language about gay people,” he said, referring to Nienstedt. “They must have realized they’ve alienated people.”
“We know that some who are seeking to redefine marriage experience same-sex attractions,” the letter reads. “Our brothers and sisters living with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God who must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity.
“Every sign of unjust discrimination in this regard must be avoided. People with same-sex attractions, like others in society, are productive citizens, community servants, good friends and our beloved family members.
“At the same time, however, it is important to know that the effort to ensure that the definition of marriage remains as between one man and one woman does not take away anyone’s existing rights or legal protections. As Catholics, we believe that all people should be able to visit loved ones in the hospital, pass on their property to whomever they choose and have access to employment, housing and the basic necessities of life. Saying ‘yes’ to God’s plan for marriage will not change any of this.”
In recent months, Catholics who either plainly disagree with the church’s stance on marriage rights for gays and lesbians or who are wrestling with their consciences have been increasingly visible. The conflicted parishioners have organized everything from informational meetings in borrowed, non-Catholic churches to vigils outside the Chancery.
Many were offended by Nienstedt’s decision to take a very active role in the campaign for the amendment. To date, Minnesota Catholic churches and groups have given $1 million to the vote-yes effort.
Others have been unhappy with statements that put their love for their church in opposition to their love for LGBT relatives and friends. One example: A letter Nienstedt penned for the Catholic Spirit soon after his 2007 ascension in which he warned that those “who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts … formally cooperate in a grave evil, and … are guilty of mortal sin.”
Still others were upset that in the run-up to the 2010 gubernatorial contest, Nienstedt distributed 400,000 DVDs, paid for by an anonymous donor and by the Knights of Columbus, urging Catholics to vote for the only candidate in the race opposed to same-sex marriage, Tom Emmer.
“That language and that approach has clearly been ditched,” said Bayly. Still, he added, “The fact that they can’t bring themselves to talk about gay people or lesbian people is offensive.”
The divide has put the church in the headlines numerous times in recent months. In late July, newspapers reported that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, himself the topic of amendment-related news stories, had been invited to speak at St. Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis. Later stories reported that he was subsequently uninvited and then that his appearance had been postponed.
At the same time, some members of a group of 102 former priests that signed on to a statement opposing the amendment have disagreed publicly with the church’s depiction of its teachings.
“That conscience must rule is consistent with what all of us former priests learned in seminary,” Ed Kohler wrote in a letter published earlier this month in the Pioneer Press. “That conscience must rule is also consistent with the current Pope Benedict XVI — who taught, while still Father Joseph Ratzinger, that ‘Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirements of ecclesiastical authority.’”
One active priest, Bob Pierson, told some 200 Catholics at an event in Edina that they can vote against a proposal to amend the Minnesota Constitution to ban gay marriage. Bayly and several other members of Catholics for Marriage Equality say they have been told the Archdiocese has ordered Pierson to stay silent on the issue from now on.
“There are groups of Catholics who are hungry for alternative perspectives on this,” Bayly said. “I’ve got a pretty well-full September of speaking engagements around the state.”
Complete Article HERE!
Catholic priest faces excommunication after launching new parish
A Milwaukee-area Catholic priest sanctioned this year for indirectly violating the seal of the confessional now faces excommunication after launching a new parish with a breakaway diocese a few miles away.
Father David Verhasselt, once a popular priest at St. Catherine of Alexandria Parish in Oconomowoc, was named pastor this month at the newly founded Holy Name of Jesus Evangelical Catholic Church in nearby Ashippun, taking at least some of his former parishioners with him.
The Archdiocese of Milwaukee said Verhasselt will be given an opportunity to reverse his decision and would incur “immediate excommunication” if he does not.
Verhasselt has declined repeated requests to be interviewed. But the Chicago-based Evangelical Catholic Diocese of the Northwest said he withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church in accordance with canon law.
“For the record, the Roman Catholic Church cannot declare a former member of its body ‘excommunicated’ after the fact,” it said in an email to the Journal Sentinel. “We are currently residing within the 21st century.”
Verhasselt’s departure is forcing a gut-wrenching decision for at least some of his former parishioners, many of whom still believe he was unjustly accused of breaching the confessional. Do they stay at St. Catherine’s or follow Verhasselt to his new spiritual home outside the Roman Catholic Church?
“I’m on the fence. I’ve been Roman Catholic and gone to church all my life. But I also love Father Dave,” said June Sawant.
“He’s the most wonderful man, so kind, so caring . . . he was born to be a priest.”
Those who follow a schismatic priest could face excommunication themselves, depending on the circumstances, according to canon lawyers. But that is unlikely to occur without a clear warning from the archbishop, said Father James Connell, a canon lawyer and former vice chancellor of the archdiocese.
No such warning has been issued.
Excommunication bars one from receiving the sacraments; it does not strip one of membership in the church, according to Connell.
“And the door remains open to repentance,” he said. “There is always the hope that they will return.”
Verhasselt had been on leave from St. Catherine’s since April 2010 after allegedly violating the seal of confessional, a charge many of his supporters believed was trumped up as the result of an ongoing feud with a priest in another parish.
Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki found Verhasselt guilty in March of an “indirect” violation – betraying the sin, but not necessarily the sinner – and sentenced him to a year of prayer and penance.
Verhasselt’s appeal to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was pending when he resigned to join the Chicago-based Evangelical Catholic Church, a small, dissident denomination not in communion with Rome.
Founded in 1995, the Evangelical Church has 17 parishes or missions in the United States and Ireland, according to spokesman Bill Morton.
It bills itself as “a welcoming community of faith rooted in the Catholic tradition,” but it breaks with Rome in key areas, including ordaining women, allowing married and gay clergy, and in offering the sacrament of marriage to same-sex couples.
Morton said Northwest Diocese Bishop James Wilkowski reviewed the documents involving the charges against Verhasselt and found no evidence of a breach.
Wilkowski presided over an Aug. 4 Mass in which Verhasselt professed his faith in his new denomination, and he is expected to complete the process of incardination by the end of the year.
Complete Article HERE!
“An unholy mess”
That’s what an in-depth, investigative piece in the Economist called the state of finances in the Catholic Church in America: an unholy mess.
It’s hard to decide what is most horrifying in this report of financial mismanagement, which looks at data made public through bankruptcy proceedings in several dioceses:
- Some dioceses have raided priests’ pension funds to pay for sexual abuse damages and other costs. Under Cardinal Bernard Law, the archdiocese of Boston contributed nothing to its clergy retirement fund between 1986 and 2002, despite receiving an estimated $70 million to $90 million in Easter and Christmas offerings that many parishioners believed would benefit retired priests.
- The same is true for parish savings. A parish in Wilmington, Del., sent $1 million to be deposited in what it thought was a separate account, but was really a pooled, general cash account for the diocese. The parish lost the money when the diocese struck a sexual-abuse settlement.
- Cardinal Dolan and other New York bishops are spending an estimated $100,000 a year to well over $1 million, sources say, on lobbying the state assembly to prevent an extension of the statute of limitations on sexual abuse, which would result in more lawsuits and more dioceses declaring bankruptcy.
- Creditors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case have questioned the motives behind a $35 million transfer to a trust and a $55.6 million transfer from archdiocese coffers to a fund for cemeteries, alleging the movement of such large amounts was a fraudulent attempt to shield cash from sexual-abuse victims.
- Dioceses in bankruptcy are required to enlarge their assets to satisfy their creditors, yet some have tried to shrink the size of their assets, by closing parishes or undervaluing property. The Diocese of San Diego listed the value of a whole city block in downtown San Diego at $40,000, the price at which it had been acquired in the 1940s, rather than the the current market value, as required.
- The church is going into debt to pay its bills, with tax-free municipal bonds, a subsidy more commonly associated with local governments and public-sector projects. State and local authorities have issued municipal bonds for the benefit of at least 50 dioceses in almost 30 states. In California, at least $12 billion has been raised through municipal bonds over the past decade, $9 billion of which went to hospitals.
- Estimated spending by the church and entities owned by the church was around $170 billion in 2010, only 6% of that for parish and diocesan operations and 2.7% of it for charitable activities. The majority, 57%, is on health care networks, followed by 28% on colleges.
- Catholic Charities USA and its subsidiaries employ distributed $4.7 billion to the poor in 2010, of which 62% came from local, state and federal government agencies.
Similar financial mismanagement was reported in “Render Unto Rome: The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church” by Jason Berry, who was quoted in the Economist article. It’s why more and more Catholics are considering whether this is an institution worthy of their donations.
Complete Article HERE!
Seattle marchers show support for activist nuns
Over the years, Patricia Patterson thought about joining protest marches in support of women’s rights or against war. But the cause that finally got her to take to the streets was nuns.
“It baffles me that a group of women who are among the … most compassionate are being, frankly, picked on by the Vatican,” Patterson said Sunday. She joined a throng of nearly 500 people who marched in support of the nuns’ group recently rebuked by the Catholic Church for promoting “radical feminist themes” at odds with official doctrine.
Patterson carried a picture of her aunt, a nun who had a major influence on her life. Other marchers carried flowers and sang hymns as they walked from Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill to St. James Cathedral, seat of the Archdiocese of Seattle.
But Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain wasn’t home. He was in St. Louis for meetings with the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an umbrella group that includes about 80 percent of women’s religious orders in the United States.
The Vatican put Sartain in charge of revamping the Leadership Conference to bring its practices more in line with Catholic orthodoxy.
After a four-day conference that concluded Friday, the nuns agreed to talk with Sartain but said they would not “compromise the integrity” of their mission.
Sartain praised the nuns’ work and contributions in a statement issued Saturday. “They deserve our respect, our support, our thanks and our prayers,” he wrote. He said he is committed to working with the Leadership Council in “atmosphere of prayer and respectful dialogue.”
Sister Cathy Beckley, who was cheered as she dashed back and forth in her red baseball cap, said the Vatican’s attack was hurtful to women who have devoted their lives to caring for people on society’s fringes.
In a report issued in April, Catholic Church officials chided the nuns and sisters for resisting some church teachings, including those that prohibit birth control and same-sex relationships.
Beckley, a Seattle social worker and member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, said that when she worked on the streets with the poor and homeless, she never asked about their private lives.
Sunday’s turnout gave her hope that many Catholics agree with the sisters’ approach and value their service. “Clearly, a very significant segment of the church here in the U.S. and around the world is more progressive.”
Among their causes, the sisters of the Leadership Conference mounted a “Nuns on the Bus” tour this summer opposing cuts in federal spending for social and health services proposed by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan — now running mate to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Catholic bishops also echoed those concerns.
Beyond politics, the split between the sisters and the Vatican reflects the struggle between Catholics who want the church to adapt to modern realities — such as the fact that the vast majority of Catholic women in America use birth control — and those who seek a more traditional path, several marchers said.
Christy Higgins, of Seattle, was a youngster in Catholic school when the Vatican II changes were adopted in the 1960s. She recalls her teachers trading their habits for street clothes, and she embraced the more open and inclusive outlook.
“The church is all of us, not just the Vatican, the bishops and the cardinals,” Higgins said, her shirt pinned with more than a dozen “I Stand with the Sisters” buttons.
The slogan is also the name of the Seattle group that organized Sunday’s march. “We were so upset about how the church hierarchy is treating the sisters,” said Gretchen Gundrum, a co-founder.
It’s easy for ivory-tower leaders — all of whom are men — to discount the hard decisions people face in their day-to-day lives, Gundrum said. “The nuns see the complexity. Morality is not black-and-white, no matter what somebody says.”
The same tensions have always been present in the Catholic Church, Gundrum added. Church leaders denounced Galileo for claiming the Earth revolves around the sun. They finally admitted he was right — nearly 400 years later.
“Our group hopes to shorten the amount of time it takes for them to come around,” Gundrum said.
Complete Article HERE!
Drag Queens Prohibited at Most Holy Redeemer Parish
Nice goin’ (Archbishop) Sal; piss of the drag queens first thing out the gate.
A local gay recovery group will not be holding its annual fall fundraiser in the social hall of the Castro neighborhood’s Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church after officials said that no drag queens would be allowed.
For the past couple of years the Castro Country Club has held its event in the church’s social hall and had drag queens as entertainment.
As a statement issued by the country club’s board of directors explained, the new no-drag-queen policy at the church is simply unacceptable.
“The Castro Country Club had planned to hold our third annual Harvest Feast on October 20, 2012, at Most Holy Redeemer Church, where we have held this and other events in the past,” the directors said in a statement.
But that changed when the club was notified by the church last week that they would not be able to hold the dinner if any drag queens were part of the program, the board said.
“In previous years, we have had Ivy Drip and Heklina, both well-known entertainers and community fundraisers, serve as emcees of the event, and we felt we could not in good conscience abide by the church’s new policy,” the board said.
“It is our organization’s policy to be inclusive and welcoming to all. Drag queens are no exception. We are currently seeking an alternative venue for the Harvest Feast, which provides an important source of revenue for our annual budget,” the board added.
Individual members of the country club declined to comment and referred to the board’s statement.
Most Holy Redeemer’s new pastor, the Reverend Brian Costello, confirmed over telephone on Monday, August 6, that drag queen performers and emcees are no longer permitted to participate in events at the church.
Costello said that during a telephone conversation with a Castro Country Club representative, when the topic of drag queens came up, he told the person, “That is not going to work under the present circumstances.”
“I said work with me. You can still have the dinner. You can have a regular emcee, but not drag queens on church property,” Costello said.
New leadership
It seems the directive is the result of several factors.
“I am the new pastor,” Costello added. “There is a new archbishop. The archdiocese told me straight out, ‘No drag queens.’”
The change of policy at Most Holy Redeemer was greeted with charges of discrimination, homophobia, and calls for compromise, even reconciliation.
“It’s really ridiculous and discriminatory,” said Zachary Davenport in a phone interview. “I mean it’s like, who’s next?”
Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in the Castro has banned drag queens, forcing the Castro Country Club to find a new venue for its fall fundraiser.
(Photo: Rick Gerharter)
The drag queen ban is personal for Davenport, who, in drag as Laybelline has served as emcee for a variety of sobriety-related nonprofit events held at Most Holy Redeemer.
“What constitutes drag?” he said. “If we want to get funny, let’s talk about the priests. Hello.”
Davenport also pointed to a nuanced landscape of gender identity and expression, which the new policy at Most Holy Redeemer seemingly blocks. “There are members of our community who express their gender all the time, and are not necessarily performing, but would say, ‘Yes, I am in drag,’” he said.
“Yes, I realize [Most Holy Redeemer] is a church. But it is in the Castro,” said Davenport. If, “the new archbishop is wanting to do away with drag queens and the gays,” then “look where you are. [The neighborhood] has a history of 30 to 40 years of being a safe place.”
A California native from Watsonville, Davenport, 28, who is not Catholic, added, “I know gay people who go to Most Holy Redeemer and love the church.”
Dignity San Francisco offered its take on the new policy at Most Holy Redeemer.
“This is an unfortunate development between Most Holy Redeemer and the Castro County Club,” said Ernest L. Camisa, treasurer of the Dignity/SF chapter, speaking for the organization by e-mail and over the telephone.
“It looks like the Archdiocese of San Francisco wants to protect its image by not condoning cross-dressers. By doing so they show that they care more for their image than they do for gay people trying to overcome alcohol addiction. Here the church looks like it values its own image more than it does human life. This is not Christian, but callous,” Camisa said.
A couple of Most Holy Redeemer parishioners declined to comment. No one from Castro Country Club was willing to speak on the record.
Reached by phone, George Wesolek, department head for communications and public policy for the archdiocese, said he was not in the policy conversation “loop.” Nonetheless, Wesolek acknowledged, the situation is “difficult pastorally,” particularly in “very divided and fractious church.”
Others weigh in
Meanwhile, across the country, the new no-drag queen policy has struck a chord among gay Catholic activists and those in ministry.
“I think this is a very difficult and complex time for not only the pastor and the people of Holy Redeemer parish, but also for members of the drag community. All three groups are an example of ordinary people being called to do some extraordinary things for their neighbors. The pastor and parish of Most Holy Redeemer have to be very careful not to throw out the baby with the water in the name of homophobia. Jesus, not homophobia, should guide us in this matter,” said Joe Murray, a founder of the Chicago-based the pro-LGBT Catholic Rainbow Sash Movement.
The Rainbow Sash Movement, stateside and abroad, advocates reception of Eucharist by visibly gay persons during Mass. The movement is best known for donning rainbow sashes on Pentecost and approaching the altar for communion during Mass that day.
At the same time, New Ways Ministry Executive Director Francis De Bernardo offered his assessment via e-mail correspondence.
“Drag is a historically-based, time-honored entertainment tradition that has existed, at least, since classical times,” he said.
“Canceling this program without any explanation or substantial reason is simply caving into fear of reprisals from higher authorities. If the [Most Holy Redeemer] community has supported this event for years, there has obviously been a relationship that has developed between the sponsoring organization and the parish, and it would be great if the two groups could work together to find some resolution. Reconciliation is what any and every parish should be about. If the parish does not offer a substantial intervening reason, we can only assume that other forces have had influence,” said DeBernardo.
Located just outside Washington, D.C., New Ways is a pro-gay Catholic ministry of education, healing, and reconciliation for LGBT Catholics, their families, friends, and the wider church.
For his part, Costello said the Castro Country Club event would have been in its third year at Most Holy Redeemer.
“It’s not a 20- to 25-year relationship,” he said.
Nonetheless, Costello lamented the course of events.
“I am big on compromising,” he said. But “[Castro Country Club] would not work with me. It was all or nothing. And they got nothing.”
Costello also said that with respect to drag queens, “We have had bad experiences, not only in church, but also the [social] hall.”
Still, “I feel bad because [Castro Country Club] do[es] good work in the community,” he said.
While Costello did not elaborate on any social hall “bad experience,” one church incident nearly five years ago caused a media stir.
During Sunday Mass on Sunday, October 7, 2007, Archbishop George Niederauer gave communion to two members of the activist group and drag troupe Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an indecent that angered, hurt, and even horrified some conservative Catholics, as well as it grabbed local and national headlines.
Called to task locally by the California Catholic Daily and a “90 years young” priest, the Reverend John Malloy, on A Shepherd’s Voice blog, Niederauer apologized for giving communion to gays dressed as nuns.
Attempts to reach the Sisters for comment on the recent change of policy at Most Holy Redeemer were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, as recent as April 29, in a Shepherd’s Voice post Malloy blasted the “gay parish” for hosting an April 14 “drag show” to benefit the Castro Country Club, “a substance abuse treatment organization.”
“Hosting a drag show at [Most Holy Redeemer] is the equivalent of sending a case of wine to Castro Country Club,” wrote Malloy. “It is beyond irresponsible for the Archdiocese of San Francisco to allow it.”
And while local conservative bloggers and orthodox Catholic activists may well exacerbate tensions at Most Holy Redeemer, Rainbow Sash Movement’s Murray noted, “The appointment of Archbishop-elect [Salvatore] Cordileone has brought this matter to a head.”
And yet, said Murray, “Let’s be very clear homophobia in the church existed prior to this event.”
He went on to fault the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Catechism, “for saying on the one hand that homosexuals are to be welcomed and every form of unjust discrimination is to be condemned, while saying at the same time saying we are morally disordered for our love.”
“Either gay and lesbian people are welcome at Most Holy Redeemer or they are not. It’s that simple. If the tradition of Most Holy Redeemer is to allow for drag queens to raise money for charity, then to fault those who are raising the money in the name of homophobia, I think, speaks volumes to what type of ministry is going on at Most Holy Redeemer; and that deeply disturbs me. If that is the case, I like the parishioners of Most Holy Redeemer have been misled,” said Murray.
Complete Article HERE!
Former Argentinian dictator says he told Catholic Church of disappeared
BEWARE the collusion of a national hierarchy with it’s national political leadership. These men, and they are all men, have no conscience.
ARGENTINA’S FORMER military dictator said he kept the country’s Catholic hierarchy informed about his regime’s policy of “disappearing” political opponents, and that Catholic leaders offered advice on how to “manage” the policy.
Jorge Videla said he had “many conversations” with Argentina’s primate, Cardinal Raúl Francisco Primatesta, about his regime’s dirty war against left-wing activists. He said there were also conversations with other leading bishops from Argentina’s episcopal conference as well as with the country’s papal nuncio at the time, Pio Laghi.
“They advised us about the manner in which to deal with the situation,” said Videla in a series of interviews conducted by the magazine El Sur in 2010 but published only on Sunday.
He said that in certain cases church authorities offered their “good offices” and undertook to inform families looking for “disappeared” relatives to desist from their searches, but only if they were certain the families would not use the information to denounce the junta.
“In the case of families that it was certain would not make political use of the information, they told them not to look any more for their child because he was dead,” said Videla. He said the church “understood well . . . and also assumed the risks” of such involvement.
The confession confirms long-held suspicions that Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy collaborated with the military’s so-called process of national reorganisation, which sought to root out communism. In the years following the 1976 coup led by Videla, thousands of left-wing activists were swept up into secret detention centres where they were tortured and murdered. Military chaplains were assigned as spiritual advisers to the junior officers who staffed the centres.
In contrast to the Catholic hierarchy in Brazil, where church leaders denounced that country’s military dictatorship and provided sanctuary to its victims, in Argentina bishops were prominent defenders of the regime against accusations of human rights abuses from abroad.
At the height of the state’s offensive, Cardinal Primatesta refused to meet with mothers of the disappeared who, in the face of violent intimidation and media silence, were seeking help in finding out what had happened to their missing loved ones. He also prohibited the lower clergy from speaking out against state violence, even as death squads targeted Catholic priests critical of the regime.
The cardinal’s defenders said he believed a break with the regime would be counter- productive and that in private he characterised disappearances and torture as against the Christian spirit. On his death in 2006 human rights campaigners in Argentina said he took to the grave many of the junta’s secrets after they failed to force him to testify about his dealings with it.
Accusations of collaboration with the junta also dogged the subsequent career of Laghi, who had been a regular tennis partner of the navy’s representative in the junta, Admiral Emilio Eduardo Massera, when in Buenos Aires.
The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo human rights group tried to prosecute him in Italy for his involvement with Argentina’s dictatorship but the effort failed.
Videla is serving life in prison for human rights abuses committed while in power. Earlier this month a court sentenced him to 50 years for orchestrating the theft of babies born in captivity to women subsequently murdered by their military captors.
He gave the interview to El Sur on condition that it be published only after his death, saying he did not want to cause any more pain. But the magazine said it was released from its obligation after Videla subsequently gave a series of interviews to other journalists that were published.
Complete Article HERE!
What if the Catholic Church Responded to Its Sex Scandal The Way the NCAA Did to Theirs?
By Mike Rivage-Seul
Many were pleasantly surprised by the severity of the sanctions the National Collegiate Athletic Association placed on Penn State following its investigation of the Jerry Sandusky child abuse scandal. The NCAA’s measures evidenced an appropriately serious approach to unspeakable crimes. At the same time, however, the athletic association’s aggressive sanctions contrasted sharply with the lack of appropriate response to much greater crimes on the part of Roman Catholic clergy. It made some wonder what it might look like if the Catholic Church handled its infinitely larger scandal in a fashion similar to that of the NCAA.
Of course, the Penn State’s board of trustees had initially tried to defuse its shameful situation by having the institution’s president resign and by firing Joe Paterno, the football program’s legendary coach. Eventually, they even removed “Joepa’s” statue that (dis)graced the entrance way to the football stadium in Happy Valley.
But the NCAA went far beyond that — even further than most had expected. It appointed high profile Independent Counsel, Louis Freeh, to investigate responsibility for Sandusky’s crimes and the cover-up that followed. Then in the wake of Freeh’s damning final report, it fined the University $60 million dollars — the amount the football program takes in annually. It ordered the program to vacate its winnings since 1998 (thus depriving Paterno of his legacy as the winningest coach in NCAA football history). It forbade the program to extend any football scholarships for the next four years, and released all of its current players from their ties to Penn State, making them immediately eligible to play elsewhere. The football program will be devastated for years to come.
The NCAA’s bold sanctions couldn’t be further from the response of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to its child abuse scandal. There instead the “old boy” defense of the institution and the members of its all male club kicked in just as it did at first inside Penn State’s football program when the Sandusky crimes initially came to light. At Penn State, the wagons were circled, Sandusky was mildly chided while everyone in charge from the University president and Joe Paterno on down denied any knowledge or responsibility. The attitude that “boys will be boys” threatened to carry the day.
The equivalent of that attitude and (non)response still prevails within the Holy City despite the shameful involvement of priests in raping and otherwise sexually abusing children on a worldwide scale that absolutely dwarfs anything that happened in Happy Valley. In the face of thorough investigations by independent groups (e.g. the absolutely devastating indictment published last year in Ireland) the Cardinal of New York invoked the “bad apples” defense, and protested that “only” a small portion of the clergy was tainted.
But what would it have looked like if (impossibly!) the Catholic Church had responded like the NCAA?
If it had done so:
- Pope Ratzinger would have resigned immediately.
- All cardinals and bishops who had covered up the scandal would have been removed from office.
- The canonization process for John Paul II would have been terminated, because of the way he down-played the sex scandal. This would be the equivalent of removing Joepa’s statue.
- An investigation independent of the Vatican would have been launched headed by an unimpeachable figure — say the Dali Lama, perhaps joined by Sr. Pat Farrell, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) which is currently being investigated by the Vatican.
- Upon completion of its investigation (assuming it would have reached conclusions similar to the one in Ireland), the commission would have:
- Fined the Catholic Church $500 billion — the equivalent of one year of the R.C. church income. The money would be used world-wide to aid victims of sex abuse and to institute programs to educate clergy about human sexuality using the best insights of current sociology and psychology.
- Removed from the list of genuine popes all those whose public crimes made them unworthy of the title “Vicars of Christ.” Here the Borgia popes come to mind, as well as Pope Pius XII for his silence about the Jewish Holocaust. (Obviously, the process of his canonization would be abruptly ended.) This would be the rough equivalent of Penn State’s vacating its football wins since 1998.
- The exclusion of women from the priesthood would be reversed, and seminary scholarships would be extended world-wide to women desiring to receive Holy Orders.
- Mandatory celibacy would of course be set aside as a requirement of the priesthood — and a major contributor to the issue at hand.
- A reforming Church Council (Vatican III?) would be ordered to deal with the sex abuse and related problems — to be attended only by bishops not involved in the abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up. Their places would be taken by women elected by national bodies equivalent to the LCWR in the United States.
Of course, nothing like the results just described is remotely possible. Roman Catholic insulation from the external processes necessary to achieve such outcomes prevents that eventuality. The only external source capable of moving the church in the desired direction belongs to the Catholic faithful itself. It alone has the authority to withhold church attendance and contributions till the desired decisions of reform are taken.
But not to worry: such pressure from the faithful will eventually be applied willy-nilly. That is, the faithful will either wage a purposeful campaign of withholding attendance and financial support in the light of failed church leadership.
Or alternatively (and more likely) the once-faithful will be driven away from the church as the realization dawns that a college sports organization possesses sounder moral character than what pretends to be the “Mystical Body of Christ.”
Complete Article HERE!