Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Resigns Amid Sexual Abuse Scandal Image An investigation found credible evidence that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused a teenager 47 years ago while serving as a priest in New York.CreditMax Rossi/Reuters ROME — Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, from the College of Cardinals, ordering him to a “life of prayer and penance” after allegations that the cardinal sexually abused minors and adult seminarians over the course of decades, the Vatican announced on Saturday. Acting swiftly to contain a widening sex abuse scandal at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church, the pope officially suspended the cardinal from the exercise of any public ministry after receiving his resignation letter Friday evening. Pope Francis also demanded in a statement that the prelate remain in seclusion “until the accusations made against him are examined in a regular canonical trial.” Cardinal McCarrick appears to be the first cardinal in history to step down from the College of Cardinals because of sexual abuse allegations. While he remains a priest pending the outcome of a Vatican trial, he has been stripped of his highest honor and will no longer be called upon to advise the pope and travel on his behalf, said Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University of America. A prominent Roman Catholic voice in international and public policy, Cardinal McCarrick was first removed from public ministry on June 20, after a church panel substantiated allegations that he had sexually abused a teenage altar boy 47 years ago while serving as a priest in New York. Cardinal McCarrick, now 88, said in a statement at the time that he was innocent. Subsequent interviews by The New York Times revealed that some in the church hierarchy had known for decades about accusations that he had preyed on men who wanted to become priests, sexually harassing and touching them. Then a 60-year-old man, identified only as James, alleged that Cardinal McCarrick, a close family friend, had begun to abuse him in 1969, when he was 11 years old, and that the abuse had lasted nearly two decades. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/world/europe/cardinal-theodore-mccarrick-resigns.html? ==================================================================== He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal. cardinal-mccarrick-abuse-priest.html
https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vortex-not-one-penny-more Not One Penny More That's IT! No more enabling. July 27, 2018 TRANSCRIPT Time's up for the bishops in the United States as a collective body. They need to be cut off from your financial support. These men need to be held accountable in this world for the evil that many of them have inflicted on the faithful. The only thing they understand is money. And why is this necessary? Consider the lavish lifestyles that these men live and the wickedness, or cowardice — it matters little the difference — that they enable daily. They have abused the trust that the faithful have placed in them. They use money you give them to invest and then reap the financial rewards to support heretics, dissidents and, of course, sexual serial abusers. And, on that last point, we aren't talking about the child molestation cases, but the abuse — and it is abuse — that too many of them have inflicted on seminarians. Witness the double evil of Cdl. Theodore McCarrick, who should be stripped of his title. He forced himself on multiple seminarians at his beach house, sometimes with other bishops joining in. First, why does he need a beach house? His archdiocese paid for that, which means you paid for that. He wanted a place to rape and molest and grope his future priests. How is that not a case of Cardinal "Harvey Weinstein," but it's made all the more disgusting by the fact of the office he held. Then there is the even more troubling issue of nearly the entire Establishment Church knowing about this and them all keeping silent, quietly snickering and winking and nodding to each other about "Uncle Ted." And again, remember, every single instance of this is being supported by your dollars — and not just supported, but actually enabled. We lay faithful are like the dude always giving our buddy, the drunk, one "last" drink. It's got to stop. Two major things need to happen, and they need to happen immediately. One we can control, the other we cannot. First, what we cannot control but needs to be said: Most of the bishops in the United States need to resign their posts immediately. If any board of directors of any company in America would have engaged in the systematic practice and cover-up of sexual harassment of adults under their authority, they wouldn't have just been fired, they'd be behind bars, which many of these "leaders" deserve. They would have been criminally charged and civilly sued. And men, bishops or not, who engage in this behavior or cover-up need to go, but not this proud lot — no! In the face of all these horrible evils, what do they do? Gin up more financial campaigns to get even more money out of you — disgusting. Resign. Resign, now. Show you have one lick of self-respect. You have created an atmosphere in the Church where laymen, young men, seminarians prepared to give their lives to Christ, too often have to run the gauntlet of your demented and perverted buddies in collars and miters. How dare you come to the laity and ask for money. Sell off your assets, your land, your buildings. Some of these dioceses have enormous sums of money in various holdings. Stop asking the laity to keep supporting your garbage with their money. Use your own money for once, and stop debasing the Faith even further with your money campaigns dressed up in religious or spiritual sounding sappy names — stop it, it's disgusting. No Catholic who believes the Faith should hand you guys one more dime — not one more penny. We have to support our parishes, but that's it. You spend those special collections and extra income on sending dissidents to Rome for further study so they can come back with a degree in hand and spread error even further. You live splendid lifestyles, shelter, sometimes lavish, clothing, food, sometimes too much, travel, lots of business class and international, great health care with virtually no co-pays, expense accounts — all of this when your sheep have practically none of it. Point to one of you who raised the slightest objection to McCarrick's evil. Point to one of you who decided to go public and blow the whistle on this filth. You only got together in Dallas when your machine of gay priests raping altar boys got exposed in the secular press. Then in Dallas, you issued a "Charter" on how to move forward in trying to end that. What you did not do, even though you all knew it was going on, was provide a charter for adult men being sexually harassed in seminaries by rectors, fellow seminarians, priests and, yes, bishops. And why not? Because you have sponged off the laity forever, betraying a sacred trust placed in you. You have zero accountability and you know it. You blow off objections and reports of sexual perverts in your own midst. You wink and nod and whisper amongst yourselves, and it all goes on. You have created a #MeToo climate in the Church. And, given all that when famous journalists and politicians and businessmen and Hollywood moguls — previously thought untouchable — are all losing their status, why should you be seen or treated any differently? You have abused an even greater trust than any of those men. And while they are disgraced, you act as though nothing happened and ask the laity to give you more money. The gall is beyond words — not one word of apology from any of you, not one iota of recognition of the evil and immoral climate you have created. Not a simple "I'm sorry" for the crowd of young adult men whose vocations you ruined. Your filth and what you have allowed to happen needs to be accounted for now. You have kept your mouths shut about Hell for your entire careers, mostly because you have adopted the attitude that there is never any accountability for your actions, in this world or the next. Definitely absolutely wrong on one count, and given all this now coming to light, whatever the laity can do to hold you accountable in this life needs to start happening. You need to resign — period. You need to confess and own the evil you have brought upon the Church, and the laity need to not give you one more penny until you accept responsibility and leave the scene. How dare you, many of you in big archdioceses, sitting on huge real estate fortunes beg and plead like you are broke. Your massive bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. operates on a nearly $200,000,000 budget. Dissolve that liberal cesspool and lay off all the dissenters. All they do is push your Democratic Party agenda anyway — not the Faith. Faithful Catholics need to stop enabling all this dissent and evil by continuing to donate. Stop giving them your money. Stop supporting them. Force them to feel the consequences of their decades of treachery and neglect. Maybe if they have to spend time at their annual meetings figuring how to keep the bills being paid, like the sheep have to do, then they won't have as much time to plot against the truth and faithful Catholics. This has to stop. They need to resign, and they need to stop having such easy access to your money. The buck stops with them, and they need less bucks. And if you want to see how this attitude among the mad as Hell faithful is now gaining steam, just read the excellent article by Regina Magazine's Beverly Stevens, who makes this Vortex seem mild by comparison. Link attached. You're done, you crooked bishops. You're done.
I hate to break it to the Pope, but as long as massive sin (not massive immigration) continues in the world, esp. by the "moral" leaders, you won't have seen nothin yet when it comes to nature's own rebellion against it! Seems it doesn't take much these days to be considered a Vatican "expert" or an invitee to special "conferences"....or even to be a Pope!! Pope Francis Praises Theological Conference for Focus on ‘Ecology,’ ‘Immigration’ Pope Francis delivered a message Friday to an international Catholic theological conference in which he congratulated organizers for keeping attention fixed on the environment and immigration, two issues the pope has held at the centre of his pontificate. For the opening of the third international conference of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church, which bears the title “A Critical Time for Bridge-Building: Catholic Theological Ethics Today,” the pontiff sent a message stressing the need for a coordinated, global approach to the divisive problems facing mankind. [and just who does he think will do all that.....his close, preferred, globalist selectees with no moral foundations?] “Without renouncing prudence, we are called to recognize every sign and mobilize all our energy in order to remove the walls of division and to build bridges of fraternity everywhere in the world,” Francis said, while lamenting that his global vision is “at times resisted by fear and forms of regression.” The accompanying letter to the conference program lays out the progressive vision of its organizers, who include Father James Keenan, director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College: Today we enter our second generation facing greater and more urgent times than we did in 2002: our environment is compromised; immigrants, refugees, and the poor are threatened; and, very few national leaders show any regard for greater global cooperation. These times call us to deepen our network and to build greater bridges. The pope lauded the conference for granting “a central place to the ecological challenge,” that besets the world, adding that it “can create grave imbalances not only in terms of the relationship between man and nature, but also between generations and peoples.” The ecological challenge is not a peripheral concern, the pope stressed, and is not “simply one of many” issues, but forms “the broader backdrop for an understanding of both ecological ethics and social ethics.” Francis also underscored the importance given to “the issue of migrants and refugees,” which he called “very serious” while expressing his hope for “a metanoia that can foster ethical and theological reflection.” In this wish, the pope reiterated his frequent calls for people to undergo a “change in mindset” regarding immigration. Each one of us “is called to be close to the refugees, to find moments of encounter with them, to appreciate their contribution, so that they can better fit into the communities that receive them,” he said last month. “The solution to many problems can be found in this encounter and in this mutual respect and support.” The pope has been hammering home his pro-immigration message in an effort to bring about a sea change in discussions surrounding migration. In June, Francis explicitly appealed for a “change in mindset” regarding immigration, insisting in a message that migrants are not a threat to society but, rather, a source of enrichment. The pontiff has sought to counter a negative narrative on mass migration, especially in countries that have been on the receiving end of immigration flows, calling for a shift in priorities and mentality. “This demands a change in mindset,” he said. “We must move from considering others as threats to our comfort to valuing them as persons whose life experience and values can contribute greatly to the enrichment of our society.” “For this to happen, our basic approach must be to encounter the other, to welcome, to know and to acknowledge him or her,” he said. The Vatican is carrying out a two-year campaign aimed at changing people’s minds about migrants, which it inaugurated last September. “Brothers, we mustn’t be afraid to share the journey! We mustn’t be afraid to share the hope!” Francis said in his announcement of the project called “Share the Journey.” The stated goal of the campaign is to shed light on migration in order to provoke a “shift in thinking” on the issue. According to Caritas, which is coordinating the campaign, the project was created in response to Pope Francis’s frequent summons for a “culture of encounter.” https://www.breitbart.com/london/20...-conference-for-focus-on-ecology-immigration/ Thank goodness that we're beginning to see more seminarians today, being older, who have real world experience and can make a true, more informed, choice about their vocations. The above admonitions to the faithful truly sound most naive and deliberately removed from the reality out there in such monumental questions....esp. about the law being the foundation for civil sovereign nations. He seems to be encouraging pure chaos for the world.
Love him or loathe him, it looks like Voris and his Church Militant are beginning to get results. McCarrick's resignation wouldn't have happened otherwise. That it came on foot of "respectable" Catholic pundits expressing outrage doesn't change the fact that if Voris weren't saying openly what they are aware of but have studiously avoided discussing, McCarrick would have gone to his grave hailed as a hero. I don't know what has made some of the "respectable" news outlets actually express (rather muted) outrage. In the case of the Register, perhaps it was Fr. James Martin taking a shot at EWTN. Go to the comments section beneath the Beverly Stevens article and read the comments from a man named Michael Bergala for an example of how bad the rot is: https://reginamag.com/thats-my-money-your-excellency/ For all he is denounced by "respectable" Catholic journalists and the supposedly wise Catholics who claim that the faithful can do nothing but pray, at least Voris is trying to do something. Pervert clergy and their enablers are on a fast track to hell, taking many with them, yet we are told that we can do nothing but pray for them as they continue their destruction of Christ's Church. We're supposed to be impressed that they rub shoulders with the equally perverted rich and famous who claim, not without justification, that our hierarchy are bringing the Church in line with their worldview. The poor, the sick, the helpless, etc. have a far better chance of getting to Heaven but nobody ever tells us to confine ourselves to praying for them and let God fix it. When it comes to helping the poor or welcoming the stranger, we are warned that prayer is not enough and that inaction puts our immortal souls in danger. When it comes to sexual perversion and Vatican documents making loopholes in God's law to cover the perversion, our immortal souls are supposedly in danger if we take the only practical route anyone has proposed. Leave it to God, they say, and God will sort it out in His own time, meanwhile don't desert Peter because of Judas. Has anyone an answer to this question: What if Peter is Judas?
I think a wide scale revolt by the laity has already started, and headlines like this are only going to accelerate it and cause it to be an avalanche. The laity didn't make this mess, homosexuals masquerading as priests, bishops and cardinals did. Unfortunately, married couples who contracept - "marital sodomy" as even the Protestant reformers called it - have no moral standing from which to condemn other forms of non-procreative sexual behavior. This homosexual infiltration of the priesthood happened at the same exact time that Catholic laity disregarded the truths of catholicism regarding being open to life.
About midway through the 100 years that Jesus granted Satan to destroy the Church, per the vision of Pope Leo XIII
First off I will say I am not talking specifically about Cardinal (now Bishop I suppose?) McCarrick. He has not had his day in court yet so to speak. In general I think it's all fine and dandy that active homosexuals in the clergy (particularly those engaging with underage boys) lose their hats, but that is far from enough. They need to be defrocked and possibly more importantly to LOSE THEIR PENSIONS! So what if a Cardinal or bishop hands over their hat. We are all still paying for their retirements. Every single one of us. What happened to zero tolerance? Does anybody in the Church know what that even means? Taking their hats is a slap on the wrist. I say take their collars and take their dollars.
Very well said Dolours. Thank you. This is the question or suspicion on my mind. Not out of thin air, but precisely because Mother Mary has warned us of the rot that would set in among the churchmen; in La Salette, Quito, Akita, Tre Fontane and most likely Fatima too. Not to mention prophecies from several saints.
http://thewandererpress.com/catholic/news/frontpage/simony-for-sodomy-a-primer/ Simony For Sodomy: A Primer By CHRISTOPHER MANION For years what was obvious to many was denied by prelates who knew the truth. How many? They know, we don’t. But we do know that they spent billions in secret settlements with victims of criminal homosexual child abuse. They paid those settlements with contributions from the faithful. At their 2002 meeting in Dallas, bishops were given the golden opportunity to have a cleansing truth-telling. During the proceedings, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., offered a motion to investigate the causes of the sex abuse and cover-up scandals. Such an investigation would have quickly revealed the cause and effect — rampant homosexuality, kept secret instead of admitted and expunged, and the immeasurably catastrophic damage done to the Church. Well, that’s not what the bishops had in mind. So when Bishop Bruskewitz made his motion, not one of his colleagues would second his motion. At the time, the prevailing interpretation was that “they didn’t really want to know.” Today it is clear that yes, they knew, full well, but they didn’t want us to know. Over 150 bishops knew that over eighty percent of the abuse crimes were committed by homosexuals, because they had themselves covered up for the abusers. Two of favorite phrases recurring in the politisphere today go like this: “If only they listened to me,” and “I told you so!” Well. The Wanderer did tell them so and they didn’t listen to us — at least, they pretended not to listen, as they continued to cover up, pay off, and tighten the circle of the wagons as their defenders railed at “greedy plaintiff lawyers” and “a hostile media.” To put it bluntly, we told them and they blew us off. “So here we are,” to paraphrase T.S. Eliot’s “East Coker.” Faced with the disaster that confronts us, the question arises, stated not only by Vladimir Lenin but also Thomas Aquinas: What is to be done? “Uncle Ted” McCarrick was cardinal archbishop of Washington when he attended that Dallas meeting. He knew. And countless other bishops knew as well. Today it is clear from the testimony of several of his victims that Uncle Ted offered them his support for advancement in the Church’s hierarchy if they agreed to be compliant with his sexual overtures. Sexual advances, hierarchical advancement. How many prelates today owe their positions to Uncle Ted’s support? Affirmative Action For Homosexuals? “Simony is usually defined as ‘a deliberate intention of buying or selling for a temporal price such things as are spiritual or annexed unto spirituals.’ While this definition only speaks of purchase and sale, any exchange of spiritual for temporal things is simoniacal” — Catholic Encyclopedia (1911). Objectively, the exchange of a temporal price (sex) for a spiritual good (promotion in the hierarchy) constitutes simony. Cardinal McCarrick held powerful offices in seminaries and chanceries for so many years that only he and his consorts know how many were the promotions bestowed upon them in exchange for sex and silence. “Chris, if they’ve committed one crime, they’ve committed another one,” Sheriff Lynn Armentrout told me years ago. “Always call us, right away.” Well, no bishop called out the simoniacs. And sure enough, the rot spread. As if that weren’t enough, today we confront the threatening specter of another version of simony. One of the consecrated tasks of a bishop is to exercise his authority under canon law, which permits him to use an array of prohibitions, censures, and penalties to those who publicly persist in manifest, grave sin. So the question arises. In fact, Cardinal McCarrick raised it, Address of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick to the Plenary Assembly of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, October 17, 2006: “Cardinal Avery Dulles made this same point in a recent interview: ‘The Church’s prime responsibility is to teach and to persuade. She tries to convince citizens to engage in the political process with a well-informed conscience.’ He also cautions that the imposition of penalties [on pro-abortion politicians] comes with some serious risks: . . . ‘the Church incurs a danger of alienating judges, legislators and public administrators whose good will is needed for other good programs, such as the support of Catholic education and the care of the poor. For all these reasons, the Church is reluctant to discipline politicians in a public way, even when it is clear that their positions are morally indefensible’.” Objectively, if a bishop uses his consecrated spiritual power in exchange for monetary gain, that exchange constitutes simony. But what if a bishop agrees to refrain from using that power — again, for monetary gain? If a bishop refuses to exercise his spiritual authority as required by canon law, and he reaps monetary gain in exchange for that refusal, does that also constitute simony? To be specific, is it merely due to cowardice in the face of unpopularity and the fear of attack that most bishops today fail in their consecrated obligation to apply canon law? Or is it also the fact, as Uncle Ted points out above, that they’re afraid of losing their federal billions and becoming very, very unpopular? Is It A Quid Pro Quo? More from the Catholic Encyclopedia: “The various temporal advantages which may be offered for a spiritual favour are, after Gregory the Great, usually divided in three classes. These are: (1) the munus a manu (material advantage), which comprises money, all movable and immovable property, and all rights appreciable in pecuniary value; (2) the munus a lingua (oral advantage) which includes oral commendation, public expressions of approval, moral support in high places; (3) the munus ab obsequio (homage) which consists in subserviency, the rendering of undue services, etc.” Consider the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars our shepherds receive every year from the federal government. Regarding the silence of our shepherds on pro-abortion Catholic politicians, Cardinal McCarrick, deftly using Cardinal Dulles as his cut-out, makes it clear what is at stake: money. Why risk “alienating judges, legislators and public administrators whose good will is needed” when we can just shut up about our generous friends and be done with it? Consider next the popularity that our shepherds acquire with their federal paymasters when they flood Capitol Hill and badger the faithful with authoritative USCCB missives constantly advocating an expansion of the welfare state. Consider also how they have never, ever in their history, publicly opposed the federal taxpayer billions that their friend dole out to support “family planning” programs at home and abroad — programs that include contraceptives, abortifacients, and, under Democrat administrations, abortion, worldwide. But my goodness, wouldn’t that risk losing all that money that goes to the bishops’ NGOs for “other good programs, such as the support of Catholic education and the care of the poor”? What a sin against charity! Our bishops are vocal on so many popular fantasies, and silent about so many truths. But their view is simple: They need the money. Is it a quid pro quo? You decide. Pray for our bishops.
Big problem and it took over in the early 80's. Hate to say, at the seminary I went to, the homosexual contingent called themselves the traditionalists. I asked the dean how you could allow it and they said as long as they are not active... its ok. The traditionalists liked the old style garb and ceremonies. Then we had the everyday seminarian and they thought of it as a career. And then there was a few of us that actually believed. At the end, there was a suicide, one of the worst child abusers who moved to Ecuadorian Hills and bishops that were reprimanded by church. Sad some of the holiest men (I thought) were reprimanded by the church. You just never know...who is a deceiver. Yes it is big problem...but there is still alot of good priests. This thread makes everyone look bad. But I think this all happens when you take SIN out of spirituality.
It's on my mind a lot lately, especially when I see Pope Francis implementing the agenda of the St. Gallen group with scant resistance from Bishops. Leaving the Church is not an option. I don't agree with those who say that the Church has faced worse crises than this in the past. The scale of this and the silence and complicity of clergy at all levels is unprecedented. Sure, there have been bad bishops, bad popes, bad clergy, bad powerful and influential laity and all sorts of sexual abuse but all at the same time, on a global scale coupled with the Pope issuing documents designed to provide cover for practices contradicting Doctrine? We must keep reminding ourselves of the promise Jesus made to St. Peter because no matter how low any Pope sinks, he's still Peter's successor until the Bishops say otherwise. Eventually there will be a Pope worthy of the office. As things stand now, I fear that it could take a few more conclaves before we see such a Pope - likely when we reach the stage where the Pope's picture is more likely to be on a wanted poster than on the cover of Time magazine. We'll just have to stick it out but we aren't obliged to do so in silence.
I think, Brian, that the homosexual infiltration began earlier than that. They used Humane Vitae to instill in people's minds the notion that it's ok to resist the hard teachings of the Church. Adultery, easy annulments (especially for those who could afford smart canon lawyers) and abortion were the natural progressions required to make sodomy acceptable. I don't believe that the hierarchy are so much afraid of people withholding their money as they are of Voris inviting seminarians to share with him their experiences. By doing that, he weakens their ability to hush things up - they lose their control of the narrative.
