Pope Francis covered up McCarrick abuse, former US nuncio testifies

I am sure that almost all Catholics would agree with the above.
The problem with the current scandal within the Church is that by all the available evidence, the accused clergymen seem to have no sense of having committed any sin; let alone feel repentant or have any firm purpose of amendment of their objectively sinful lives.
Indeed, they behave like men who do not believe in God.

 

Nail firmly on head. There is a saying that if a man did not believe in God, it would be necessary to invent him. (There is a grain of Truth in it, because it demonstrates the appetite of human reason to provide a teleological explanation for being, as opposed to a purposeless brute existence). The modern tendency, exacerbated by imagined increases in human knowledge and the invention of so much human technology, is for men to apportion Godhead to themselves, an echo of the serpent's temptation in the Garden of Eden. Inevitably, moral relativism soon follows, eventually culminating in 'do as you will'. This self-anointing, which Pope Francis has certainly not engaged in, seems to be occurring among at least one of his acolytes who recently has published a book claiming greater authority for our pope than that of Scripture and Tradition. Needless to say, this makes it a simple matter to force oneself to imagine certain sinful behaviour as 'truly' virtuous-the blasphemous attribution to themselves by this cult of being specially inspired by one whom they proclaim as the 'Holy Spirit' (a spirit alright, but the opposite of holy).

 

Head of US bishops’ pro-life office: Viganò is ‘man of integrity,’ we must ‘ascertain the truth’
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/h...fice-vigano-is-man-of-integrity-we-must-ascer

September 6, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The head of the U.S. bishops’ pro-life efforts, Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, has released a lengthy statement on the ongoing clerical sex abuse crisis.

Archbishop Naumann called Vatican whistleblower Archbishop Carlo Vigano “a man of integrity,” adding that “we cannot ignore” the fact that the majority of the victims described in the Pennsylvania grand jury report were post-pubescent males. He said that priests must be able to articulate Church teaching on sexuality “in a convincing and compelling way.”

[.....]

“Just this past week, the former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Vigano, released a statement that claims he and his predecessors, Archbishop Pietro Sambi and Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo (both now deceased), did inform the respective popes,” he explained. “In my experience of Archbishop Vigano during his tenure as apostolic nuncio, he was a man of integrity. There are also respected sources that are contesting elements of Archbishop Vigano’s statement.”

[....]

Naumann endorsed the investigation Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has proposed.

“This development makes it even more imperative that we embrace Cardinal DiNardo’s commitment to pursue the truth of why McCarrick was allowed to continue to exercise public ministry and continue in the College of Cardinals, when his sexual misconduct and abuse of power were already known,” said Naumann. “We must do all that we can to ascertain the truth and then allow the chips to fall where they may.”

Commitment to celibacy and chastity must be a ‘priority’ for potential priests
“This is a moment for conversion and renewal of the entire church, but especially for bishops and priests,” Naumann said. “Both the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the earlier national study by John Jay College commissioned by the U.S. bishops in the wake of the 2002 scandal reveal that a high percentage of victims of clergy sexual misconduct were post[-]pubescent males. In other words, much of the misconduct involved homosexual acts. We cannot ignore this reality.”

Naumann reminded Catholics that Pope Benedict XVI “gave guidance to seminaries and vocation ministries regarding the non[-]acceptance for priestly formation those with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

“All candidates for the seminary have to be able to give evidence for their capacity of living celibate chastity with both integrity and joy,” continued Naumann.

He went on to defend priestly celibacy, explaining that it allows priests to be completely available to their parishioners and that it shows priests are willing to make a tremendous sacrifice for God:

The requirement of celibate chastity for Catholic priests is not because the church does not value marriage and the importance of family life. No, just the opposite! The church asks her priests to relinquish what is arguably most precious and most dear, precisely because it is most precious and dear. The priest’s willingness to commit to a life of celibacy makes no sense if Jesus did not suffer, die and rise from the dead for us. The church asks her priests to stake their entire life on the truth of the paschal mystery, the dying and rising of Jesus.

Celibacy is first and foremost to be a witness to the truth of the Gospel. The priest’s life is meant to be a living symbol that challenges his parishioners to place God first in their lives above everyone and everything else. Celibacy also allows the priest to be available and accessible to his people. A priest is able to go wherever his gifts are most needed by the people of God without having to weigh the necessary question of a husband and biological father whether this ministry is good for his marriage and children. It is this embrace of the charism of celibacy that increases a priest’s ability to become a true spiritual father to his parishioners.

It is not enough for those seeking ordination to the priesthood to accept reluctantly celibacy as a necessary burden to become a priest. If our heart is not into embracing the challenges and beauty of celibacy with joy, then we are setting ourselves up for failure and wounding our people.

Nor is it sufficient for priests to live celibacy faithfully, but not be able to teach with conviction and enthusiasm Catholic sexual morality as articulated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Our Catholic understanding of human sexuality is beautiful and guides those who embrace it to the path to authentic love and happiness. The priest needs to be able to articulate, in a convincing and compelling way, why heterosexual intimacy outside of the marital covenant is gravely immoral, as well as why homosexual activity is also always seriously sinful.

Naumann said his “priority” in evaluating seminary candidates and the “suitability” of priests is “their commitment and capability of living celibate chastity with fidelity and joy.”

‘Failures of the accountability of bishops’ are primarily to blame
“The reason for this current crisis is not primarily one of individual weakness, but failures of the accountability of bishops,” Naumann concluded, asking for prayers for bishops.

He said he has hired a law firm to examine the Archdiocese of Kansas City’s personnel files dating back to 1950 “to ensure that we have an accurate historical knowledge of how the archdiocese has responded to allegations of misconduct.”

Catholics’ first, but not only, response should be prayer, he said.

“I invite every Catholic to adopt some additional practices of prayer and penance for victims and for the purification of the church. I also intend to offer communal prayer opportunities for these intentions.”

 

Canon lawyer: Pope Francis ‘should resign’ if Viganò’s testimony is true
Dorothy Cummings McLean
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/us-canon-lawyer-francis-should-resign-if-viganos-testimony-is-true

giulio napolitano / Shutterstock.com
DETROIT, September 6, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A respected American canon lawyer and blogger has stated that if the testimony of Archbishop Viganò is true, Pope Francis should resign.

Responding to the assertion of a Canadian priest-journalist, Father Raymond J. DeSouza, that the Vatican whistleblower was wrong to call for the pontiff’s resignation, canonist Ed Peters wrote yesterday that anyone who would protect and favor a sexual miscreant was unworthy of the Chair of Peter.

Having described how Canon Law allows clerics to step down from ecclesiastical offices for reasons either mild or grave, Peters stated:

“Of what was said above concerning resignation from Church office in general, what would not apply to a pope, of all office holders, if he, as alleged by Viganò, from the first months of his papacy knowingly protected and favored a cardinal who was [pick a disgusting verb]-ing seminarians?” the canon lawyer asked.

“By what possible stretch of the imagination would such an occupant be suited for the Chair of Peter?” he continued. “Does the historical fact that some pretty bad popes held on to office despite committing various offenses justify other popes acting badly in shirking even the minimal gesture of resigning?

Peters said that Viganò was within his canonical rights to ask a prelate, even the Pope, to step down.

“Viganò is unquestionably in a position to know, and claims to know, whether his central allegation that Francis was covering for McCarrick, big time, for years, is correct,” he wrote.

“Believing, as he does, that his claims are correct, Viganò, in calling for Francis’ resignation, has done nothing more or less than exercise his right under Canon Law 'to manifest to the sacred pastors [his] opinion on matter which pertain to the good of the Church and to make [his] opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful…'”

Peters stated that he himself had not called for Francis’ resignation as he does not know with sufficient “certitude” that the Vatican whistleblower’s “key allegations” against the pontiff are substantially true.

“…[H]owever,” he added, “ if I reach the conclusion that they are true, I would say, without hesitation, that Francis should resign.”

Peters believes that if the former Nuncio’s allegations are proven, then a papal refusal to resign “would be a catastrophe for Catholic credibility and unity.”

So far Pope Francis has neither denied nor affirmed Viganò’s allegations that he protected McCarrick and was influenced by the then-cardinal in the promotion of a number of American bishops. The closest the pontiff has come to responding, such Vatican-watchers as Rod Dreher believe, is in a homily about the importance of silence.

 

The lines are being clearly drawn. Isn't this the man who defeated Cupich, the Vatican's candidate, in a vote among US bishops for the position he now holds?

 

Prominent German newspaper on papal silence: ‘What a mockery of the victims!’
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/p...n-papal-silence-what-a-mockery-of-the-victims

[...]

Geyer then asks: “Shall the sexual violence about which people were silent for years now truly again be officially answered with silence? What a mockery of the victims!” Quoting Cardinal Daniel DiNardo – the head of the U.S. bishops – and his request for “convincing answers” to the questions raised by the Viganò report, the journalist insists himself upon receiving answers from the Pope, independently of whether this Viganò report was inspired by personal interests or not. The “matter of substance” is at the center of the current discussion, the journalist explains.

“No one in the Vatican,” he adds, “is now in the position to give out the parole 'silence!' after the fact that in the past years ten thousand clerical abuse cases – to include numerous networks of cover-up that span over the whole globe – have been revealed.” Quoting Archbishop Viganò, Christian Geyer says that “the rule of silence” has to be broken.

It is now up to the Pope, the German journalist continues, “to give simple answers to simple questions, in order to clarify the accusations that have been now directed against him, and possibly to deny them,” “instead of now fleeing into the 'silence of Jesus.'”

Geyer concludes his article with a reference to the French documentary “The Silence of the Shepherds,” which has recently been aired in Germany, and he points to the question whether “victims of sexual abuse in Buenos Aires had to suffer” under the same “refusal to answer” when Pope Francis was still archbishop of Buenos Aires.


Prominent US Catholic woman: Abuse crisis will end when laity demand bishop accountability
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/p...buse-crisis-will-end-when-laity-demand-bishop

[....]

“We don't need investigations by Bishops or the Vatican. The Vatican can't even investigate itself. We need Attorney General grand jury investigations in the 49 other states and the District of Columbia. There is no way that Pennsylvania is an anomaly,” she said.

She also pointed a finger at the USCCB for not admitting that the driver of the clergy abuse scandal is primarily homosexuality.

“And the USCCB must finally admit that the overwhelming problem is homosexuality that must be driven without exception from the seminaries and priesthood,” she said.

[....]

 

You are right, DeGaulle!

Archbishop Naumann beats Cardinal Cupich
https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2017/11/archbishop-naumann-beats-cardinal-cupich.html

Surprising liberals and the social justice wing of the American Church at today's U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops general assembly, Archbishop Joseph Naumann beat Cardinal Blase Cupich in an election for the chairmanship of the committee on pro-life activities.



Cardinal Cupich, who many on the left had hoped would reshape the pro-life office of the USCCB in the style of his Chicago predecessor Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, lost the election 54 percent to 46 percent. This means 82 bishops voted for Cupich, with 96 bishops supporting Naumann.

 

I'd think Archbishop Naumann would win a lot more comprehensively, if the election was run today.

This indicates that the orthodox have the numbers...and are slowly, hesitantly, beginning to realise it.

 

https://gloria.tv/video/3nCKVMtqKZARBHSbGhpJdj3bG

 

'Listening to Pope Francis everyday is like listening to a New Cathechism'.

Cardinal Mc Carrick.

This is exactly how they are trying to sell Pope Francis. In much the same way as the Founder of Mormon, Joseph Smith or Muhumad the Founder of Islam. As a voice so holy, so prohetic as not be bound by anything at all. Beyond the Teachings of the Church. Beyond Scripture, beyond any previous Pope. A Prophet of Prophets.

Or to put it another way a False Prophet who is not False.

Someone who speaks directly with and for heaven in a way no one has ever done before. A bit like Moses who brought down the Tablets from Mount Sinai. But in the case of Francis someone who is perpetually bringing these New Tablets right down to us; all the time at every single thing he does and says.

I also think this is the opnion Francis has of himself. It is mind blowing but I think it is true.

 

We read that McCarrick went to China shortly after the election of Pope Francis and I wondered about how this could all tie into what has taken place there recently,... hmmm

"A lot of things that China worries about, [Pope Francis] worries about, about the care of poor, older people, children, our civilization and especially the ecology. I see a lot of things happening that would really open many doors because President Xi and his government is concerned about things that Pope Francis concerned about," the cardinal said. (McCarrick)

By Jiang Jie Source:Global Times Published: 2016-2-25 20:43:01
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/970460.shtml

 

There is one notious Liberal Archbishop who has come to be called by his clergy, 'The suitcase', because he globetrots so much. These people are always travelling round the planet. Always chattering, always plotting. Lik a horde of squeaking rats.

 

I am just so angry about all of this.

Yesterday I sat in my living room and tried to figure out why I felt such anger and my conclusion was I felt like over turning tables and screaming at the thieves in the temple. Of course, I am not even fit to assume righteous anger but it is what I felt.

The silence from the Vatican and 90% of the USCCB is deafening. Just keep silent and it will all go away. Even the Pope. How dare all of them. They are victimizing the Church, which is the people. They told their victims to keep silent. They paid off the brave ones that spoke out to "keep silent" by money bribes. This has gone on for years. That just plain pisses me off.

To think of the conversations from these predators to their victims. How many lives are ruined? How much damage to Mother Church has this done? And we have a prelate who now tells us that the Pope doesn't even answer to Scripture or Tradition? Really??????? Not to Scripture? The plain words of Christ???? Wow, what hubris!! They can't even name the problem. Hiding behind the skirts of clericalism, climate change and immigration, these prelates are pontificating to their peasants (that's us) and trying to get us back on track to "right thinking". And then they can get on with more abuse and high lifestyles.

Several weeks ago I wondered if any of these bishops and priests were scared about standing in front of the throne of God upon their death. Today I think the answer is "NO". It is obvious that they do not believe in God. We have leaders that do not believe in God. Let that sink in. Of course, I don't know that for a fact but their actions and subsequent silence about all of this speaks volumes to their beliefs.

We need a Q for the Vatican.....LOL.

I pray for the Church and I pray for these men that they get some kind of "Come to Jesus moment" and repent and honestly realize what they have done. Isn't it better to resign or be stripped of your "power and position" than to spend an eternity in Hell?

I also pray that the Lord forgive me for all my sins and shortcomings and for my fault in all of this. I was asleep. I haven't prayed enough for priests or the Church. I haven't sacrificed enough. I could have done more. I can fix that moving forward.

 

I’m with you on this, Tanker

 

Why Archbishop Viganò is almost certainly telling the truth
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/why-archbishop-vigano-is-almost-certainly-telling-the-truth

September 6, 2018 (Edward Feser) – There are five considerations that seem to me to make it very likely that Archbishop Viganò's testimony is truthful. To be sure, given how numerous and detailed are the claims he makes, it would not be surprising if he has gotten certain particulars wrong. And perhaps in his passion he has inadvertently overstated things here and there. But the main claims are probably true. I certainly do not believe he is lying. The reasons are these:

1. The deafening silence of Pope Francis
[....]
2. The apparent silence of Pope Benedict
[....]
3. Archbishop Viganò's concern for his own place in history and his immortal soul
[....]
4. Pope Francis's record
[....]
5. The response of Viganò's critics
[....]

 

I think you speak well for many of us as we witness the assaults against Holy Mother Church,...
I shudder to think about standing before Divine Justice, knowing I will have to give an account for every negligent thought, word,act ect.
True conversion comes through repentance, and repentance only,..

 

Tanker, Thank you for this very powerful post. I am totally with you on the following, "I also pray that the Lord forgive me for all my sins and shortcomings and for my fault in all of this. I was asleep. I haven't prayed enough for priests or the Church. I haven't sacrificed enough. I could have done more. I can fix that moving forward." I was asleep but I believe that God has woken me up! It didn't happen all of sudden, for me it has been a gradual awakening over the past 2.5 years.

The following article is related to this awakening that many are feeling at the moment and I believe that it is very well written,

Shutterstock.com

Why Viganó’s testimony will go down as the ‘clarifying moment’ of Francis’ papacy
Peter Kwasniewski | https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...down-as-the-clarifying-moment-of-francis-papa
carlo vigano, catholic, clergy sex abuse scandal, homosexuality, pope francis, sex abuse crisis in catholic church, theodore mccarrick, vatican cover-up
SIGN THE PLEDGE: Support and pray for Archbishop Viganò. Sign the petition here.

September 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The month of August opened with a bang—and closed with a nuclear detonation. On August 2nd the world learned of Pope Francis’s disdain for the witness of Scripture and the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church on the death penalty as he took it upon himself to “develop” into oblivion over 3,000 years of Jewish and Christian teaching. On August 25th the world learned of Pope Francis’s disdain for justice, victims of abuse, and the eradication of the homosexual elite. In the space of a single month, Catholics beheld the prodigy of a pope who neither guarded orthodoxy of doctrine nor protected the faithful from the predation of wolves.

We knew it was bad before, but something has changed. Comparisons are not easy, but I suppose it would be like thinking your country is ruled by Mussolini and discovering it is actually ruled by Stalin. Before Viganò, people could persuade themselves to believe with faint and remote hope that Bergoglio might “come around” and do something about the sexual abuse crisis exemplified in McCarrick, that he might “wake up” to the gravity of the situation and respond as befits the Vicar of Christ. Now, it appears that he himself is the enabler, the patron of criminals, the head of a religious Mafia that has occupied the vineyard of the Church.

There are, it is true, some people who reacted with “I knew it all along! From the very day he stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter’s…”—and it could be that they were gifted with a preternatural intuition. I was uncomfortable from the very first Angelus address in which he praised the theology of Walter Kasper. There are also those, who, like olympic ostriches practicing the sport of extreme head-burying, continue to defend the pope at all costs (including the cost of their intellectual honesty).

But for the vast majority, it has been a moment of awakening: the scales have fallen from our eyes, the scales that prevented us from seeing clearly the magnitude of the problem and therefore assessing the magnitude of the solution required. As some like to say, it is a “clarifying moment.”

As such, it is also a moment of decision: decisions about who we are and what we believe as Catholics, how we will relate to wolves in shepherd’s clothing, where we will turn for truth and salvation, and why we will remain faithful in spite of the infidelity of those who were graced by God with the office of teaching, governing, and sanctifying.

We can see more clearly than ever that we do not and must not lean on men, no matter how lofty their titles, but on Our Lord Jesus Christ, the head and rock of the Church. We see that our religion, in its holy worship, its perennial doctrines, and its life-giving code of morals, is not a man-made edifice subject to constant manipulation but a God-given revelation to which we must submit ourselves and remain unbendingly true.

It may be that the best effect of August 2018 is that it prompts sincere Catholics—those who still wish, above all, and in spite of all, to follow Christ the King in His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church—to ask painful questions not just about the past five years, but about the past fifty years. What has made this pontificate and its attendant chaos possible? Is it a stray chastisement permitted for the purification of our sins? Or is it the fruition of an entire trend, the distillation of decades of ambiguous doctrine, catechetical waffling, worldly accommodationism, strategic secularization? Are we not beholding the fully consistent manifestation of “the spirit of Vatican II” that not only wilfully outstripped the texts of the Council but had already permeated the conciliar assembly in the well-documented machinations of the progressive European bishops who dominated the proceedings and whose spiritual descendants are today running the show?

Today’s “clarifying moment” is a divine judgment on the evils that were set in motion decades ago, evils from which we can no longer hide if we wish to be rid of them for good, or at least cleanse our lives of their poisonous influence. All of the evils—evils of liturgical deformation, evils of immoral behavior, evils of heterodox teaching—share one thing in common: each and every one is based on a rejection of Catholic tradition.

In times of distress, the only safe path is to follow the tried-and-true path of tradition, that which was handed down and accepted by all Catholics until the postconciliar rupture, and which has never ceased to be followed and transmitted by that portion of the faithful who, over the past half-century, held fast to their inheritance. Concretely, this means traditional liturgy and sacraments, traditional catechisms, traditional examinations of conscience, traditional devotions and spirituality. One can never go wrong with such things in and of themselves, whereas one may frequently go wrong with their modern substitutes.

We do not want ersatz Catholicism but real Catholicism. August 2018 has dramatically proclaimed that the former is totally bankrupt. It is up to us to draw the conclusion and to act accordingly.​

 

I doubt if it's any coincidence that there are reports that Christianity in China is undergoing its worst persecution since the time of Mao.

 

It’s interesting that the lines were drawn when “the created one” said “I will not Serve”. Even though God tried to protect us, the lines were drawn when Adam and Eve ate the Apple. The line was drawn when are lord resurrected and the gates of heaven opened.

But the lines have been drawn today because the spiritual has broken through the natural world. Evil is being exposed and every time a priest lies it shows that evil has entered the church.

The great division is starting to take place. No more secrets...if evil is hidden, then you have become evil.

 

Bombshell Letter

September 7, 2018 by sd

From Catholic News Service:



VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A top official from the Vatican Secretariat of State acknowledged allegations made by a New York priest in 2000 concerning Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, according to a letter obtained by Catholic News Service.

Father Boniface Ramsey, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church Yorkville in New York City, told CNS Sept. 7 that he received the letter dated Oct. 11, 2006, from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the former Vatican substitute for general affairs, asking for information regarding a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary and was being vetted for a post at a Vatican office. He made the letter available to CNS.

Then-Archbishop Sandri wrote to Father Ramsey, “I ask with particular reference to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo.”

Father Ramsey had been on the faculty of the seminary from 1986 to 1996 and had sent a letter in 2000 to Archbishop Montalvo informing him of complaints he heard from seminarians studying at the seminary, located in South Orange, New Jersey.

In the letter, Father Ramsey told CNS, “I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians and all of that; the whole business that everyone knows about,” Father Ramsey said.

Father Ramsey said he assumed the reason the letter from then-Archbishop Sandri, who is now a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, only mentioned “serious matters involving ” seminarians and not Archbishop McCarrick’s behavior was because accusations against the former cardinal were “too sensitive.”

“My letter November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick.”

While Father Ramsey has said he never received a formal response to the letter he sent in 2000, he told CNS he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.

The 2006 letter not only confirms past remarks made by Father Ramsey, but also elements of a document written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served as nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016.

In an 11-page statement, published Aug. 26, Archbishop Vigano accused church officials, including Pope Francis, of failing to act on accusations of sexual abuse, as well as abuse of conscience and power by now-Archbishop McCarrick.

Archbishop Vigano stated that the Vatican was informed as early as 2000 — when he was an official at the Secretariat of State — of allegations that Archbishop McCarrick “shared his bed with seminarians.” Archbishop Vigano said the Vatican heard the allegation from the U.S. nuncios at the time: Archbishop Montalvo, who served from 1998 to 2005 and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served from 2005 to 2011.

In late June, then-Cardinal McCarrick, the 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington, said he would no longer exercise any public ministry “in obedience” to the Vatican after an allegation he abused a teenager 47 years ago in the Archdiocese of New York was found credible. The then-cardinal has said he is innocent.

Since then, several former seminarians have claimed that the then-cardinal would invite groups of them to a beach house and insist individual members of the group share a bed with him.

https://spiritdailyblog.com/news/bombshell-letter