Tuesday April 20, 2010
News Briefs III On Catholic Sexual Abuse Controversy – The Role of Homosexuality, Other News
* Disclaimer: The linked items below or the websites at which they are located do not necessarily represent the views of LifeSiteNews.com. They are presented only for your information.
Compiled by Steve Jalsevac
See previous News Briefs on this issue:
News Briefs on Catholic Sexual Abuse Controversy – Media Frenzy, Unmentioned Homosexuality, More News
News Briefs II on Catholic Sexual Abuse Controversy: Radcliffe, De Souza, Coulter and More
Note: The denial that homosexual clergy had a major role in the abuse is being very effectively challenged by some writers. Unbelievably outrageous is the Washington Post claim that “the ostensible increase in gay priests in recent years has coincided with a sharp decrease in reports of child abuse by clergy.” The article A Sex Abuse Expert Sees Hope in Pope Benedict affirms our prediction that the current furor will strengthen Pope Benedict’s hand within the Catholic Church.
THE ROLE OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN ABUSE BY CLERGY
See also again
The Definitive Paper Showing Homosexuality at Root of the Sex Abuse Crisis
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10041916.html
Media Blinders on the Church Abuse Cases – Selwyn Duke in American Thinker
There is one group in this story that not only isn’t painted with a broad brush, but it’s whited out entirely: homosexuals. Claim that the abuse was homosexual in nature, and you’ll hear accusations of intolerance, bigotry, and backwardness.
When late homosexual congressman Gerry Studds had an affair with an adolescent male page, did anyone say it wasn’t a homosexual relationship? If it wasn’t, then his good constituents in Massachusetts must have overlooked his “pedophilia,” as they reelected him six more times before his retirement.
When singer Jerry Lee Lewis married a 13-year-old girl and director Roman Polanski forced himself on one, did anybody say the fellows weren’t heterosexual? When men are arrested for statutory rape after having relations with 15-, 16-, and 17-year-old girls, do we say they are not heterosexual?
We do not hear anyone say, “No! They aren’t priests! The definition of a priest involves being celibate, and these men were anything but.” Well, there is another fact here: They not only are/were priests, but they also happen to be (or have been, in the cases of the deceased and defrocked) homosexual priests.
While the abuse in question is a problem of homosexuality, homosexuality is never a problem for our abusive media. This is why I have said before that the coverage of the Church scandal has nothing to do with concern about youth — it has nothing to do with Truth. It is simply a hammer with which the media can attack religion, something they hate more than the worst child molester
https://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/media_blinders_on_the_church_a.html
Statement from Fr. Tom Euteneuer, President of Human Life International in defense of Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone
Activist homosexual groups such as Arcigay have a vested interesting in covering up the truth of the matter. They say that the connection between homosexuality and pederasty is “false, ignoble, unscientific…[and] dishonest”-would that it were. Let the gay activists keep their rhetoric and name-calling to themselves and wake up to the problem that their own disordered sexuality is causing in our world.
https://www.hli.org/index.php/component/content/846?task=view
Cardinal Bertone, paedophilia, celibacy, and homosexuality By Fr. Alphonse de Valk
As became immediately clear from the context of the remarks, Cardinal Bertone was asserting first, that priestly sex abuse has no connection to priestly celibacy. Then he made the mistake, however, of using the media’s current terminology for priestly sex abuse, namely “pedophilia. The “gay” community has from the beginning promoted this kind of distorted behaviour. The disgusting “man love boy love man” movement has been an intrinsic part of the homosexual activists’ lifestyle. They gloat about it.
https://catholicinsight.com/online/controversy/article_983.shtml
Five Myths About the Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal – Washington Post
2. Gay priests are to blame.
Some defenders of the Catholic Church’s response to the abuse crisis say that homosexual priests are responsible for the majority of abuses, in part because more than 80 percent of the victims are male. They argue that true pedophiles — adults who are pathologically attracted to pre-pubescent children — constitute a small minority of offenders. Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone repeated this gay-pedophile link on Wednesday, and such reasoning was partially behind a 2005 Vatican policy barring gays from seminaries.
Such assertions have numerous flaws. For one thing, research shows that gay men are no more likely to molest children than straight men. (And celibacy doesn’t seem to be a determining factor, either.) Yes, 80 percent of the victims were male, but many offenders assaulted children of both sexes. Maciel abused boys and fathered children with several women. Moreover, the abusers had access to boys; an adult male couldn’t go on overnight trips with girls or take them away unchaperoned.
Finally, while critics of gay clerics fret that homosexuals dominate the priesthood and endanger children, in fact the ostensible increase in gay priests in recent years has coincided with a sharp decrease in reports of child abuse by clergy.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041602026.html
“Very Active in Pastoral Ministry to LGBTQ Catholics”
Homosexual-friendly priest named rector at Santa Clara University, will be religious superior of 40 fellow Jesuits on campus. In 2004, Fr. Zampelli directed the play “Stop Kiss” at the university. The drama is about two women who start out as friends and end up being lovers, and are attacked when they share their first kiss in public. The appointment of homosexual-friendly priests into positions of religious authority is a developing trend in the Jesuit California Province.
https://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=58203019-d5c7-4e15-bae9-b756160f5fca
OTHER NEWS
A Sex Abuse Expert Sees Hope in Pope Benedict – NCR
Monica Applewhite is one of the foremost experts on screening, monitoring and policy development for the prevention of sexual abuse and risk management for those with histories of sexual offending. This new wave of interest and new information seems to be focused on the need for scrutiny of the universal Church, not just the Church of the United States, and that is new. One of the positive outcomes of media consideration of the problem is that with each publicized case, more adults and young people both within the Church and outside of the Church are able to talk about their own experiences.
We needed a pope that did not mind being considered “tough” and that is what we have. Instead of change happening “behind the scenes,” we will know about it. Second, all of the media attention and worldwide interest will give Pope Benedict just the political opportunity and leverage he needs to change the Church culture of silence and protection throughout the world much faster. He won’t have to “sell” change in the way he would have if this had not happened. Many of the barriers he has encountered for more than a decade will be broken down. I believe this will solidify his legacy as the agent of change and restoration of the Church for which he would want to be remembered.
What changed in 2002 was a dramatic improvement in uniformity, both within and across dioceses and religious communities. The toughest situations have always been when the allegation is against an extremely talented and charismatic priest, religious or lay minister. These are the situations in any organization that are the most divisive, the most difficult and the most likely to be handled improperly
When the allegation seems impossible, in the absence of accountability, there is often a temptation to hope the situation will just “go away.” We began studying sexual abuse in the 1970s, discovered it caused real harm in 1978, and realized perpetrators were difficult to rehabilitate in the 1990s. During the ’70s when we were sending offenders to treatment, the criminal justice system was doing the very same thing with convicted offenders — sending them to treatment instead of prison. At the time, it was believed they could be cured with relative ease.
https://www.ncregister.com/register_exclusives/change_in_vatican_culture/
The Ongoing Saga of the Priest Sex Abuse Scandal by Deal W. Hudson
Eight years ago, when the U.S. bishops began their work with the National Review Board, no one anticipated that the same scenario was going to repeat itself in countries around the world.
If similar procedures had been mandated by the Vatican throughout the Church, then all the bad news would have largely been known by now. Instead, the stories of sexual abuse by priests will be forthcoming from different countries around the globe for years — perhaps decades — to come. The wound is going to be kept open for a long time if the Vatican does not act decisively, as the U.S. bishops did in 2002.
https://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7986&Itemid=48
Cardinal Ruini speaks on Pope Benedict and ‘cleaning’ of the Church – CNA
Reflecting on the scope of the words of Pope Benedict during the Stations of the Cross in 2005 when he spoke of a “cleaning” that needed to take place in the Church, the cardinal said that while pedophilia is a part of the needed cleaning, “it would be mistaken” to read into that statement as strictly pertaining to sexuality.
The “cleaning” mentioned by Pope Benedict should be considered as “a challenge that concerns all of our Christian life, beyond that of priests, and it’s a challenge that, as Jesus has taught us, one can hope to win only concentrating before all on Him, (and) therefore on humility and prayer,” the cardinal said.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/cardinal_ruini_speaks_on_pope_benedict_and_the_cleaning_of_the_church/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicnewsagency%2Fdailynews+%28CNA+Daily+News%29
How to Save the Catholic Church By PEGGY NOONAN
The great second wave of church scandals appears this week to be settling down. In the Vatican they’re likely thinking “the worst is over” and “we’ve weathered the storm.” Is that good? Not to this Catholic. The more relaxed the institution, the less likely it will reform.
I know this from having seen it: Many—not all, but many—of the men who staff the highest levels of the Vatican have been part of the very scandal they are now charged with repairing. They are defensive and they are angry, and they will not turn the church around on their own.
But in the past few decades, they not only fought persons—”If you were loyal you’d be silent”—they fought information. What they don’t fully understand right now—what they can’t fully wrap their heads around—is that the information won.
The information came in through the cracks, it came in waves, in newspaper front pages, in books, in news beamed to every satellite dish in Europe and America. The information could not be controlled or stopped. The information was that something very sick was going on in the heart of the church.
Once, leaders of the Vatican felt that silence would protect the church. But now anyone who cares about it must come to understand that only speaking, revealing, admitting and changing will save the church.
https://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052702304510004575186451300061536-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwNTExNDUyWj.html
Dr. John Haas reacts to Peggy Noonan’s call for new blood at Vatican – CNA
In response to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Peggy Noonan in which she criticized the Catholic Church for the “second wave” of sex scandals and charged that the “old Vatican needs new blood,” one critic is saying that Noonan should “applaud” the Church for reforms instead of criticizing it. Dr. John Haas, president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), stated that Noonan is “stuck in the past with regard to the Church’s response to sexual abuse.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/dr._john_haas_reacts_to_peggy_noonans_call_for_new_blood_at_vatican/
Rush Limbaugh – Left Trying to Infiltrate Church to Get Rid of it
The left is a minority. That’s why they have to govern against the will of the people. If they didn’t have control of the media they wouldn’t win elections. They have control of the media, they have Hollywood, they have entertainment, and they have education. Those are the institutions that they have taken over and dominated. They’re trying to get rid of any other institution that opposes them. I don’t care what church it is, they’re trying to get rid of it, if they can’t get rid of it they’re trying to infiltrate it so the church doesn’t stand for what it used to anymore.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041510/content/01125116.guest.html
How Pope Benedict handled abuse: 2 revealing case studies
https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=633
Washington Post Fawns Over Lawyer ‘Taking Bites Out of [Catholic Church’s] A**’ – NewsBusters
Jeff Anderson, a lawyer that has filed over 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic Church, got a free 1,400-word advertisement in the Washington Post April 19. The supposedly non-opinion article was titled “Jeff Anderson, jousting with the Vatican from a small law office in St. Paul.”
The glowing profile quoted Anderson nine times and his “longtime friend” Mike Finnegan twice. Opponents to Anderson’s work were only given four sentences – three of which were nothing but one-word epithets strung together and the fourth a partial quote sandwiched between two quotes of Anderson defending himself. The article included a single, perfunctory four-sentence paragraph conceding that the church has taken steps to address abuse problems. Then it was right back to the big bad church.
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/carolyn-plocher/2010/04/20/wapo-fawns-over-lawyer-taking-bites-out-catholic-churchs
Profile of Jeffrey Anderson, Aggressive Legal Advocate for Abuse Victims – Washington Post
The Washington Post profiles Jeffrey Anderson, the unconventional lawyer whose lawsuits against the Catholic Church had brought in $60 million in settlements for sex-abuse victims by 2002. Anderson, whose aggressive legal tactics have added substantially to that figure in more recent years, says that he takes from 25 to 40% of the settlements as his own fee. Anderson has been a regular source for media reports criticizing Church handling of the sex-abuse issue.
Over the years, Anderson has earned millions from his lawsuits against the church and other institutions, collecting 25 to 40 percent of each payout. He estimated in 2002 that his victories had totaled $60 million, but refuses to update the figure. Anderson says he has filed more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Catholic Church, plus 2,000 to 3,000 against other individuals and entities, including other denominations. He estimates that 75 percent yield no money for himself or his clients, often due to a statute of limitations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/18/AR2010041803259_3.html?sid=ST2010041804237
US: Abuse scandal’s total cost approaches $2.2 billion; most victims male
https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=5813
Mexico bishop says porn, tv to blame for priest abuse – Reuters
A prominent Roman Catholic bishop in Mexico blamed eroticism on television and Internet pornography for child abuse by priests, in the latest incendiary comments on sex scandals in the church. “With so much invasion of eroticism, sometimes it’s not easy to stay celibate or to respect children,” Bishop Felipe Arizmendi said during an annual meeting of Mexican bishops near Mexico City on Thursday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/16/AR2010041604091.html
Church Lacks Oversight, Critics say – Charles Lewis, National Post
Father Francis Morrisey, an expert on canon law in Ottawa, said a national policy is not needed because many dioceses have instituted strong rules on their own.
He noted that the Vatican is still not clear on the abuse and reporting issue and this would be a good time to update canon law for the entire Church. “They should hold a synod on the priesthood and look at everything from celibacy, to salaries and even living conditions. There is no canon law right now that even deals with pornography.”
Mr. Higgins, the Canadian Catholic scholar, agreed a synod is necessary. He would like it to focus on how elements of the clerical culture have led to the current mess.
https://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2785493
Philip Pullman: ‘I hope the wretched Catholic church will vanish entirely’ – Guardian
Pullman, 63, is the former teacher who found fame as the bestselling author of His Dark Materials, a trilogy of fantasy novels that was marketed at young adults,
https://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/apr/19/philip-pullman-interview-catholic-church
“Why not bomb the Vatican, and riddle the Pope with bullets as he staggers out of the flames?”
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reveals its true colors.
https://wdtprs.com/blog/2010/04/why-not-bomb-the-vatican-and-riddle-the-pope-with-bullets-as-he-staggers-out-of-the-flames/
HuffPo Columnist Calls for Pope’s Arrest
On April 14 columnist Derek Beres wrote “Why Arresting the Pope is a Great Idea.” Not only that, but Beres actually compared Pope Benedict to director Roman Polanski, who raped a young girl.
https://newsbusters.org/blogs/sarah-knoploh/2010/04/15/huffpo-columnist-calls-popes-arrest