Since former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick became the face of priestly scandal, Catholic media has been frantic while the secular press has been relatively silent. Why?
Note from Father Gordon MacRae: I want to thank David F. Pierre, Jr., for his outstanding guest post, “Losing Perspective: Catholic Media Join the Sex Abuse Pile-On.” I will have a response to it here next week, and some comments on that infamous Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report that wants us to think that the sky is falling on the Catholic Church.
Several months ago, I received an invitation from the Editor of The Wall Street Journal to become a registered Wall Street Journal Opinion Leader. It magnified for me the responsibility I feel when, with the help of friends, I post commentaries on various news and opinion pieces in the WSJ online edition. Many of my comments have been cited and recommended by other readers.
After accepting this invitation, I was, shocked to learn that my very next comment was blocked by WSJ for “offensive content.” A little background is needed:
On May 25, 2018, The Wall Street Journal published a guest editorial by Jesuit Father James Martin, outspoken advocate for “gay rights” and author of the recent book, Building a Bridge. Father Martin’s WSJ column was entitled, “The Missing Link in Sex-Abuse Reform.” It included some terminology that seemed to capture his mindset about the causes and origins of the Catholic clerical sex abuse story:
“The U.S. Conference of Bishops set up the Office of Child and Youth Protection… Even some reputable psychiatrists [had previously] judged pedophilia a treatable disease.”
In light of the widely publicized Chilean scandal, Father Martin pointed out that “All of Chile’s Catholic bishops offered their resignations to Pope Francis” which brought Father Martin to the central point of his article: “Why didn’t America’s?” I tried to post a response to Father Martin’s article for publication at The Wall Street Journal’s online edition. This was my comment:
“Were Sigmund Freud alive today, he might find very curious the mental gymnastics that Catholic leaders of the left go through to shield homosexual priests from being connected to The Scandal. It is a monument to the power of reaction formation that an entire institution would prefer the term ‘pedophile scandal’ to ‘homosexual scandal’ even when the facts say otherwise. With this piece, Father Martin is not building a bridge. He is blockading a harbor. This is why scant attention is paid to the rampant abuse of the sex abuse story.” (Fr. Gordon MacRae, WSJ.com, May 25, 2018)
What I meant by “the rampant abuse of the sex abuse story” in that comment was something that I have long railed against as patently dishonest. Since the last and largest wave of The Scandal in 2002, the news media has proliferated the lie that this is, and always has been, a story about pedophilia, the sexual abuse of prepubescent children. Many Church officials were complicit in carefully crafting their terminology to support “The Myth of the Pedophile Priest.”
The day after I attempted to post the above comment, I learned that it was blocked for “content deemed offensive.” Of course, I assumed that the offending word was “pedophile” which has been freely tossed about by bishops, lawyers, the news media, and many Catholic commentators to frame and define The Scandal.
So I appealed for reconsideration of my comment to the WSJ Moderator because my use of that term was only in reference to Father Martin’s use of it in the text of his column. But I was wrong in my assumption, and received this surprising response:
“Dear Father MacRae: Thank you for contacting us. Your comment was blocked for use of the word ‘homosexual.’ We have approved the post and we are also working to fine-tune our profanity filter so that it does not block such comments. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
A DEPRIVATION OF SOUL-SEARCHING HONESTY
In my mind, the scandal triggered by the Cardinal McCarrick story was really triggered by Fr. James Martin who reasserted the propaganda that the Church’s crisis is, and has been, a story of child sexual abuse. He also asserted that “the missing link in the Church’s response to the sex abuse crisis has been the accountability of bishops.”
In the nation’s largest newspaper, Father Martin took the spotlight off priests and shined its glare squarely on the bishops. Just two months after Father Martin wrote those words, the entire framework of Catholic scandal shifted to what it really is and has been, for the last fifty years.
With the emergence of the Cardinal McCarrick story, the media had no place left to turn. This is, and always has been, a story of narcissistic homosexual behavior. The narcissism at its core was the central point in my post, “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix.”
The last several weeks have been for me an education in media bias and its iron grip on political correctness. Last year I was given a gift subscription to The Week magazine. It markets itself as “The Best in the U.S. and International Media.” It’s a sort of print equivalent of a news aggregator with summaries of news and columns from across the nation and the world. For anyone who writes, it is a helpful tool.
It is also a biased one. The Week leans clearly, blatantly to the left, but so does the U.S. and international media it is summarizing so that comes as no surprise. It is published every Friday so I usually receive it in the Saturday evening mail. It has its finger on the pulse of the mainstream news media, and I have found within it lots of quotable material.
The Week has never hesitated to throw the Catholic Church under the bus. In every issue, and at every step along the way, the magazine has highlighted stories about the Catholic sex abuse scandal. Segments of news articles from the United States to Chile and around the globe to Australia have kept a spotlight focus on the abuse crisis in the Church.
There is a problem with spotlights. They cast an intense beam in one place – the place the news media wants you to see – while leaving a much larger truth in darkness. What this story has always needed was a floodlight, and, sadly, the Cardinal McCarrick story provided it.
But in the weeks after the Cardinal McCarrick revelations and all their subsequent fallout, I set my copies of The Week aside without even looking at them. TSW readers were printing and sending me vast amounts of material from Crisis magazine, the Catholic World Report, the National Catholic Register, even Church Militant by Michael Voris. It was a virtual print tsunami of speculation and confrontation from Catholic voices.
Some readers have written to tell me how painful this glut of commentary from Catholic sources has been to read. We were saturated with it. This is why I set my copies of The Week aside without even opening them. If this is what Catholic voices are doing with this story, I thought, then I could only imagine what the secular press has in store for its anti-Catholic drumbeat.
Finally, after plowing through all commentary sent to me from Catholic sources abuzz with the latest version of The Scandal, I summoned my courage. A week after posting my own Cardinal McCarrick story, I steeled myself against the onslaught and read, cover to cover, the copies of The Week I had set aside. They were dated July 27, August 3, and August 10.
To my great shock and a sigh of relief, not one of them even mentioned Cardinal McCarrick or any aspect of this story. It’s hard for me to describe my spontaneous feeling about that. It was one of relief, of course, but it was more than that. It was a feeling that I have not experienced since I was eleven years old and in the 7th grade.
It was the sense of relief I felt then when the school bully, looking for a target, passed me by. When I was 15, and he was still the school bully, I knocked him right on his ass one day, and then he passed by all of my friends as well. But at eleven, he rented space in my psyche.
That’s a key insight. This is how I have seen the secular media throughout this crisis. Its role has not been to inform, but to bully, to demean, to shape the news and to shape our individual and collective responses to it. As a bully, the news media rents space in the psyches of our bishops who have cowered from it and have cowardly toed the line with its rhetoric.
I initially felt a certain gratitude toward The Week for giving us Catholics a brief respite. It was like a bout of “Stockholm Syndrome,” however, almost like feeling gratitude toward my captors. It didn’t stay that way.
The night before typing this post I awakened with a start at 3:00 AM and I became incredibly angry. The clarity of certain truth came over me and I knew it was truth. We have been played by the media. We are being played right now. There was only one reason why The Week and other media kept silent about McCarrick.
The Cardinal McCarrick story brought focus and clarity that the millstone around the priesthood’s neck for over two decades can now be described in only one way. It is a homosexual scandal.
The mainstream news media is deeply committed to aiding and abetting the “omertà,” the organized silence that withholds from you that truth. I am furious! You should be furious too!
IF YOU WRITE IT, THEY WILL COME
Something else interesting happened after we published “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix” at These Stone Walls. Usually, I can only judge the interest in a specific post by the number of people who have commented and by how many have shared it on Facebook and other social media.
The comments on that post were excellent and thought provoking, but the social media response to it was slow and quiet. I believe it was shared about 400 times, but other TSW posts have been shared as many as 25,000 times. Then, about ten days after the above post was published, I received in the mail a printed copy of a Weekly Analytics Report for These Stone Walls. I was shocked to learn that it was the most widely read TSW post thus far in 2018.
Thousands of readers came to it because it was featured at The Big Pulpit, the “Best of the Catholic Web” published by Tito Edwards, and the National Catholic Register. But the report revealed some other interesting things as well. Among the top cities visiting it was Mountain View, California, where it seemed to attract the attention of people at Google Headquarters located there. I made a mental note to keep an eye on that. I have seen some search engine and social media manipulation of both Catholic and conservative sites and even suppression of content.
THE CARDINAL’S SINS ARE NOT HIS ALONE
I received a message from Catholic League President Bill Donohue on August 3. He wrote that his appearance on EWTN and The World Over with Raymond Arroyo would be rebroadcast at 10:00 PM that night, and I had missed it the first time around Bill Donohue was to appear after Robert Royal of The Catholic Thing and Father Gerald Murray, a Canon Lawyer from the Archdiocese of New York. I was glad to catch the entire, and very important, presentation.
I had a previous occasion to listen to Robert Royal on The World Over in a May 2018 broadcast. I was troubled by what I heard then, and mentioned this in my post, “Holy Orders in Exile: The Ascension of Persona Christi.” Here is what I wrote then:
“When I tuned in that night (it was May 17; Bill Donohue was preceded in the discussion by Robert Royal of The Catholic Thing. I respect Robert Royal, but what he said on The World Over was an example of the injustice I am writing about. He mentioned that Cardinal Bernard Law “covered up sexual abuse in Boston” and “was allowed to move to Rome where he was sheltered beyond the reach of the law.”
I explained in the above post why I believe those representations are untrue. This time, watching the August 3rd replay of a more recent episode, I found Mr. Royal to be more measured and accurate in his response, at least in regard to the Cardinal McCarrick revelations. But all of those present, with the exception of Bill Donohue, seemed anxious to use the McCarrick scandal to open doors to an anti-clerical agenda.
This has always been the great danger of the sexual abuse crisis in the Church, and now that it is called by its proper name – a homosexual scandal – has not changed that fact. There is a marked tendency to use this as ammunition in some other agenda.
I applaud Bill Donohue of The Catholic League for keeping his focus on the truth, on what is known now, and on what needs to be known, to end this long Lent for the Catholic Church. And he insists this can be done – and must be done – without denying former Cardinal McCarrick, and anyone else so accused, the due process rights owed to them – including a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise.
In that regard, I must register my disappointment with the administration of the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC which took the unprecedented step of revoking an honorary degree conferred on Cardinal McCarrick. I can only quote something that Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote of my diocese when it issued a press release pronouncing me guilty before my trial:
“Church officials apparently found it inconvenient to dally while due process ran its course.”
And lastly, there is the important question of “Why now?” As made clear in “Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the Homosexual Matrix,” this story is not at all new. Anecdotally, at least, it was well known among American priests and hierarchy during the awful years of the sexual revolution and its aftermath in the 1970s and 1980s. The claims of those close to McCarrick – that they saw nothing, heard nothing, suspected nothing – are not believable.
But why now? The 16-year-old who says he was groped is not 16, but 63. The 11-year-old who says he was exploited until age 31 – a dubious age range seemingly designed to deflect from the homosexual angle – is also now in his 60s. Are there other agendas at work here? I strongly suspect so.
I cannot shed the feeling that there is something else, or someone else pulling at these strings. If Theodore McCarrick is now the puppet show, then we may be the puppets – doing exactly what the string-pullers expect of us: moral panic.
For a vivid example of how our strings are being pulled by the news media, i just received my latest issue of The Week. Now that the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report has momentarily replaced Cardinal McCarrick in the news, the floodlight is switched off and the spotlight is back on decade old claims of child abuse. After silence about the McCarrick homosexual story, The Week has front page coverage under the title “Shamed Again” . The magazine has excerpts from no less than a dozen media outlets pouncing on the PA story after ignoring McCarrick. It includes the holy water story, and the crucifix story, and concludes; “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.” Now the homosexual subculture behind all this can hide in the shadows once again.
Editor’s Note: Please share this important post. You may also like these related posts from Father Gordon MacRae and These Stone Walls:
- Cardinal George Pell and Other Martyrs for a Nefarious Cause
- #MeToo & #HimToo: Jonathan Grover & Father Gordon MacRae
- How SNAP Brought McCarthyism to American Catholics
- Five Years of Pope Francis in a Time of Heresy
Kathleen Riney says
Thank you Jeannie, well Said….The Full Picture of those who have worked with the Enemy, & have Subordinated their Lives in every area of Human endeavor, to succeed in Establishing a Marxist/Progressive NWO….(whatever the Term) will result in a Dictator, willingly possessed by the Demonic…We RCs have been warned repeatedly, & we all have had some share of blindness in this War…God have Mercy on all of us- Mary, Queen of the Angels, preserve us & our families-& Especially Your holy Priests… Targeted by faithless Skittle Cleric’s, who are Wolves under their Miters….☦❣🔥
Jeannie says
Maria, forgive me if I sound a little sentimental, but you have no idea how much you and Father and others who respond feed my soul. I am very grateful that this site exists because sometimes when I am so dry and so consumed by situations in the ‘real world’ I come to doubt what direction I am going in my faith.
I come here and the words written by you and by FAther Gordon spark a fire that I know is from the HOly Spirit (though I admit that I am also very grateful that I have a spiritual director who is there to confirm it and I don’t rely upon my ‘feelings’).
Father alluded to the occasion when a priest who was at the prison earnestly took him aside and uttered to him the words that he is a prophet.
I can look at how astonished Moses was at being chosen by God and I can see very little difference in the humility of his response and Father Gordon’s.
There I go again, our tears do flow don’t they. Joy of the most deep and penetrating kind and heartbreak and hope.
God bless you, Maria. Stellar you are indeed.
Maria Stella says
Hi Jeannie,
I too, come to TSW to get fed…I enjoy reading your comments.
I don’t that Fr. G intended it, but he has a virtual parish…and probably touches more people from than he would have if he been a parish priest. But that has been at a great cost to himself.
God bless
Maria Stella says
Wow – a great, thoughtful and true comment Jeannie – so glad you took the time to write it and post it. Thank you!
Jeannie says
MY apologies for this length – we will see if it is rejected and I understand if it is
Hello Father Gordon,
I try to refrain from bringing in politics to this column, but when you ask ‘why now?’ I am once again slammed by the parallels between the attack on the Constitution and the inherent dignity of every American citizen; and the attack on the Catholic church, the institution that those who are most hostile to God given freedoms to every citizen target as their primary enemy.
The attacks against America come from a giant snowball of vice that swallows every identity group in its wake and the sexual revolution of the 60s opened up a means of normalizing homosexuality, not because people had to be more compassionate and more tolerant of this aberrant behavior; but because it was a means to bring one more group of people to persecute the nuclear, Judeo Christian family that our present day history revisionists so revile.
The sexual revolution, the Pill, truly was the crack through which Satan’s sulphur snuck into the church.
“Love the one you’re with” was not just the reason for homosexuality to come out of the closet and enjoy a sense of being part of the promiscuous culture. It was also, as Pope Paul VI so prophetically declared, the avenue by which the objectification of women, the scourge of divorce and abortion and the coarsening and de-sanctifying of sacred marriage attacked this most blessed nation.
I have often spoken of the primary reason of my sympathy for Pope Francis being his ignorance of America’s role in supporting Christianity.
Today a friend of mine, whose brother in law was railroaded into 20 years in prison by an admitted false account of molestation (this might sound familiar: both the mother and daughter admitted it was false, but the prosecutor would not reverse course and the defense attorney had no energy nor advice to help the man avoid this injustice), confirmed my view that the purposeful behavior of our government has been to discourage learning English. She was trying to find her brother in law some great books on America’s history and also Catholic America and she was dismayed to find so very few basic books translated into Mexican .
This upheld my belief that Pope Francis, in South America, wouldn’t have had a chance of being shown the true history of our nation in a country that has little love for America. Very similarly to the propaganda fed to Islamic children kidnapped so young, Pope Francis would have been fed only a very measured and hostile view of this nation and no matter how much good doctrine he was fed, his exposure to Communism and Socialism and Marxism would have made him vulnerable to the twisted logic that incorporates these anti-Christian movements, disguised with verbiage about compassion and fairness and tolerance.
I CAN tell you why now because I have a friend who is ferociously a globalist and though he has friends who are Christian, he credits them with being all but silent about their views…the only ‘good’ Christian that globalists tolerate.
Apart from that, his animus towards Christianity is no different from that of Zuckerberg, Soros and so many of our lavendar mafia who have found their road to money and power and obscenity in the church, rather than by means of active roles in government, education or media.
There was not supposed to have been an America after 2016, my friend made that clear. The election was to have been the last one for this country and the borders were to have fallen and all those now so hysterical so full of hate had anticipated an age where money, influence and their deification was to have been a certainty.
Imagine them, CERTAIN that the angel of death was to have been their ally as their global dream of a superior race and an atheist world order came to pass.
I focus on that word CERTAIN, because those now going so hysterical are seeing planned parenthood failing in their attempt to silence forever its opponents. They are seeing a president ignoring the rule to omit God and family and country from the vernacular. They are seeing ‘peasants’, ‘weeds (Margaret Sanger’s term for all who did not fit her superior race – by no means limited to blacks, but also very certainly including Catholics)’, the sheep rising up and daring to disobey them.
Why now?
Because the good Catholics who are continuing to live in the vein of good Catholics through the centuries are making strides in awakening the people and being examples of courage, sacrifice, heroism and, unforgivably, ‘joy and peace that surpasses all understanding’ and most certainly is received from a faith that no man made creed can steal.
Homosexuality and feminism are both predicated on the belief that non-reproductive pleasure is the right and the primary reason for sex.
If you re-insert the sacred mission of humanity as laid out by God, to go forth and multiply; and by the Holy Family to follow their path to a purposeful life that completely satisfies the question of why we are here, then you destroy the oppression of the atheist/globalist tyrants who have sought to impose all of their secular religions and replace our Judeo Christian rock solid foundation.
They are all in a panic.
As for Pope Francis, we do not know how much he is puppet and how much he is instigator, but we are obliged by our faith to pray for him and presume he is more puppet. Being as innocent as doves and as wise as owls (I know it’s supposed to be serpents but I just don’t like them….maybe I could say as innocent a iguanas, the reptile I actually like quite a bit, but I don’t know how wise they are and so I’ll stick with the owl). We need to be charitable and pray for all of these, but we cannot stand by and condone or be resigned to it.
Your column is SUCH a threat and yes, even the WSJ has been invaded by the powerful lobbyists who have only the Lord knows how much pressure put upon them by the power of invasive intelligence gathering and surveillance to pretty much wreak havoc on anyone who is a threat to this present battle to overthrow the world and impose atheism and – let’s not beat around the bush – the enemy’s rule of vice.
I have seen too many of the ‘cream of the crop’ of homosexuals, the most affluent and widely heralded. They are as subject to the horrible side effects that have always gone along with a lifestyle that objectifies a human and renders them a victim to their sexual desires, the basis for their identity. It is a massive swamp of symptoms ranging from drug abuse to depression to rampant insecurity to domestic abuse to addiction and that is true of even those with money to spare and advanced degrees. I worked alongside them and saw it for myself.
I love the people who I saw with this affliction and I love the women who have swallowed the bilge telling them that sexual satisfaction is a fitting exchange for inflicting death on babies and infidelity and discrimination upon men. They swallow pills that alter their bodies and their minds…and discharge this into drinking water that harms men and children.
Those who now are targeting the church again know full well their own hypocrisy. The secular, ongoing, unprecedented and unopposed molestation of children; the blind eye turned by the press and government AND the church while profits are reaped from abortions of young women and child porn and sex trafficking.
I say it often that both Dickens and Chaucer and Shakespeare and many other writers (now deemed offensive due to the whiteness of their skin – how convenient that their truths can coincidentally be suppressed) of past centuries would feel right at home writing on the path of the present day persecutors of the Church.
It is the year following the centennial of Fatima and Pope Leo’s dream or vision or insight gave a hint that great unrest would occur followed by peace.
May God’s mercy carry us through this and save us from an unspeakable peril.
Thank you so much.
Maria Stella says
To all ladies who read TSW:
Fr. Z has asked all women who read his blog to consider signing a letter to Pope Francis, written by women regarding the Holy Father’s response to the Vigano allegations. (I signed, btw)
The text of the letter is below, as well as the link to Fr. Z’s blog:
IMPORTANT: Letter To Pope Francis From Catholic Women
Posted on 31 August 2018 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf
I encourage all the women who read this blog to read and consider signing this Letter to Francis.
This is important. I’ll post the text below, but you have to click the link and go to the site to sign.
LETTER TO POPE FRANCIS FROM CATHOLIC WOMEN
NOTE: This letter reflects the personal initiative of the individual Catholic women signing this letter, and is not sponsored by any group or organization.
August 30, 2018
His Holiness, Pope Francis
Vatican City
Your Holiness:
You have said that you seek “a more incisive female presence in the Church,” and that “women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from [men], with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions that we men are not able to understand.”
We write to you, Holy Father, to pose questions that need answers.
We are Catholic women deeply committed to our faith and profoundly grateful for Church teachings, the Sacraments, and the many good bishops and priests who have blessed our lives.
Our hearts are broken, our faith tested, by the escalating crisis engulfing our beloved Church. We are angry, betrayed and disillusioned. The pain and suffering of the victims never ends, as each news cycle brings more horrific revelations of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, cover-ups, and deceit—even at the Church’s highest levels.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s recent statement impels us to reach out to you directly for answers. His testimony accuses you, Holy Father, and highly placed cardinals of turning a blind eye to former Cardinal McCarrick’s egregious behavior, and promoting this predator as a global spokesman and spiritual leader. Is this true?
These are devastating allegations. As USCCB President Cardinal Daniel D. DiNardo recently stated, “The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence.” We agree.
Several crucial questions raised by Archbishop Viganò’s statement, however, require neither lengthy investigations nor physical evidence. They require only your direct response, Holy Father. When reporters questioned you recently about Archbishop Viganò’s charges, you replied, “I will not say a single word on this.” You told reporters to “read the statement carefully and make your own judgment.”
To your hurting flock, Pope Francis, your words are inadequate. They sting, reminiscent of the clericalism you so recently condemned. We need leadership, truth, and transparency. We, your flock, deserve your answers now.
Specifically, we humbly implore you to answer the following questions, as the answers are surely known to you. Archbishop Viganò says that in June 2013 he conveyed to you this message (in essence) about then-Cardinal McCarrick:
“He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.”
Is this true? What did Archbishop Viganò convey to you in June 2013 about then-Cardinal McCarrick?
When did you learn of any allegations of sexual abuse or sexual misconduct with adults by then-Cardinal McCarrick?
When did you learn of Pope Benedict’s restrictions on then-Cardinal McCarrick? And did you release then-Cardinal McCarrick from any of Pope Benedict’s restrictions?
Holy Father, in your letter to the People of God on the scandals, you wrote: “An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.” That’s why we expect you, our Holy Father, to be honest with us.
Please do not turn from us. You’ve committed yourself to changing clerical ways in the Church. That a cardinal would prey on seminarians is abhorrent. We need to know we can trust you to be honest with us about what happened. The victims who have suffered so greatly need to know they can trust you. Families, who will be the source of the Church’s renewal, need to know we can trust you, and thus trust the Church.
Please do not keep us at arm’s length on these questions. We are faithful daughters of the Church who need the truth so we can help rebuild. We are not second-class Catholics to be brushed off while bishops and cardinals handle matters privately. We have a right to know. We have a right to your answers.
We are wives, mothers, single women, consecrated women, and religious sisters.
We are the mothers and sisters of your priests, seminarians, future priests and religious. We are the Church’s lay leaders, and the mothers of the next generation.
We are professors in your seminaries, and leaders in Catholic chanceries and institutions.
We are theologians, evangelists, missionaries and founders of Catholic apostolates.
We are the people who sacrifice to fund the Church’s good work.
We are the backbone of Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses.
We are the hands, the feet, and the heart of the Church.
In short, we are the Church, every bit as much as the cardinals and bishops around you.
Holy Father, we are the “incisive presence” the Church needs, and we need your answers.
With love for Christ and the Church,
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2018/08/important-letter-to-pope-francis-from-catholic-women/
Helen says
Thank you, once again, Fr. Gordon, for apprising us of the Truth. It’s becoming so rare. Although a comfort to read and know the Truth, it is very hard to get thru. My heart sinks each and every time.
I do admit, that; since before 9/11 and more vividly since, I’ve felt the death of America approaching closer and closer. It’s so hard to see what is happening to the greatest nation on earth. God has surely blessed us, abundantly. When we kicked Him out of our schools, He, a Gentleman, left with His virtues. Is it any wonder why sin is seemingly prevailing?
Now, sadly, although the Lord promised that the Gates of hell would NOT prevail, I see our beloved Catholic Church lying on it’s death bed. I still believe that the Lord will raise us up before death, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t suffering, greatly, from the disease of sin. With all of the scandals, misjudgments, sins, I am more grateful for our church than ever before. I am becoming more and more aware that it is a gift of God…and we’ve taken it so gravely for granted. The more the devil attacks us, the more I realize; we have the one true faith.
God save America…save our beloved Church…and free our beloved, INNOCENT priests.
Thank you, Father Gordon, for ALWAYS telling the Truth.
Your forever fan,
Helen
Gerry Zeller says
If it true, as Archbishop Vigano testified in his statement, that Pope Benedict XVI disciplined Cdl McCarrick to a non-public life of prayer and penance, and that Pope Francis revoked that discipline, what are faithful Catholics to conclude?
In addition, is it believable that Cdl Sean O’Malley, President of the Papal Commission for the Protection of Minors, stated he knew nothing until recent media reports, while many US bishops were aware of for years and ignored, Cdl McCarrick’s sexual proclivities?
M says
Dear Father G
I read Father Vigano’s letter carefully and I took note of the Holy Father’s response to journalists on his plane.
Father Vigano’s letter resonates with anger and despair. He comes across as bewildered by the failure of Rome to call out deviant behaviours that have brought such damage to so many souls. Sadly I think he has fallen into the trap of then suspecting everyone of complicity and cover up.
He needs our prayers. Every claim needs to be checked and verified as true or false . One of the bishops he sees as part of a deliberate cover up has issued a response
{https://www.archchicago.org/en/cardinal-cupich-s-statement/-/article/2018/08/26/statement-of-cardinal-blase-j-cupich-in-response-to-the-testimony-of-former-apostolic-nuncio-to-the-united-states-carlo-maria-vigano}
which quietly points out what appears to be some confusion re the timeline of his appointment and other matters and points where he feels Father Vigano has misrepresented his views by taking his comments on homosexuality out of context.
In their efforts to love the sinner perhaps there has been a failure to continue to make it clear that certain behaviours are sinful. Perhaps taking the most charitable view possible the bishops want to make sure they do not fuel a righteous scapegoating of same sex attracted persons as the sole cause of the abuse scandal. Pastorally perhaps we need to return to messages from the pulpit about the beauty of chastity and celibacy and the reasons why sexual intimacy should be reserved for the sacrament of marriage. The world sold a lie to so many. Sex without committed and faithful love has proved a cruel and false god for so many. John Paul 11 summed it all up so perfectly the opposite of love is using another person.
I was saddened by Pope Francis’ response If Father Vigano has become confused and angry he needs respect and love to help him see if he has made some errors of judgement and if every conclusion he has come to is accurate then perhaps we do need a second papal abdication.
Prayer and penance are the only means we have since this is all music to the devil’s ears He wants us to despair. He wants the world to hate Christ’s Bride but as Fulton Sheen once reassured us we know the end of this tale Our Blessed Mother crushes him underfoot To my fellow Christians I simply say “Fear not he is with us all days and nothing will destroy His Bride. We may end up underground again but Christ will never desert His Bride. Any soul whose faith was crushed and destroyed by abuse will be met with an abundance of gentle mercy and innocent priests falsely accused amid the angry backlash against the horror of abuse will be richly rewarded for their heroic suffering.
Sharon says
I was surprised that my Yahoo news headline feed had nothing about the Vigano letter. You have enlightened me as to why that was. Yahoo is more than willing to display and re-display articles which are blatantly anti-Catholic. I need to quit trying to think that the major news outlets are responsible entities.
Gordon J MacRae says
I agree with Maria Stella and Elizabeth Sheehy. There must be an investigation . The question is now who will conduct it? The American bishops who have denied any knowledge of McCarrick’s history are not very believable. It is difficult to believe that seminarians and priests repeatedly heard about this in the 1980’s and 1990’s while bishops heard nothing. We must sort out the agendas however. The New York Times is presenting this as a Catholic civil war. The Times is holding out in an editorial that traditionalists want absolute enforcement of the churches teachings on homosexuality while liberals want the teachings changed to accommodate the culture in which we live.
The New York Times supports the latter. The Wall Street Journal today reports that an equal number of people are commending and demeaning the intergrity of Archbishop Vigano. I believe his integrity is beyond reproach, and that is well documented. So the task is going be to separate the political from the truth. Those who espouse zero tolerance, as Cardinal McCarrick certainly did may find the concept hitting closer to home than they ever imagined. In the end the Church will still be standing. The gospel speaks of trials to come and the separation of the wheat from the chaff. The only question left for us is, will we be standing with it?
MaryJean Diemer says
Hi Father Gordon,
We need the truth to come out. We need those who have been worshipping the devil to be outed. It is time for the filth to be cleansed. It is time for the Church to focus on Jesus and only Jesus’ will. As a Catholic I support those good clergy who do the will of God. On the other hand,as a Catholic,I expect the Church to admit to sin that has been committed as I have to in the sacrament of reconciliation. Pope,Cardinal,Bishop,Priest…..none is above Jesus. Time for the arrogance and disgusting behavior to stop! I hope more brave souls step forward as Archbisop Vigano has done. I totally believe his document.
Our Lady is crushing the head of the devil and I continue to pray for her intercession.
Sending prayers for you and all there. Jeannie
Elizabeth Sheehy says
I must say I agree with Maria Stella – Canonical, INTERNAL investigation, following established Due Process. I know Bishop Paul Bootkowski – he is Bishop Emeritus of my home diocese of Metuchen NJ, and I want to hear from HIM as to why he chose to make unpublicized payments to McCarrick abuse victims. Could it be to protect the privacy of those victims? Same hold true for Archbishop Emeritus Meyers of Newark NJ.
Never, ever forget Jesus is still quite firmly in charge, and He will never abandon us. We must meanwhile pray (especially the Rosary), do penance and reparation. and refuse to panic.
Susan Dee says
Jesus said, “The Gates of hell shall not prevail against My Church!”
I remind myself of this quote as I read about all this scandal and contemplate Fr. Gordon’s situation and the unjust condemnation of priests (so often with out proof) . Thank You, Jesus for you reassurance. It is comforting. That is not to say that the situation may not be (eternally) painful for some.
It is confusing to me that the Bishops (powers to be) seem to think that labeling this mess a pedophile situation is better than a homosexual problem. Both behaviors are wrong in the eyes of God and should be in our eyes too.
Bill Donohue says
It’s Moral Panic Time
August 29, 2018
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the moral panic being engendered against the Catholic Church:
In the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury’s exclusive focus on sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, people are coming out of the woodwork with outlandish tales of long-ago horrific abuses at Catholic institutions, and Internet sites such BuzzFeed are enthusiastically blaring every wild-eyed accusation.
The Catholic Church has never had a monopoly on the mistreatment of some young people, yet that is what is being promoted today. Why? To feed an anti-Catholic moral panic.
“A moral panic,” as sociologist Ashley Crossman explains, “is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. Typically, a moral panic is perpetuated by news media, fueled by politicians, and often results in the passage of new laws or policies that target the source of the panic.”
Can there be a better explanation for what is going on right now with regard to the Catholic Church?
The media, by focusing exclusively on abuse of minors in Catholic institutions—and stubbornly refusing to credit the Church for reforms that have made Catholic settings today among the safest places for children—perpetuate an irrational fear that the Catholic Church poses a unique threat to the safety of children.
Politicians fuel this irrational fear with investigations and grand jury probes that exclusively target the Church—ignoring widespread abuse in other faith communities, in youth sports and recreational programs, and especially in the public schools.
Then media and politicians team up to try to pass new laws—primarily to suspend the statute of limitations— that, again, exclusively target the Catholic Church, giving the public schools a pass.
And then of course the anti-Catholic bigots gleefully pile on, like the Freedom From Religion Foundation calling for Catholics to leave the Church. Of course this has nothing to do with their professed purpose of promoting separation of church and state. But it has everything to do with their real purpose: promoting hostility to religion, especially Catholicism.
This is a textbook case of moral panic—one that even too many Catholics are allowing themselves to get caught up in.
Tom says
Yesterday I saw the Attorney General of Pennsylvania on the Today Show. Church bashing is obviously his primary agenda and there is no fairness to him as he proved at the end of the interview. Savannah Guthrie asked him whether what happened decades ago was still happening in the Church today. Instead of giving the honest answer that since the Dallas Charter, new incidents are almost non-existent, he bellowed that RAPE in 1970 is still RAPE today. This is a trick that prosecutors use to stir up the public. He did not answer the question and he was allowed to get away with it. I would have loved to have seen him on with Bill Donohue, who would have held his feet to the fire and exposed his real agenda. This so-called report does NOTHING but expose past sins of mostly dead people to tarnish the Church’s teaching authority. The bishops are stupid and should be ashamed of themselves for going along to be able to point fingers at what their terrible predecessors did and show how now they will take action by renaming buildings that had been named for dead people who may have made bad decisions decades ago. Bravo, Bishops!!!
Enoch Alemany says
The news is so corrupt!
Fr Stuart MacDonald says
“As a bully, the news media rents space in the psyches of our bishops who have cowered from it and have cowardly toed the line with its rhetoric.”
There’s the nugget, Fr Gordon. Leaving aside consideration of the news media bully (what an apt caricature!), the bishops, and priests, have been cowered and cowardly toeing the line since the sexual revolution, when they started to believe and preach that the moral teachings of the Church were optional. That was the start of the corruption. Then rising to positions of authority, they had to protect their power and keep silent about the moral decay. When it exploded in their faces in 2002, they bowed to the pressure of the media and threw justice and due process for accused clerics out the door. Why? To salvage their credibility with the press which remains the main outlet for most people’s perceptions of the Church, including for practising Catholics. They thought they could look good, (remain relevant?), by doing what the press demanded. It wasn’t about what was right — investigate the crimes and deal with them justly. It was about corporate image. But silly fools, forgetting that the truth will set one free, they didn’t realise that the ravenous puppet master would soon go after them. So we arrive at McCarrick and the Vigano bombshell. And they don’t know what to do, now that they have all lost their credibility. Does a Cardinal really expect us to believe that, in these days, this storm is caused by racial bias against an Argentinian Pope and that the Holy Father’s priority in these days is global warming? How condescending can you get?! He takes us for fools. Do they think more apologies to the faceless victims remedies their own corruption? We need courage and moral leadership. Stop with the empty words and pandering to the press. Get out there and be a bishop.
Fr. Gordon J. MacRae says
Catholic League President Bill Donohue says:
The twin scandals of the summer of 2018 have taken a toll on Catholics. First we learned of the alleged acts of sexual abuse by (former cardinal) Theodore McCarrick, and then we learned of old cases of alleged clergy abuse found in the Pennsylvania grand jury report (most of which were never substantiated). Catholics are understandably livid, but the white-heat reaction that is evident in some quarters has only added to the problem.
Conservative Catholics have been especially strident in their comments. Unfortunately, they are being played. To be specific, their call for grand jury investigations in every state, and the wholesale release of priest personnel files, is playing into the hands of the enemies of the Catholic Church. So are their appeals to parishioners asking them to withhold contributions. Even worse are their demands for a mass purge of bishops.
Those who despise the Church are loving it: these Catholics are unwittingly carrying their water for them. Church-suing lawyers and Church-hating activiststhere are many of themare on a search and destroy mission to upend the Catholic Church. Angry Catholics are taking their bait by not insisting that every institution in society, public as well as private, be subjected to the same level of scrutiny.
All Catholics, beginning with the bishops, should resist calls for full disclosure that are not being demanded of every other institution, religious and secular. To do otherwise is to subvert the Church in the name of justice. Unless we insist on a level playing fieldafter all, we do not own this problem and have made great progressthere will be no justice for anyone, especially Catholics.
Fr Stuart MacDonald says
Fr Gordon,
Bill Donohue is right. Full disclosure is not the answer. That is panic. What we need is analysis of the data. The Pennsylvania report is old news. How many cases have we had since 2002? While I disagree with the current lack of due process, I think numbers will show that it’s not the same as before because of measures that were taken. At the same time, Bill is right, the Church doesn’t own this story. That’s what the media won’t report. What hasn’t changed, however, is the episcopal culture and abuse of authority. Media pressure on that point – which is where we are with McCarrick and Vigano – could lead to panic by the bishops. That would be disastrous. It will be a temptation for the bishops to appear to come clean by opening up personnel files to reveal every complaint about , every alleged peccadillo of, priests and deacons. Since priests routinely have no idea what is in their files, that would be a grave injustice. We need them to show integrity not PR strategy.
Maria Stella says
Hi Fr Gordon,
I apologize in advance for the length of my comment, and hope that the comment in its entirely will be published. Between the time you wrote this post and its publication today, the Catholic world has been rocked by allegations by +Vigano, whom Fr. Stuart mentions in his first comment.
I have been praying, researching and thinking since the allegations by +Vigano of active support of the homosexual agenda by the highest hierarchical levels in our beloved Catholic Church. I ache at the heart level – because I realize how widespread this homosexual agenda is within the Church. In my view, our Holy Mother Church is being savaged – from within.
I have researched +Vigano, and have concluded he has enormous credibility. As such, I take his allegations very seriously. Rather than take up space in this comment regarding +Vigano’s credentials, here is the link to Fr. Heilman’s website about +Vigano’s credentials for TSW readers – which summarizes my research on +Vigano’s credibilty:
https://www.romancatholicman.com/news-of-archbishop-vigano-has-hit-the-curia-like-an-atomic-bomb/
I understand, thanks to prior communications between you and myself, where Bill Donohue is coming from: You wrote to me that “Bill Donohue believes he is protecting the civil liberties of Church personnel and of the Church herself. He believes that each time we let the camel’s nose in the tent: without the camel intruding into any other tent, we are eroding religious liberty in America.” I also am very worried, as per Fr. Stuart’s comments today, that Bishops will once again throw their ‘priestly sons’ under the bus, as they did when they created and implemented the Dallas Charter.
However, while acknowledging the legitimate concerns above, I ask the following agonizing questions: Without an investigation into the allegations that +Vigano has made, how are we going to determine if the allegations of +Vigano makes are true? How can we protect our beloved Church?
Cardinal Burke has said that “The declarations made by a prelate of the authority of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò must be totally taken to heart by those responsible in the Church,”…. Each declaration must be subject to investigation, according to the Church’s time-tried procedural law.” (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/cardinal-burke-responds-to-former-us-nuncios-explosive-letter-about-pope-fr)
Cardinal Burke’s statement provides an answer to my questions: i.e. The SCOPE of an investigation should be CONFINED to the allegations made by +Vigano, and also should be done INTERNALLY – (although that too is potentially fraught with danger – i.e. who can we trust to do so?) – “according to the ‘Church’s time-tried procedural law’ ( i.e. DUE process is followed). In my view, there is small likelihood that the civil liberties of the Church will be compromised by an an internal investigation, and also little likelihood of innocent priests being thrown under the bus if the scope is confined.
As such, I will be writing my bishop to urge him to lend his support for an INTERNAL investigation whose SCOPE is confined to the people named by +Vigano. These would be the 24 cardinals, 4 archbishops, 5 bishops, and the 5 priests listed here: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a-whos-who-of-the-vigano-testimony