Pope has known about gay sex scandals in US Church for years

A staunchly conservative Roman Catholic prelate, Archbishop Carlo Viganò, formerly an apostolic nuncio to the USA, has accused Pope Francis -- "the most progressive pope in history" as the lamestream media call him -- of knowing for at least five years of the gay sex abuse allegations against disgraced Cardinal theodore McCarrick, now wearing his dog collar in the dog house for "allegedly" (LOL) abusing scores of priests and seminarians.

The accusation comes as Francis tours Ireland, playing the old humble card yet again as he begs for forgiveness for decades of Catholic abuse, not just in America but in Eire, Chile and... well, if you're part of the Gay Mafia, the world's your playground.

Archbishop Viganò stated his case in an 11-page letter published today. In his testimony, the prelate said he told the pope, "Holy Father, I don't know if you know Cardinal McCarrick, but if you ask the Congregation of Bishops, there is a dossier this thick about him. He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance."

Abp Viganò goes on to say that he was surprised, shortly thereafter, to see that instead of being sent into seclusion, the cardinal molester began travelling on missions on behalf of the Church. He reportedly went to China, and was known to have been one of the Vatican's intermediaries involved in talks between the US and Cuba talks in 2014.

A cascade of child sex abuse scandals dating back to 2002 have shaken the foundations of the Roman Catholic Church. The latest revelations came just this month in Pennsylvania, where a grand jury report found that 300 priests had abused more than 1000 children, mostly boys, in six dioceses for a period of some seven decades.

Abp Viganò's "Testimony" is highly substantiated and charges other important cardinals, from Pietro Parolin (aka "Peter the Roman") to Sean Patrick O'Malley to Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga. It is absolutely a must-read, and you can access it, in its entirety, by clicking here.

Archbishop Viganò's letter railed against "homosexual networks present in the Church", with the word "homosexual" appearing 18 times. For more on the PA scandal and the Gay Mafia in the Vatican, see "After PA revelations, Cardinal Burke decries 'gay culture' in Church", WWW 17/8/18. And if you're Catholic, don't miss "Catholics! Help stop 'Synod on Young People'!", WWW 22/8/18.

Further reading:
"Pope Francis covered up McCarrick abuse, former US nuncio testifies", by Diane Montagna, in LifeSite News, a blog highly recommended by yr obdt servant, 25/8/18. Includes official text.
"Former United States Nuncio on the McCarrick Scandal: 'Francis Knew. He Should Resign'", by Sandro Magister, Settimo Cielo, 26/8/18.

How can the Church defend pedophile priests?

Enraged by a recent report of the Archiocese of Philadelphia's cover-up of child sex abuse crimes committed by some of its priests, an assiduous reader writes:
I am getting so tired of this constant parade of kiddy-diddling priests. I had hoped that the publicity in the past decades would force the Pope to forcibly address this. But the archbishops and others are still covering and protecting these priests who think it is open season. The papers are full of the church fighting contraception but IMHO they seem to be doing very little about this disgusting behavior. How can you, as a Catholic, defend not just the crimes but the Church's failure to do anything about them?

Walt's reply:
You are quite right. Both the abuse and the denials and cover-ups are a source of shame and disgust to traditional Catholics and the many holy priests who keep their vows.

A website published by a "sede vacantist" -- one who says that the post-Conciliar popes are illegitimate, thus not popes at all -- lays the blame right at the feet of the Holy Father, who he calls "the Pedophile Pope", suggesting that Pope Benedict protects the bishops who protect the priests who commit these sins that cry out to Heaven.

This was foretold by Our Lady of Fatima, and corresponds with the words of Apocalypse 12:3-4:
And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his heads seven diadems:
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth...
The dragon is Satan and the stars of Heaven are the bishops and priests.

Many Catholics, including yr obdt svt, believe that the Church needs to be cleansed. Pope Paul VI said "The smoke Satan has entered the Church" and he should know because he was one of those who opened the windows. But how the Church will be reformed, only God knows. All the faithful can do is pray is pray for the triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart.

Further reading from Walt's previous posts: "Benedict XVI admits Church's problems come 'from within'"; "Another fallen star".

Remember, if you have questions or comments or just want to vent, you're welcome to e-mail Walt [and Ed. Ed.]

Paedophilia in the Church - the effect of the Sixties

An article in Chiesa this week analyses the widespread scandal of sexual abuse by priests and bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. The scandal of pedophilia has always been there, the article says, but was magnified by the cultural revolution of the half a century ago.

The Hippy-Dippy Sixties was a decade of "liberation" -- political, cultural and sexual -- which changed the world. Fruits of this revolution were the "liberation" of women, the spread of feminist ideology, and the acceptance of divorce, birth control pill, and abortion.

The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) was a product of the turmoil of its times. The Church, which for nearly two millennia stood like a rock for certain principles and revealed truths, started to bend to the winds of fashion. Out of this came the corruption and rot which pervades Her seminaries, rectories and even chanceries today.

The Holy Father, Benedict XVI, makes the claim in his recent letter to the Catholics of Ireland. The Chiesa article provides commentary by two cardinals and a sociologist. Worth repeating here are a couple of paragraphs written by Professor Massimo Introvigne, president of the CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religion, in a commentary that appeared on 22 March in the Italian edition of the Zenit online news.

"There was in the 1960's an authentic revolution – no less important than the Protestant Reformation or the French Revolution – that was fast-paced and dealt a tremendous blow to traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values....

"In the Catholic Church, there was not at once a sufficient awareness of the scope of this revolution. On the contrary, it infected – Benedict XVI maintains today – 'also priests and religious', created misunderstandings in the interpretation of [Vatican II], and caused 'insufficient human, moral, intellectual and spiritual formation in seminaries and novitiates'.

"In this climate, certainly not all priests who were insufficiently formed or infected by the climate following the 1960's, and not even a significant percentage of them, became pedophiles. We know from the statistics that the real number of priest pedophiles is much lower than the ones presented by certain media outlets. And yet this number is not equal to zero – as we would all want – and justifies the extremely severe words of the pope.

"But the study of the revolution of the 1960's, and of 1968, is crucial to understanding what happened afterward, including pedophilia. And to finding real remedies.

"If this revolution, unlike those before it, is moral and spiritual and touches the interiority of man, it is only from the restoration of morality, of the spiritual life and of comprehensive truth about the human person that the remedies can ultimately come. But for this reason the sociologists, as always, are not enough: there is a need for fathers and masters, teachers and saints.

"And we all have a great need for the pope: for this pope, who once again – to borrow the title of his latest encyclical – speaks the truth in charity and practices charity in truth."

Another fallen star

Sometimes it's embarrassing to be a known Catholic. People keep making "jokes" about perverted priests. Not funny, but what can one say? Today promises to be a bad day for defenders of the Faith and the Church.

It seems that Most Rev. Raymond Lahey, bishop of Antigonish (Nova Scotia, Canada), is on the lam after being charged with possessing and importing child pornography. A major wire service reported yesterday that the bishop was accused of "selling" child porn. I hope he sues for libel. Still -- and giving the bishop the benefit of the presumption of innocence -- the charges are extremely serious. And the incident makes the priesthood and the Church in general look bad. Bad in the sense of "evil".

Ironically, the charges come just weeks after the Antigonish diocese reached a $15 million settlement with people who claimed to have been abused by priests as children. Bishop Lahey said at the time that the settlement was the first step in recognizing and dealing with the alleged abuse of children.

Bishop Lahey didn't say much, at the time, about what's wrong with clerics who have immoral and illegal sexual relations with children...or women, lay or religious, or other men, lay or religious, for that matter. Apparently there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of morally disordered priests and religious still in the Church, too often still in positions where they can gratify their lusts at the expense of those whom God has placed in their care.

Please go to my post of September 11th, "The fallen stars", for an explanation and further comments. Please pray for the victims of every kind of abuse, and, in your charity, for the abusers. And please pray for the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, when, according to the promise of Our Lady of Fatima, these evils will end.

CORRECTION: I referred to Raymond Lahey as "bishop of Antigonish". In fact, he resigned from his post last weekend, before news of his arrest became public. He said he was quitting because he needed time for "personal renewal." But "Mr. Lahey", as the police are calling him now, remains a priest. When will he and other bad priests be defrocked? Don't hold your breath!

The fallen stars

St. Peter Damian (see article below) was not the first to warn of homosexuality and other sins and disorders in the priesthood of the Church.

God Himself warned us, in Holy Scripture and the Message of Fatima, about the sins of the priests for which we are now paying. St. Paul said: After my departure, ravening wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock. And of your own selves shall arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30)

An even more chilling prophecy is given in the Apocalypse: And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the Woman Who was ready to be delivered; that, when She should be delivered, he might devour Her Son. (Apocalypse 12:4)

This is the vision – too long ignored by the Church – of the Woman clothed with the sun, and of Her persecutor, the great dragon (meaning Satan). In scriptural language, "the stars of heaven" mean the Catholic priests, bishops and Cardinals. We can find this explained in The Book of Destiny by Father Bernard Kramer.

Some think that the prediction that "the third part" (one third) of them will be cast down refers to those who have left the priesthood. But the number of bishops and priests has not yet fallen by that much. Of 450,000 priests who were in the Church in 1965, 50,000 left by l975. That is not one-third. Tragically, some of the "fallen stars" are still inside the Church – a cancer in the Mystical Body of Christ.

It is plain to see that some priests are working not for Our Lord, but for their own sinful purposes, just as St. Paul warned. Even worse, some are working for the devil! As Pope Paul VI told us, "The smoke of Satan has entered the Church."

In the words of St. John Eudes, instead of leading their people to God, these bad priests drag Christian souls with them into hell.

What is to be done? More on this soon!

Homosexual priests -- a warning 1000 years old

The problem of homosexuality in the priesthood, with its attendant evils of pædophilia and sexual abuse, is well known. It causes pain and suffering not only to those who have been molested by rogue priests, but to all Catholics who have to endure the scandals, not to mention the literal bankrupting of entire dioceses to settle court claims.

Pope Benedict XVI is well aware of the problem, as was his predecessor, and has spoken out against it. But somehow the idea has taken hold that this is a modern scandal. While it's true that homosexuality in the clergy has erupted and been exposed dramatically since the "reforms" of Vatican II, it is something that bedvilled the Church (pun intended) for centuries.

Speaking at his public audience on September 9, the Holy Father urged Christians "to create silence within ourselves in order to listen to the voice of God." He preached a reflection on the life and influence of St. Peter Damian (1007-1072), a champion of monastic life and of reform within the Church.

His Holiness pointed out that St. Peter Damian "was not afraid to denounce the state of corruption that existed in the monasteries and among the clergy." Although he didn't say so, Benedict appears to have been referring to the Book of Gomorrah, a savage attack on homosexuality in the priesthood.

Writing in Inside the Vatican, its editor, Robert Moynihan, pornounces himself "perplexed" by Pope Benedict's talk. Moynihan calls attention to the Holy Father's failure to specify the particular type of corruption St. Peter Damian denounced.

Moynihan wonders if the Pope deliberately skirted the issue. The Holy Father is extremely subtle and guarded in disclosing his intentions, so it seems more likely that he was dropping a hint, confident that knowledgeable Catholics will make the obvious connection.

The big question is, what is to be done? How are the homosexuals and pædophiles to be rooted out? How is this cancer to be excised from the Mystical Body of Christ? What does the Pope plan to do?

Betrayal at Boston: The Ted Kennedy funeral

The following e-mail has been published by Father Brian Harrison, O.S.

I am sending this e-mail to all those on my list of contacts. Many of you will sympathize with what I have to say; some of you, however, may disagree strongly, particularly those who may be "pro-choice". ["Pro-choice" is the politically correct euphemism for "pro abortion" -- being in favour of killing unborn babies. ed]

Why, then, am I emailing even those of you for whom this message may be not only unsolicited but unwelcome - perhaps even offensive? Simply because, as a Roman Catholic priest, I feel a duty in conscience today to register...my emphatic dissent from a message that was projected around the nation and the globe this morning to millions of viewers and listeners by certain other members of the Roman Catholic clergy.

I refer to this morning's televised funeral Mass, celebrated in Boston's Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, for the recently deceased Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. It was a Mass I regard as a scandal comparable to, if not worse than, the scandal given several months ago when the nation's most prestigious "Catholic" university bestowed an honorary doctorate upon Barack Hussein Obama, the most pro-abortion and "pro-gay" president in U.S. history.

Why, you ask, should a Catholic priest raise such objections to a Catholic funeral for a Catholic legislator? Well, I am afraid this funeral was no ordinary Catholic funeral. For to those innumerable viewers and listeners of many religions (or none) who were aware of Sen. Kennedy's public, straightforward, radical, long-standing, and (as far as we know) unrepented defiance of his own Church's firm teaching about the duty of legislators to protect unborn human life and resist the miltant homosexual agenda, this morning's Mass, concelebrated by several priests, presided over Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and adorned by a eulogy from the aforesaid U.S. President, effectively communicated a tacit but very clear message: the Church does not really take too seriously her own 'official' doctrines on these matters!

I feel impelled, therefore, to make known to anyone willing to read these lines that there are many other representatives of the Catholic Church, such as the undersigned, who take those doctrines very seriously indeed.

How would our Church leaders act if they really did take seriously an official Church position from which a prominent deceased Catholic had publicly dissented? To answer that question, we need only imagine a situation in which some well-known Catholic legislator had for years supported "across the board" the Church's social teaching in regard to human life, marriage, compassion toward the poor and underprivileged, etc., but had then, in old age, lapsed into supporting some ideological position that was strongly opposed not only by the Church, but also by the dominant Western elites in government, law, education, commerce and the media.

Suppose, for instance, that he had come to endorse white supremacism or holocaust denial. Now, when the moment for this Catholic legislator's funeral came, could we imagine for one moment that our cardinals, bishops and other leading clergy, mindful of this man's sterling and thoroughly orthodox contributions to the common good over so many years in Congress, would "compassionately" overlook his latter-day lapse into racism or antisemitism? Would they agree to give him a free pass in regard to this defect? Would they speak and act as if it were non-existent? Would they grant him a televised funeral Mass in a large basilica, presided over by a cardinal, in which he would be publicly eulogized by both family and public figures?

These questions really answer themselves. Of course none of that would occur! The local bishop might go as far as allow our hypothetical Catholic racist or antisemite a Church funeral, if it was known that (like Senator Kennedy) he had confessed sacramentally to a priest before death. However, the bishop would allow the use of church property for this funeral on the strict condition that only close personal family and friends would be admitted. All media transmission or even presence during the service itself would surely be forbidden.

It would, of course, be unnecessary for the bishop to ask his fellow bishops and other high Church dignitaries not to attend the service; for all of them, like the bishop himself, would already prefer to be anywhere else on earth than at the funeral of one who had lapsed so unspeakably from society's ruling canons of acceptable behavior.

Yes, society's canons. There, I am afraid, lies the difference between our two scenarios. Is it that official Catholic doctrine is incomparably more opposed to racism and antisemitism than it is to abortion and sodomy (as a visitor from Mars might suppose on observing the radically divergent reactions of our bishops to the two respective ex-politicians)? Not at all.

The big difference is simply that most members of the Catholic hierarchy in Western society today -- and there are of course a number of honorable exceptions -- are lacking in prophetic courage. They are ready and eager to take vigorous and resolute public disciplinary action only against those deviations from Church teaching which also happen to be excoriated by the cultural and media elites.

But if it is our prelates themselves who will be excoriated by those elites -- as would certainly have occurred had they required for Ted Kennedy's funeral the kind of severe restraint we envisaged above for that of our hypothetical bigot -- then all eagerness for just discipline will evaporate as fast as dew in the morning sun.

"Pastoral compassion", "forgiveness", "tolerant respect" and "Christian charity" will now be instantly invoked as reasons for cloaking in total silence the public enormities committed decade after decade by an ecclesially heterodox but socially orthodox legislator.

So it was, in this morning's funeral Mass, that the homilist, Fr. Mark Hession (pastor of Kennedy's Cape Cod parish), made his sermon a eulogy about what a wonderful Catholic Christian Ted was, assuring us that we could be "confident" that he is already with Jesus in glory. So it was that the principal celebrant, Fr. Donald Monan, S.J., Chancellor of Boston College, not only repeatedly told those present, and the whole watching world, that Sen. Kennedy was a man of "faith and prayer", with a deep devotion to the Eucharist, but also assured us that this "faith and prayer" in private was precisely what inspired and motivated his public policies, so that there was (surprise, surprise) a real integration and unity between his private and public life!

Well, a lot of us didn't quite manage to see any private-public unity based on Roman Catholic principles. On the contrary, Kennedy's huge political influence, based on both the family's prestige and the personal dyamism of this "Lion of the Senate", if anything made his U-turn on abortion (yes, he was pro-life in his younger days) an even more scandalous counter-witness: a sign of conflict, not union, with that Church to which he professed loyalty.

Here are two comments I have just lifted off a Catholic blog:
1. "There's this big, 'What if?'" said Catholic author Michael Sean Winters. "If Ted Kennedy had stuck to his pro-life position, would both the (Democratic) party and the country have embraced the abortion on demand policies that we have now? I don't think so."
2. "Russell Shaw, former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said that when Kennedy defied the church on issues such as abortion and later, gay marriage, he reinforced a corrosive belief among Catholics that they can simply ignore teachings they don't agree with."

I myself remember several years ago a conversation with a young woman who had been brought up Catholic but had recently been "born again" as an Evangelical Protestant. One of the arguments she threw at me was, "Even your Church leaders don't really believe what Catholics are supposed to believe. Why don't they excommunicate Ted Kennedy? He's blatantly, 100% pro-choice! Yet they do nothing!"

What could I say to her? And what can I say now, after today's public scandal? That young lady's complaint was simply that this man remained a Catholic in good standing. I find I must now complain to you of something worse. Before the whole world this morning, my fellow Catholic clerics in Boston did not just accord him the "good standing" of a normal, flawed Catholic whose soul we can hope is in Purgatory. Rather, clad in triumphant white vestments instead of penitential violet (never mind the traditional black!), they have placed him on a pedestal, granting him an unofficial "instant canonization"!

The Church's teaching is already abundantly clear that all this is very wrong. So perhaps we can legitimately discern the hand of God's Providence, which rules all things, in a 'coincidence' that suggests a manifestation of God's grave displeasure at this kind of mockery -- injustice masquerading as "pastoral charity".

In our liturgy, Sunday has begun as I write at the hour of Vespers on Saturday. But the earlier part of this day, August 29, including the time of the Kennedy funeral, was observed by Catholics round the world as the Feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist. In normal Masses celebrated today, the biblical account of his martyrdom was read (Mark 6: 17-29.)

The parallels are striking: (a) We see two powerful civil authorities; (b) both of them flip-flop in a morally bad direction (Herod originally respected and defended John, and Kennedy originally respected and defended the unborn; (c) both of them abuse their power by authorizing the shedding of innocent blood; and (d) both of them do so under peer-group pressure and at the behest of unrighteous women (then, Herod's guests, his wife and her daughter; now, the radical feminists and their fellow travellers).

As if that were not enough, the longest Scripture reading in today's liturgy also grabs our attention. It is prescribed not for the Feast of John the Baptist, but independently, for the Saturday of Week 21, in the Office of Readings. This is a part of the daily 'Liturgy of the Hours' which is required spiritual reading for us Roman Rite clerics. And today's reading just happens to be Jeremiah 7: 1-20, in which the prophet vigorously denounces -- guess what? -- the hypocrisy of Israel's religious leaders who proudly identify with the temple and the rites they celebrate within it, while at the same time they are living unrighteously (including "shedding innocent blood", v. 6) and even "pouring out libations to strange gods" (v. 18). God therefore warns, "my anger and my wrath will pour out upon this place" (v. 20).

Orthodox Catholics will surely ask whether God can be any less angered now by those clerics who today carried out temple rites giving undeserved honor to a legislator who for decade after decade poured out the 'libations' of his eloquence, influence and Senate votes in the service the 'false gods' of Planned Parenthood and NARAL -which regularly rewarded him with 100% ratings for his 'pro-choice' record.

Enough. If, in your charity, you pray for God to be merciful to the soul of Edward Moore Kennedy, please pray for all of us Catholic priests as well -- and be cognizant of the fact that some of us are profoundly indignant at what we saw our brethren doing today.

Sincerely,
Father Brian Harrison, O.S.
Oblates of Wisdom Study Center,
St. Louis, Missouri