Catholic Pro-Abort Politicians Need to Shape Up or Ship Out

H/T Confessions of a Thirty-Something Cybertronian 

Pope Benedict: Unsparing in Analysis of Sex Abuse Scandal

Let us continue to pray for the healing of all the innocent children who were abused by priests. 

From CatholicCulture.org:

Pope Benedict in his address stated:
"We must accept this humiliation as an exhortation to truth and a call to renewal. Only the truth saves. We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred. We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen. We must discover a new resoluteness in faith and in doing good. We must be capable of doing penance. We must be determined to make every possible effort in priestly formation to prevent anything of the kind from happening again." 


He said that the prevailing attitudes of the 1960s and 1970s broke down the moral consensus against sexual exploitation.


Pope Benedict recalled that “to a degree we could not have imagined, we came to know of abuse of minors committed by priests who twist the sacrament into its antithesis, and under the mantle of the sacred profoundly wound human persons in their childhood, damaging them for a whole lifetime.”

He quoted from a mystical vision of St. Hildegard of Bingen, who said:

For my Bridegroom’s wounds remain fresh and open as long as the wounds of men’s sins continue to gape. And Christ’s wounds remain open because of the sins of priests.

Cleveland Catholics Defy Bishop and Risk Excommunication

 
Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese wants to meet with the priest and lay leaders of a breakaway congregation to try to bring them back into the fold, a spokesman for the diocese said Monday.
 
The diocese was reacting to an unauthorized Mass celebrated Sunday by the Rev. Robert Marrone and about 350 communicants in leased commercial space they set up as a church, independent of the diocese.


 Diocese spokesman Robert Tayek said Lennon "has an obligation, as shepherd of the diocese, to try and reach out to these folks in the hopes of keeping them in communion with the church."

Leaders of the new Community of St. Peter, facing possible excommunication for disobeying the bishop, have stressed that they still consider themselves practicing Roman Catholics, but disagree with the diocese over the closing of their church, St. Peter, in downtown Cleveland.

When Lennon, carrying out a diocese-wide downsizing plan, announced in March 2009 that he was mothballing the 151-year-old building on the corner of Superior Avenue and East 17th Street, members of the congregation began considering other options to stay together.  CONTINUED

This is bizarre. Is ensuring that parish members are able to stay and worship together by starting a new parish without the permission of the Cleveland Diocese and the Bishop worth risking being excommunicated from the Church?  Do they deserve to be excommunicated? Should the Rev. Robert Marrone be held more responsible for spreading scandal than the parishoners? These parishoners seem misguided IMO.  The priest and the parishoners are causing scandal and it must be stopped.

"Relativism on the Right"? -- Father Keenan's Charge and the Debate

Patrick Archbold of Creative Minority Report rejects Father James Keenan’s charge that Traditionalism can lead to ‘relativism’ on the Right. Father James Keenan just happens to be a Jesuit priest at Boston College. Kyle Cupp, of Journeys in Alterity believes that the Theologian Father James Keenan is correct in his assessment. But, as you see from Father Keenan's words and in Kyle’s post deciphering whether either Father Keenan or Kyle Cupp is referring to Tradition or the traditions of the Church is like nailing jell-o to the wall. Kyle uses this inconspicuous wording that would give a private eye a run for his money in finding out where he stands on this particular issue.  After a reevaluation of my thoughts on Kyle’s post, and after searching the internet more extensively I have become further enlightened on Father Keenan’s social views and must ask Kyle Cupp a few questions: Is the Church’s Teaching on “homosexual marriage” one of those truths taught by the Church that is a merely time-bound tradition that would make a relativist out of a believer in its transcendent truth? Is the Church’s teaching on forbidding women from becoming priests one those truths of Traditions that shouldn’t be understood as timeless? What truths are not timeless? What Traditions that a person of faith believes in puts them in danger of relativism?


While on earth, as faithful Catholic Christians, we must follow apostolic Tradition which was originally handed down by Jesus to the apostles, and those teachings were then in turn the handed down to others via the apostles oral teaching. These teachings largely are consistent with those contained in Scripture. Both the oral and written Tradition were handed down and entrusted to the Church. When we speak of those Traditions that we as Catholics must follow as are unchangeable we are referring to the Apostolic Tradition and not the ecclesial traditions which, according to the Catechism, are “the various theological, disciplinary, liturgical or devotional traditions that have been adapted or changed over time while remaining faithful to Tradition at the same time.”

If both Father Keenan and Kyle are referring, not to Tradition, but rather to traditions (note the changing in the casing of the “t”) being changed over time then they are correct. From my research it has become self-evident that at least in some respects Father Keenan is referring to changing apostolic Tradition and not merely some of those ecclesial traditions. From my net research, it seems most likely that Father Keenan is referring to Tradition so in my final conclusion I must agree with Patrick Archold’s assessment of Father Keenan’s statement. Following the Tradition of the Church can never lead to relativism. But, Father Keenan’s mode of thought has the possibility of leading to scandal and even heresy.

Church Abuse Scandal, New York Times & the Problem with “hucusque vigens”

A canon lawyer and The New York Times are in agreement - that the Church's canon-law system exacerbated the sex abuse crisis in the United States.

Nicholas P. Cafardi, a canon lawyer, explains why he agrees with the New York Times article called,“Church Office Failed to Act on Abuse Scandal,”:

It is rare when issues of canon law make the front page of the New York Times and even more rare when the secular media gets their canonical issues right. But the Times story of July 2, 2010, “Church Office Failed to Act on Abuse Scandal,” did just that. As the Times reported, it truly was a failure in the church’s canon-law system that exacerbated, if it did not help to cause, the clergy child sex-abuse crisis in the United States.

When the crisis first broke in the mid-1980s, U.S. canon lawyers (me among them) thought that the new Code of Canon Law, promulgated in 1983, limited the canonical prosecutions of priests who had sexually abused minors to crimes that were reported within five years of their occurrence. The new canon 1362 said that the statute of limitations on such crimes was five years after their commission.

The problem with that statute, of course, is that it takes children much longer than five years to come to terms with an instance of abuse and begin to tell people about it. The literature suggests that the average time for a child to figure out exactly what was done to them, how wrong it was, that it was not their fault, and that they have nothing to fear from telling people about it, is about twenty years. So a five-year statute on child sexual-abuse crimes is unrealistic to begin with. CONTINUED