Archive for the ‘priests’ Category
Maryknoll Priest Faces Excommunication On Women’s Ordinations
Canon lawyer, Edward Peters, comments on why the Maryknoll priest, Reverend Roy Bourgeois, should immediately recant his support of women’s ordination or face excommunication and defrocking. An activist and war veteran, Bourgeois’s life seems to speak to women’s issues and confronting third world countries on the treatment of women.
More on Rev. Roy Bourgeois
Catholic Church Finalizing Record Settlements
Diocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph settling child abuse cases with 47 victims for $10 million dollars.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the nonmonetary conditions included in the proposed settlement are more important than the money. They include the diocese publicly announcing and acknowledging the wrongfulness of sexual abuse by its priests.
Diocese of Chicago settling another case with $12.7 milllon dollars.
Historically, the archdiocese has insisted on keeping confidential the settlements with more than 250 survivors of clergy sex abuse. But lawyers for the victims and the archdiocese together Tuesday announced the most recent settlement involving 16 victims and 11 accused priests, bringing the total abuse payments to date to $77 million.
Catholic Archdiocese Updates Priest Behavior Rules
The Archdiocese of Cincinnati has increased contact restrictions for priests on acceptable contact with children. Ohioan priests are no longer allowed to kiss, tickle, wrestle, bear hugs, lapsitting, or piggyback rides. Proper behavior can include shaking children’s hands, patting on the back, and high fiving.
Great move, Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk. Behavior rules are updated every five years and was needed to reassure the parishes in Ohio of no further sex crimes. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati was held responsible and fined $10,000 for not reporting the 1970’s and 1980’s paedophilia scandals.
MLS Professional Soccer Player To Enter Priesthood
What a great example for the next generation of Roman Catholic children! Hopefully this will be talked about in parochial schools this new school year. 
In the midst of his professional soccer career with the New England Revolution, young, handsome, and Roman Catholic, Chase Hilgenbrinck will be entering Mount St. Mary’s Seminary to become a priest. Soccer must be in God’s perfect design, Pope John Paul II was a soccer goal keeper as a young man in Poland. Hilgenbrinck will spend the next six years studying theology and philosophy in the Emmitsberg, Maryland seminary to become ordained as a diocesan priest. Hilgenbrinck wants to return home to serve in his childhood parish.
Father Jonathan Morris: Don’t Tell Me How To Vote
Catholic expert and Fox spokesperson, Father Jonathan Morris’s column on the real criteria voters should evaluate when selecting a political candidate. Maybe Secularists, left and right wing seeking to silence the Moral Majority and devout Catholics, should realize that “What Would Jesus Do” is not necessarily the only question Christians should ask themselves.
How Big A Sip Are They Taking?
Hungary wants Catholic priests to be exempt from new DUI law.
Due to a shortage of priests, many hold masses in several villages in a day. They also drive to funerals, to Sunday school and when visiting the sick, church authorities wrote in a letter to the minister [prime].
The church plans to issue special cards for its priests to show that they consume alcohol in the fulfilment of official duties.
The Class Of 2007: Priesthood
The Survey of Ordinands to the Priesthood report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was published in March of 2007 but I think it’s relevant now. The report states that hopefully 475 seminarians will graduate from training with 30% from foreign countries.
China Detains Underground Catholic Priests
Not long after Pope Benedict XVI issued a reconcilliatory letter to the Chinese government, the Communists have detained three “underground” Catholic priests.
The three men were caught by police in north China’s Inner Mongolia region, having fled there from neighboring Hebei province, the Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement emailed late on Saturday.
Please keep Liang Aijun, Wang Zhong, and Gao Jinbao, and their return unharmed in your prayers.
Father Jonathan On Abuse Lawsuits
Father Jonathan Morris, Fox’s Catholic expert, provides some common sense and some hope on the reasoning behind the $660 million dollar hush money the Catholic Church is paying. His honesty and manner of speaking on this embarrassing and ire-raising issue is, how do I say not refreshing, as if this is an easy-go-lucky escapade, but comforting relative to my own feelings and angst. Some highlights in his column:
“Nobody likes talking about sexual abuse of minors. Since 2002, Catholics are especially sensitive to, and rightly scandalized and embarrassed, by the topic. And I am sure you can imagine how the tragedy weighs on the hearts of young priests like me as we come face-to-face with the reality that many men who were thought to be dedicating themselves exclusively to the service of God were, in
fact, serving instead their own base passions. They abandoned their call to
holiness. They relinquished their role of spiritual leadership.”———————————————————–
Child abuse is the consequence of a deep-seated psychological disorder that has occurred in every culture for as long as back as we have record. Normal, healthy people don’t abuse kids. In fact, they don’t even experience the temptation.
- Based on the numbers now at hand, the phenomenon of sexual abuse of minors is probably more widespread today — in every sector of society — than ever before. I believe this is the consequence of a society that has rejected all moral boundaries, especially in the area of sexuality, and whose family structures have disintegrated, producing large numbers of disjointed and unstable people (medical professionals tell us sexual disorders are often linked to poor relationships with parents).
- The percentage of Catholic priests in America who have been “credibly accused” (not convicted) of sexual abuse of minors over the last 60 years stands at 4.5 percent (see the comprehensive John Jay study), a number about equal (given the margin of error) to similar studies of other homogenous groups.
- Many of these accusations (though certainly not all) are probably well-founded. This means many Catholic priests (though still a small minority) were psychologically sick.
- This psychological disorder does not abolish their moral responsibility. They may have been sick, but to the degree they still had use of reason, they were also wrong.
- Catholic priests don’t fall from the heavens. They are born into ordinary families. As children and young adults, their surroundings and personal choices combine to form their character and psychology. Given what we now know about abuse by priests, this means that some very sick or weak men (prone to psychological disorders), who never should have been priests, were admitted to seminaries and eventually to pastoral ministry.
- This fact represents a failure of the individual priest to recognize his weakness and flee from temptation. (They should never have pursued a life where they had responsibility for children or young adults.) But it is primarily a failure of those who were responsible (bishops and seminary educators) to select worthy candidates for the priesthood.
- Almost without exception, credible accusations against a given priest came in bunches. Sadly, and inexcusably, some bishops ignored or underestimated the first accusations and permitted the sick priest to have continued access to young people. Anyone who knowingly transferred a dangerous priest from one parish to another is, of course, guilty of participation in great evil.
- The spending of millions of dollars of Church funds on legal battles (including this most recent $660 million settlement) may, in fact, be the best option available, but I think we should equally recognize that such payments are an objective injustice to the members of the local Church. After all, these funds are, in some way, coming from the pews. In the corporate and legal society in which we Americans live, we can almost understand the logic of paying out big bucks as compensation for a corporation’s wrongdoing, but, as a Church, we should never think it is the ideal way of righting a wrong. Instead, we should double our efforts to make sure no abuse ever occurs again, and therefore avoid the perhaps necessary evil of using Church funds to try to reestablish the scales of justice.
- The vow of celibacy which Catholic priests take is not the cause of pedophilia or homosexual acts with minors (the vast majority of abuse has involved post-pubescent young men.) That’s ridiculous! As I mentioned above, healthy people don’t experience the slightest bit of temptation to abuse kids, and even less so, kids of one’s own gender.
- People with sexual disorder who have already committed abuse, can be treated, but we now know from relatively new psychiatric research they almost never experience complete healing. This scientific research should regulate the way we relate to offenders. No offender should ever have special access to kids again. Period.
I wish these reforms would assure the absolute protection of our youth. They won’t. Because sexual abuse of children is a societal problem, our kids will only be safe when our very sick and immoral society confronts and overcomes the root causes of its perversity.
In the meantime, I think the spotlight on the secret archives of sinfulness within the ranks of the Catholic priesthood has turned out to be a great blessing in disguise. Things were bad, and now we know it … all of us.
But things are getting better — just ask any priest of the new generation. For the most part, they stand out for being very normal, very healthy and endowed with a good dose of Godly courage.
God bless, Father Jonathan
P.S. Don’t be surprised if Catholic diocese continue to dish out big settlements. It is rather politically incorrect for me to say this, but I would be spineless not to mention that lawyers are getting 30 to 40 percent of the legal judgments. Where there is money, lawyers will flock. Both the Church and victims of abuse would be greatly served if a team of well-respected lawyers in every diocese would agree to donate some of their time to represent, free of charge, plaintiffs who have legitimate cases against the Church. It would eliminate the impression of gold mining and encourage honesty and transparency by all.
Read his entire column – Father Jonathan’s thoughts are on a lot of good Catholics’ minds. He shows us what the next generation of priests are thinking. There is hope.
Is Voice Of The Faithful Coming To An End?
Facing budget cuts, with some victories in ridding the Church of paedophiles, and decreasing fervour by parishes in decrying Church’s policies in handling abuse cases, VOTF is wondering if they should disband or carry on.
“It’s tough to keep momentum going over a long period of time,” said Bill Casey, the group’s chairman, “and I think what we need to do is to refocus our organization’s leadership and energy. What we have to do is convince the average Catholic that there is a strong continuing need for an independent lay voice in the governance of the Catholic Church.”
Formed five years ago when two dozen suburban Boston parishioners gathered in anguish over the emerging abuse crisis, its message — “Keep the Faith, Change the Church” — and nonconfrontational approach to church leaders attracted 35,000 worldwide members, according to the group.
Voice of the Faithful helped press some dioceses into being more transparent in dealing with abuse cases and finances, joined fights to extend statutes of limitation for sexual abuse, and persuaded some parish leaders to allow greater lay involvement.
Now, it faces a $100,000 deficit in a budget of about $700,000, and Mr. Casey said at an April meeting that the group was in a “stuck position,” with arguments over leadership and decision-making.
Sma' Talk Wi' T 