Another Coverup

Pope Francis’s big sex summit is over and the reviews are coming in. National Review’s Michael Brendan Dougherty says: “The pope’s summit is trash and a coverup.” The National Catholic Register described a quintessential question asked by a reporter: “At the press conference on Feb. 22, longtime CNN Vatican reporter Delia Gallagher pointed out to Cardinal Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston that in 2002 the American Cardinals were in Rome working to implement a zero-tolerance policy, and the main figure in that was then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Why, she asked, should the American people trust them again?”

O'Malley and Cupich

Why indeed? Ms. Gallagher didn’t get an answer. She got the runaround and so did faithful Catholics the world over. Cardinal Cupich was appointed a cardinal by Pope Francis on the recommendation of the now-disgraced former-Cardinal McCarrick, then designated by Francis as coordinator of this newest coverup of deviant sexual escapades by clergy at all levels, not just priests. As expected, Cupich dodged Gallagher’s question with still more nebulous platitudes just like McCarrick used seventeen years ago.

McCarrick and Cupich

The sex summit never mentioned Cardinal McCarrick, yet he loomed large anyway — the proverbial elephant in the room. Pope Francis still denies prior knowledge of McCarrick’s predatory homosexual behavior or that McCarrick had been confined to a secluded life of prayer and penance by his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Immediately upon assuming the papacy in 2015, however, Pope Francis reversed Benedict’s action and greatly increased McCarrick’s influence — until last summer when proof of his deviant behavior emerged. The week before last week’s the sex summit Pope Francis defrocked McCarrick, evidently thinking the whole affair would go away by doing so.

It didn’t. Catholics still want to know why Francis hasn’t released documents in the Vatican and in Washington, DC where McCarrick was archbishop which would prove one way or another whether Francis knew about McCarrick’s deviant behavior and his suspension by Benedict XVI. None of that was addressed and the McCarrick affair remains a festering boil. So does last summer’s testimony by Archbishop Vigano who identified a homosexual network permeating the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church worldwide.

Media asked questions about the “gay” network too, but Cupich and other favorites of Pope Francis deflected them. At the summit was Robert Royal, president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. who wrote: “So, was it dealing with the full truth of the current problem within the Church not even to mention the element of homosexual predation — to sidestep the greater problem… [and] making it appear that the problem is the abuse of young children and not basically homosexual grooming? And isn’t it undeniable at this point that there were and are “gay” networks of mutual cover-up, not least in Rome, even at the very highest levels?”

None of that was on the agenda. It wasn’t discussed. Bandaids were applied to those festering boils too. To lance them would have been painful, yes, but then healing could have begun. Instead, they were covered up yet again in hopes that the anger of faithful Catholics out there would dissipate yet again as it did after the 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight series. Remember, it was then-Cardinal McCarrick using his soothing words to convince us all that everything would be okay, that he would fix it. I fell for it then but I won’t this time, and either will millions of others out here in the pews. This is not going to go away. It’s going to get worse. That’s how infections are.

So now what? What will “get worse” look like? Will there be another schism? Another Reformation? Will faithful Catholics zip up their wallets when the collection plate comes around? NBC News reported last October that: “Thirteen states now investigating alleged sexual abuse linked to the Catholic Church.” They include Florida, Arkansas, Illinois, Pennsylvania (again), Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont. The US Justice Department is investigating possible RICO violations by various dioceses as well.

Oh yeah?

Cupich calls for transparency at Sex Summit?
He's Archbishop of Chicago

Media will be all over press conferences when each state reports out, just like they were last August in Pennsylvania. American Catholics will cringe again, and again, and again… Doesn’t the pope know that confession is good for the soul? Catholics call it “Reconciliation” these days, but it’s not being practiced at the Vatican, not in any real sense. There was an opportunity last week, but the highest officials in the Roman Catholic Church let it pass. So what’s next? As Bette Davis said in All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

The Dogma Lives Loudly Within

If someone were to have told me a year ago that many if not most American Catholic bishops disagreed with Church teachings enumerated in the Catechism of The Catholic Church, I wouldn’t have believed it. After the revelations of 2018 regarding Cardinal McCarrick, the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and the Archbishop Vigano testimony, however, there can be no doubt. And I’m sad to say that even more sickening revelations will likely come in 2019 since several other state attorneys general are investigating many dozens of bishops— and so is the US Justice Department.

Archbishop Vigano

After being born Boston-Irish-Catholic-Democrat in 1951, I remained a Democrat until 1993 when I dropped out during the first year of the Clinton Administration after realizing that pro-abortion and pro-homosexual biases had been so closely woven into the fabric of the party that I could not in good conscience remain. In 2002, The Boston Globe, which I read every day at the time, broke the homosexual priest scandal and I nearly dropped out of the Catholic Church as well. I didn’t, however, because, to paraphrase Senator Diane Feinstein: The dogma lives loudly within me.

The Globe didn’t call it a homosexual priest scandal. That’s what I called it then and still do while the Globe consistently calls it a pedophile priest scandal. The USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) calls it that too — even after 2004 when the study it commissioned, The John Jay Report, returned overwhelming evidence that it was indeed a homosexual priest scandal. Officially called The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, the study concluded that 80% of the sexual abuse victims were post-pubescent males. The perpetrators were clearly homosexual priests but the USCCB would not admit that. They still don’t, but some bishops and other clergy are finally breaking ranks after the sordid revelations of 2018.

Divisions within my Church will widen in the coming year as lay people in the pews are forced to choose sides. One or more of several possible scenarios will unfold: A dozen or more state attorneys general in New York, Michigan and elsewhere may call press conferences detailing hundreds, even thousands of sexual assaults by priests and bishops. What if the press conferences come weekly? What if they coincide with still another Supreme Court confirmation battle over a Catholic nominee? Fence-sitting will become increasingly uncomfortable for parishioners.

Many expect liberal Associate Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg to announce retirement after her most recent cancer surgery. If she does, President Trump will likely appoint US Circuit Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett to replace her. It was at Barrett’s Circuit Court confirmation hearing that Diane Feinstein said: “the [Catholic] dogma lives loudly within you, and that is a concern.” Democrat Senator Dick Durbin asked her: “Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?” Barrett’s confirmation will make the raucous Kavanaugh hearings of last year seem tame by comparison.

At the Kavanaugh hearings

We haven’t seen this level of anti-Catholic bigotry since John Kennedy ran for president in 1960. I was in the fourth grade then at St. William’s School in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and I remember wondering — what was wrong with being a Catholic? For the next four decades or so, anti-Catholicism subsided but now it’s back, among Democrat senators at least. It’s okay to be a Catholic in government as long as you support abortion like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry, Patrick Leahy, Dick Durbin, Susan Collins, Sonia Sotomayor, and several others do, but if you live by Catholic teachings you’re an “extremist.”

Left-wing Democrat Senators Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono last week accused Brian Buescher, another Catholic Trump nominee for district court judge in Nebraska, of belonging to an organization that held “extreme positions.” That organization, the Knights of Columbus, supports marriage only between a man and a woman and is against abortion. Though I’m not active beyond monthly monetary contributions, my name is on K of C roles which makes me an “extremist” too. The “extreme positions” in question are basic teachings of the Catholic Church which bishops are responsible to uphold, but most don’t.

A few like Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix warn pro-abortion Catholic politicians not to approach the communion rail to receive the Eucharist. Catholics in the pews can only assume that most bishops don’t take Catholic Church teachings on abortion or homosexuality seriously. As I wrote in a previous column, I’ve heard only two homilies on abortion at weekly masses in Maine New Hampshire, and Massachusetts over the past thirty years. How many have I heard about homosexuality? Despite the enormous media attention given to the issue over that time, I’ve heard only one — and that, ironically, from former Portland, Maine Bishop Richard Malone whose present flock in Buffalo, New York is clamoring for his resignation. He’s under investigation there for protecting homosexual priest abusers. Federal investigators have been asking questions about him here in Maine as well.