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.”

Courage From a Boy and a Priest

Father Peter Shaba

America sent many missionaries to Africa. Now Africa is sending them to us because the Catholic faith is growing there but has atrophied here. One such is Father Peter Shaba from Nigeria who said 10:30 mass last Sunday at Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Fryeburg, Maine. His homily on abortion was only the third I’ve heard in thirty years of attending mass nearly every week all over New England.

“If the mission of Jesus is to save life,” said Father Shaba in reference to Sunday’s mass readings, “for us his followers, our mission is to save and protect life as well. Yes, to save and protect life no matter how young or old that life is, especially the most vulnerable, the unborn. But is that the world mission today? Especially [for] those [who] call themselves Christians — good Catholics? Brothers and sisters, good Catholics don’t support the killing of innocent children — never.”

“We [all]watched what just happened in New York — the passing of the abortion law legalizing abortion up until birth, the Reproductive Health Act which was called ‘a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values…’ Are we progressing as humans in matters of life or are we retrogressing?” asked Father Shaba. “When we can kill babies who are very vulnerable, who should be cared for and protected since they cannot do that for themselves — but instead of doing that, we are happy and joyous that a law signing their death warrant has just been passed?”

He was referring to all the Catholic legislators who celebrated as Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the bill into law on the 46th anniversary of Roe V Wade. As Fox News reported it: “Cuomo directed the 408-foot spire on the One World Trade Center, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany to be lit pink to ‘celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.’” 

Father Shaba continued: “I watched with sadness the man who signed this law [and] the women who were with him, other men and women present there especially those close to him — how happy they were, cheering him on, the grandmother who sat close to him, happy, laughing, cheering evil and thinking that all is well? These people should be crying and wailing. Brothers and sisters, I am telling you today: all is not well. We need to pray for our nation.”

Catholics, including lay people, priests, and a few American bishops are calling on their fellow bishops to censure Governor Cuomo — either excommunicate him or at least to deny him the Eucharist in his home parish. Is anything stirring? On Saturday, Bishop of Albany Edward Scharfenberger wrote to Governor Cuomo, according to according to Fox News: “Your advocacy of extreme abortion legislation is completely contrary to the teachings of our pope and our Church.”

Cuomo knows what he’s doing: making an ass of his bishop. So what now Bishop Scharfenberger? Another strong letter to follow? Only days before signing this sinful bill, Governor Cuomo “touted his Catholic faith during the State of the State address,” according to Fox News. Ordinary Catholics want their bishops to do something and we’re gravely disappointed with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for refusing to uphold, or even practice Catholic teachings. How can they now allow Cuomo to peddle his Catholicism for political purposes and days later publicly defy the church to which he claims to belong? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of Canon Law: “The diocesan bishop governs with legislative, executive, and judicial powers according to the norms of law.” Do your job, bishop!

Nick Sandmann, Bishop Foy

And speaking of cowardly bishops, what did Covington, Kentucky Bishop do last week after a Covington Catholic High School boy was pilloried in the pro-abortion media for marching against abortion? Did he defend the boy? No. The bishop threatened him with expulsion! As LifeSiteNews reported: “Bishop Roger Joseph Foy of Covington, Kentucky, along with the Covington Catholic High School administration succumbed to the mainstream media's leftist spin of the Friday, January 19 altercation.”

When our bishops lack the courage of a sixteen-year-old high school junior in the face of political and media pressure, what are we to think? Do they really believe in the teachings of the church they pretend to lead? It’s no wonder pews are emptying and churches are closing in America and Europe. Too few priests and bishops believe strongly enough in church teachings to champion them.

It takes a boy and a priest from Africa to show us what courage looks like, to shine the light on what America has become when “progressive” Catholics celebrate the slaughtering of our unborn children while calling it “Reproductive Health Care.”

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.

Getting Harder To Be Catholic

When secular American culture unraveled after the 1960s, I took comfort that the Catholic Church seemed to anchor traditional morality. Now, however, I’m cheering the secular authorities investigating corruption in the Catholic Church because the Lavender Mafia controlling both the Vatican and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) continues to bury it. Attorneys general in more than a dozen states have begun investigations into cover-ups of sexual predation and coverup by Catholic bishops similar to the one reported out by the  Pennsylvania AG last summer. In just the past month, two federal investigations began and two lawsuits were filed in federal court as well.

Under this cloud, the USCCB met in Baltimore last week. Its president, Cardinal Archbishop Daniel DiNardo of Houston, Texas wanted that body to vote on a measure that would do two things: form a lay Catholic commission to investigate the Cardinal McCarrick scandal, and petition the Vatican to release documents on McCarrick's case. DiNardo knows how angry ordinary Catholics are that the pope and the Vatican hierarchy continue to cover for homosexual predators in their midst and that US bishops have either cooperated in this or remained silent. He knows grassroots Catholics want action now.

Cardinal DiNardo

But it was not to be. Pope Francis pulled the rug out from under DiNardo as the conference began when he brazenly ordered that no vote be taken! The pope’s toadies in the USCCB like Cardinal Cupich of Chicago and others cheered this move and suggested the USCCB vote should be taken next spring instead — after still another “conference” with the pope in Rome. They want to kick the can of corruption down the road yet again.

Written under Henry Sire's pen name

Humiliated by this action from The Dictator Pope (the title of Henry Sire’s devastating book on Pope Francis I just finished reading), Cardinal DiNardo moderated a debate over an obsequious motion that would only suggest the pope do these things. Unbelievably, even that vote failed 137-83. That means there are still 137 American bishops who think they can just drift along as they always have and ordinary Catholics in the pews will sit back and let them.

They’re wrong. Millions left the church after the 2002 Boston Globe Spotlight Series exposed widespread corruption. Many who remained have been further sickened by the revelations this past summer that hierarchical corruption was only covered up yet again. Worse, Archbishop Vigano, the former papal ambassador to the United States, has testified that the corruption extends to the Chair of Peter itself and calls on Pope Francis to resign! Vigano also accused US Cardinals Cupich and Wuerl of lying about it all. Another resolution in support of Vigano’s testimony was debated at last week’s USCCB Conference. Although it too failed, at least 43 bishops voted in favor.

Does that mean nearly a quarter of US Bishops believe Pope Francis should resign? Do they also believe many of their fellow bishops and cardinals are lying? It appears that way. What does this say about the spiritual condition of the Catholic Church in the United States and around the world? Locally, Maine’s Bishop Robert Deeley and Manchester, New Hampshire’s Bishop Peter Libaski were among the 83 voting for an investigation, but sadly, neither voted in support of the Vigano testimony.

Foreign Affairs Magazine calls this is the worst crisis in Catholic Church since Martin Luther posted his “95 Theses” in 1517 and precipitated the Protestant Reformation. Others claim it’s the worst since 1054 AD when the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches split.

Whether it’s the worst in five centuries or the worst in a millennium, it’s getting harder to be a traditional Roman Catholic these days. I understand those who have been steadily leaving since 2002, but I choose to stay and fight. However, if last week’s USCCB meeting was a battle, traditionalists like me appear to be losing. Polarization in the Catholic Church is widening and there are many suggestions about how to participate in the struggle for its soul.

According to Market Watch, some of us protest with our wallets. We don’t put money in the collection box or have severely cut back on what we used to contribute. When attending mass in nearby New Hampshire, I’d be sickened seeing a photo of former Manchester Bishop John McCormack on the wall of the narthex and I wasn’t about to put anything over $5 in the collection box if he was going to get any of it. I know I was not alone.

My wife and I attend mass at several different parishes depending on where we are on any given Sunday. Given the performance at last week’s bishops’ conference in Baltimore, I’m not inclined to raise my contribution anywhere in New England. Instead of money, some Catholics have begun putting a signed note in the box protesting both the pope and the USCCB. Maybe that will shake things up enough for real reform. Nothing else has worked.

Two Heroes

Two heroic men are in hiding today because they stood up for what they believe is right. Both are ordained priests of the Roman Catholic Church — one a lowly parish priest and the other an archbishop and Vatican diplomat. I admire them because they did what others are afraid to do while knowing it would bring a world of hurt down upon them. It might even cost them their lives.

Maybe the archbishop’s display of courage inspired the priest, I don’t know, but Archbishop Vigano, former papal nuncio [Vatican ambassador] to the United States, published an eleven-page testimony last July which shook the Catholic Church to its roots. It named names, specified dates, and referred to documents held in the Vatican by the pope’s closest advisors and by Vigano’s successor in Washington, DC. Vigano claims his church, my church, is under the influence of a “homosexual network,” many of whose members are sexual predators or their enablers. Vigano accuses Pope Francis of covering for them and calls on him to resign. 

The Vigano testimony was released to media worldwide while Pope Francis was in Ireland. Reporters swarmed him on the plane back to Rome but he refused to say anything — an unusual reaction from a pope who had never been shy about commenting on controversial issues. Three months later he’s still silent on the matter and has refused requests from other church officials to authorize an investigation.

Vigano further states, “The homosexual networks present in the church must be eradicated,” but there’s no evidence of that happening yet in the Vatican. Here in the United States, however, at least one priest is trying. An article in the Chicago Sun-Times September 18th states: “A North Side priest… burned a gay-friendly flag outside his Avondale church last week — against the wishes of the cardinal he claims is trying to minimize the clergy sex-abuse crisis.” It was a rainbow flag with a superimposed cross which had hung in the sanctuary.

That priest, Father Paul Kalchik has gone into hiding after being removed as pastor of Resurrection Church by Cardinal Archbishop Blaise Cupich who threatened to send the Chicago Police in to arrest him. Cupich was appointed Archbishop of Chicago by Pope Francis after being recommended by the now-disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Archbishop Vigano cited both Cupich and McCarrick as bishops who covered up for predator priests.

Cupich and McCarrick

Father Kalchik had succeeded three former pastors of the gay-friendly Resurrection Catholic Church, one of whom had been found dead in his rectory while hooked up to a “sex machine,” according to conservative Catholic lifesitenews.com. Kalchik had twice been sexually molested himself, the second time by a priest. Cardinal Cupich ordered Kalchik to submit to a psychological evaluation at the notorious St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland, but Kalchik refuses to go.

St Luke Institute

He has good reason to refuse. Several priests have likened the St. Luke’s Institute to a Soviet reprogramming facility, for conservative priests. It was once headed by former Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire Chancellor Edward Arsenault who according to catholicculture.org: “resigned from his post as head of the St. Luke Institute in Maryland in 2013 after he was charged with financial as well as sexual improprieties.” Arsenault’s former boss in Manchester Diocese was Bishop John McCormack — called a “Pedophile Pimp” by the majority leader of the NH House of Representatives. The founder of St. Luke’s Institute, Father Michael Peterson, died of AIDS. In 2009, St. Luke’s Institute granted its highest award to guess who: Cardinal McCarrick, or “Uncle Ted” as he wished to be called by the many seminarians he sexually abused.

As one of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, I take no joy in recounting the sorry state of corruption in my church. As someone who was twice summoned to court to answer completely false charges of “harassment” by homosexual activists, I understand something about what Father Kalchik and Archbishop Vigano are up against. The charges against me were dismissed. I didn’t fear for my life. I didn’t have to go into hiding. It cost me $4000 in attorney’s fees and two entire days in a courtroom listening to people lie about me under oath. Several of my columns were entered as evidence of “homophobia.” but then it was over and I “won.”

Not really though. Even though they lost, homosexual activists put me through the ringer and that was the whole point. Now they’re putting the screws to Kalchik and Vigano, but the powerful homosexual network in the Catholic Church has been outed and its days are numbered. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas ordered that Vigano’s testimony be distributed in parishes across his diocese. Several other US and European cardinals and bishops have also voiced support. The “Lavender Mafia” won’t be able to smooth this over the way they did in 2002 after the Boston Globe Spotlight report.

Father Kalchik

This time, we have priests and bishops with a spine.