Jesus did not condemn. Jesus forgave. The ultra conservatives don't represent the teachings of Jesus.
19
Pope Francis may not be perfect, no one is, but he is what the Church needs if it is to have a future. Vigano is just a tool of the ultra conservatives and is angry that he was not made a cardinal or advanced in the Church. They would turn back Vatican II
20
Having spent the first 18 years of my life innundated in Catholicism, my money is on a cabal of arch conservative archbishops who still feel like the church should run Ireland.... probably itching to do this pope in.
8
This just in (and I hope it makes the NYT tomorrow): Pope Benedict's personal secretary says that reports the ex-pontiff confirmed some of the claims in a former Vatican ambassador's statement alleging a widespread cover-up of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick's abuse of seminarians are "fake news." - per the National Catholic Reporter. EWTN and the National Catholic Register are the Fox News of our faith, and they have about as much credibility.
10
What angers me is the eager implications of Burke and his insidious gang of followers, the ultra conservatives Catholics longing for 'the good old days' of black and white no gray judgements; that to be a homosexual priest was/is to be a criminal, a cruel, power driven despoiler of youth and innocence.
Haven't they a mirror?
It's ironic, sad coming from this crowd who would use the angst and the sorrow of their fellows without offering hope and instead push this flawed, failing American populist movement that goes against most of the teachings of the Church they should espouse!
Instead of seeking justice, peace for victims, they're capitalizing, and encouraging the present illwill in society to stop a movement of openness, acceptance; what happened to appealing to our better angels?
Or to lie to us that for centuries the priesthood was not a common place for men of faith to gather who had doubts about their sexuality, but now to call these men by their nature criminals?
Power hungry male egos also abound wherever men gather, that the Church has not been unscathed is also a proven fact- for centuries.
Listen to what Francis is telling us: let him/her who is without sin cast the first stone.
How does someone come to feel so much mightier, holier than the man considered to be chosen by the Holy Spirit?
There seems to be a lot of jumping on the self glory wagon these days, and while I know it seats many, I predict a few fateful falls...
16
@Maura Hagarty-Bannon It seems that whom ever points the finger the loudest, is usually guilty. Plus not all homosexuals are pedophiles, but most of them are men. Remember that many are young girls have been molested too.
3
The schism now rearing it's head in the Catholic Church is a familiar story.
The definition of Pharisee is: a member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity.
Sadducees were more conservative and insisted on a literal interpretation of the scriptures.
Both sects comprised the ruling class of Jews in Israel. The Sanhedrin, the 70 member Supreme Court of ancient Israel, had members from both the Sadducees and Pharisees. And as we all know, this is the Court that condemned Jesus to death.
Jesus was in almost always in constant conflict with both sects. He preached a new gospel. He taught in parables. He said God is Love. He taught and lived that God loves the outcasts.. He touched lepers and spoke to women. He taught forgiveness and compassion; let he who is without sin . . . . He broke all the rules of traditional Judaism. This was radical at the time. A whole new way of thinking about what God is.
Conservative Catholics are the Pharisees and Sadducees of today's church. Of course they are threatened by Francis and his followers who are trying to get back to the original meaning of Jesus's message and to practice it in the world.
For Francis this is not a political sectarian fight. It is a spiritual battle for the authenticity of the message and gospel of Love that Jesus taught, lived, and died for.
25
Where is Emile Zola when you need him?
We need someone of his stature and influence to write a "J'accuse...!" type piece confronting these conservative clerics who are trying to bring Pope Francis down (and attacking homosexuals).
6
I support Francis IF he immediately begins to turn over rapists and their protectors to police, and fights to end the statutes of limitations that let them off the hook.
If he doesn't do that, he's as guilty as they are.
5
Sexual abuse is not a crime of sex, it is a crime of abuse. These men are abusing children, male and female, because they are abusers and the children are the weakest in society. Working with altar boys and working at Catholic schools brings priests into contact with young children often, and their power keeps the children quiet. To blame homosexuality or celibacy is ignoring the reality that there are lots of people in the world who want to abuse others, and given the chance they will. Stop giving these priests the chance, and throw the abusers into jail.
18
We need to remember: the people now criticizing this Pope would not have done anything to help the victims either. They just want a Pope that is a little less conservative out of the way and are using this as an excuse.
I have no skin in this dispute (not a believer) but the folks calling for the Pope's ouster seem like worse people than the Pope, so I hope they fail in this effort.
31
Francis can save his papacy - and the Church can escape its sclerosis - ONLY if immediately women are allowed into the priesthood and all clergy can marry. If they drag this out with some medieval pageantry conclave, they can kiss their relevance good-bye (certainly in America). The priesthood has for decades been a hiding-out place for unformed, immature men - gay and straight. In our modern world celibacy is just not reasonable.
14
Get rid of the Catholic Church, and a great majority of the problems would go away. Old white men telling everyone else what to do and what to believe. Please!
5
They should do away with Celibacy, it is unnatural, and other Churches survive without the bizarre restriction.
7
The Church as an institution has done a great deal of good in ways like aiding the poor and establishing hospitals and schools. It continues to do so daily.
There's no question it failed institutionally to stop its own officers from committing crimes.
One question is whether the entire institution should be wiped out because of those failures. Should it be prevented from doing more good works as punishment for past failings?
Another question is whether and how the Church should adapt itself to perform good works in the modern world. That is the root of the current political uprising within its ranks.
Glibly, do you prefer the Pope who drives an old used car to work at the soup kitchen, or the ruby slippers and Mel Gibson?
5
@John The Church could do a lot more good works if those at the Vatican did not live in luxury, surrounding by gold, silver, and works of art that could bring in millions and millions. It's sickening.
7
@Hope
Who do you think is most displeased with the leader choosing to live in the guest quarters instead of gilded luxury?
6
I have really come to believe that this "problem" of overwhelming numbers of gay men being attracted to the Roman Catholic priesthood comes from the very toxic theology of sexuality required of R.C.
Clerical celibacy? No sex with women and no marriage as well? Not many straight men will want that.
But a gay man who has no interest in women might feel quite comfortable being in an all-male environment where he isn't required to think about women sexually and where questions about why he isn't dating women are moot, because he has pursued a higher call in the R.C. priesthood.
Nonetheless, he would be required to be celibate, and that is the matter of contention here. Gay sex as a sin, and priests required to be celibate, not as appealing for many of them, as has been clear.
Best of luck trying to figure all that out.
4
@Barbara Sure, but what does that have to do with abuse of children? People who are heterosexual and married abuse their children and the children of others all too often as it is. It's not about being gay or having to be celibate, it's about abuse, pure and simple.
5
Cardinal Burke is blaming Francis because the alternative would be holding his pedophile-enabling buddies like George Pell and the late Bernard Law accountable for their criminal negligence and malfeasance. It would be the uncomfortable admission that the three decade long pontificate of John Paul II was a administrative disaster and a moral catastrophe.
It was JP II, after all, who made Theodore McCarrick a Cardinal in spite of the pay-offs to his victims.
It was JP II who gave Law safe-haven as ArchPriest of St. Maria Mgg. in Rome to protect him from criminal prosecution in Boston.
It was John Paul who suborned the depravity of Marcial Maciel until the public revelations threatened his own papacy.
It was John Paul who presided over the Vatican Bank scandals beginning in 1981 with the Banco Ambrosiano affair all the way to the 2010 mafia money-laundering scandal.
Is Bp Strickland of Tyler, Texas, seriously demanding accountability? Is he really willing to go there? Because the 'fish rots from the head' - at the end of the day, the sex abuse crisis and cover-up happened on his watch, either with his connivance, or his corpulent incompetence.
15
I don't understand how the conservative branch of Catholicism can condemn Pope Francis. After all, the church has long been in the tight control of conservatives during this long and dark period of sexual abuse that has blighted the theocracy. At least a half century during which all knowledge of what was happening was completely suppressed. These current condemnations come from a group that does not appear to have offered any real solutions to the problem or even offered any heartfelt apologies.
13
I agree that the church hierarchy "needs to be purified at the root." Let's get rid of them all an appoint a woman as pope. We can call her Pope Mary, which might make things more palatable to any potential objectors. That, more than anything else, would help get the Catholic Church back on the path to redemption.
Are conservatives arguing for another chance to make the child labor workhouses and the Magdalen laundries work?
Conservative Catholics have a lot to answer for when it comes to Ireland. But the people who lived under their power are no longer listening.
7
Right wing clerics have become a lynch mob, seeing a convenient excuse to get rid of a pope they never wanted and don't respect. Child abuse dates back many decades, long before Francis even took his vows. Much of this time the church was run by conservatives, so they shoulder the blame. Francis is far more likely to address this perverted culture than the conservatives who have no interest in reigning in their underlings.
18
This sounds just like Trump-type projection- attack your enemies for your own sins. The more Conservative wing of the Church which is clearly responsible for all of this abuse is now attacking the guy who is at least willing to accept some responsibility. Clever strategy.
25
Spiritual termites in the form of pedophile clergy have eaten up the once-sumptuous splendid confines of the Catholic Church. The world and especially practicing Catholics are reacting with dismay as one grand edifice after another totters and collapses into the dust with a tawdry screech. Looking anew at the absurd clothing of the self-anointed clergy one wonders how the Church has lasted even this long. What do their vestments or the comportments they cloak have to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ?
6
This church is so dirty that they smell of rot and corruption. Buckminster Fuller said it best. I quote, "atomic weapons and organized religion scare me the most".
3
Wow. What an astoundingly biased and terrible article.
It would take way too long to point out all of the biased language, so i'll just point out a few things.
One, a small portion of the abusers were pedophiles, under 20%. Probably under 10% when it's all counted. The article is correct to state that pedophilia and homosexuality are not related. So those 10-20% have nothing to do with homosexuality. However, the vast majority of abuse victims are post-pubescent male teens, who are of no interest to pedophiles. Straight men are also not sexually interested in teenage boys. So who does that leave? Hmmm. Also, on a related note, it is not just abuse of minors that is the problem. There is also widespread sexual harassment and abuse in seminaries where men in power positions (bishops, seminary directors, etc) sexually abuse seminarians. 100% of those perpetrators are gay men. Additionally, the vast majority of the hush money paid to various victims of sexual misbehavior is paid on behalf of gay men. And the list goes on.
Secondly, regardless of whether Vigano's testimony is "ideologically motivated" , if Francis knew about McCarrick's sexually abusive behavior and covered for him until forced to deal with it by the media, he is complicit in the cover-up. It's that simple. Some of the assertions are still unsubstantiated, but it's the job of reporters to research things and substantiate them (or discredit them). Maybe the NY Times should focus on actual reporting for once
10
Re this quote from the piece: "Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of South Africa has blamed homosexuality for the Roman Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandals." Say what? This may come as a surprise to the good cardinal, but it is my understanding that the vast majority (as in over 90 percent) of pedophiles are heterosexuals, not homosexuals. Which begs the question where does this Church's right wing contingent get its information? Fox News? In blaming homosexuals for the child abuse scandals in the church aren't the reactionaries just grasping at culturally loaded, factually incorrect straws? What a lot of hooey. Can't they even consider the vow of celibacy as a causative factor? Might that not have a role? This pope has done more to return former Catholics to the bosom of a more compassionate – need I say Christian? – church than any pope in decades. Talk about cutting off your nose! How were those empty pews treating you, Cardinal?
7
Having the Catholic Church play out the politics of the day in public...yeah, that doesn't undermine the remaining authority of the Church at all...
Behind the scenes in the Vatican and throughout the Catholic world there has been considerable discussion about the sexual orientation of one of the most vocally anti-homosexual conservatives in the Church hierarchy.
He’s pretty high up on the totem pole: Pope Benedict. It has persuasively been suggested that he is “the most repressed, imploded gay in the world.”
The brilliant Irish-Catholic writer and intellectual Colm Toibin published an especially insightful article on the subject in the London Review of Books. It is worth reading.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n16/colm-toibin/among-the-flutterers
6
There is ignorance at the root of this claim by these "conservative Catholics" but I wonder if it's really not disingenuous. Is their hatred of homosexuality such that instead of focusing on the suffering of untold thousands of people, they are using it as a tool to promote their medieval prejudice? And why not try to bring down a decent human being at the same time (Pope Francis).
Regardless, it's simply nonsense to suggest that homosexuality is at the root of this abuse. People who commit sexual abuse on children were more often than not victims themselves. Many may have thought that vowing celibacy would rid them of the shame of such abuse, but instead they acted out in the most heinous ways. Of course this doesn't explain all the behavior, but it offers a lot more insight than blaming homosexuality.
7
Catholic "Conservatives".....ready to throw Gays, Women, Minorities back into the closet and subjugate them, regardless of what Jesus actually taught: Love, Compassion, Tolerance....and His specific admonition not to Judge Others, really hate (and yes, that's the view from many of us, *hate*) Pope Francis.
4
Plenty of blame to go around, but the conservative wing is a bunch of hypocrites. Look to see who was the leader of the church while this was happening and you will see that it is this wing of the church. They are now looking for any reason to have Pope Francis step down so they can take back the power, as they are offended by his "liberal" views.
9
This is not a conservative versus liberal problem. This is a plumbing problem. What the good Pope needs is a giant toilet plunger to clean out
the Pipes of the church.
2
The Catholic Church is a very weird, very rich, very powerful medieval cult. It's all about old power and money. The privileges to cynically manipulate and abuse the most faithful seem to be handed down through the generations.
What if nobody attended? That's what they deserve.
1
Why do we continue to perpetuate the great problem as rape of pre- pubescent boys. Certainly there is that great moral and criminal situation. However, the vast majority (over 75%) of these crimes are with young men. This is called homosexual rape.
2
Thanks for keeping us informed about the conflicts between liberal male supremacists and conservative male supremacists in the leadership of the Catholic Church. But I'll be impressed when someone in the leadership has the courage to call out the fundamental immorality of male supremacy.
3
Please if you have any humanity left, don,t put this spin on the story. This story does not need to be diluted into muddied waters. The story is about thousands upon thousands of rape victims who have had their soul darkened if not stolen. These peoples stories are a reflection of who and what this establishment is at the heart. So if you continue to help steer this story in the direction of a left or right story, for the sake of an argument that is baste upon babel, Then GOD help us all.
I have a feeling you are going to wish you stuck to the story at heart,when cardinal Pells trail becomes public. He is probably going to martyr and support the accusations made world wide. It is beyond me why one would need verification of these horrific life robbing stories just the shear world wide convictions of these crimes should be enough for anyone with common sense to put two and two together ,of course pope is aware, it is who and what this establishment has been about for a long timeEzek 8:.
1
The impression of this non-Catholic: what a horrible group of old men.
4
The Pope hasn't changed fundamental Catholic rules or values. But he isn't condemning the LGTBQ community to burn in hell. What's wrong with compassion, empathy, respect for fellow human beings, all made in God's image?
9
@Richard "...and the second commandment but as equally as important, is to love your neighbors as yourself" -Mark 10:31
2
@Richard he does not immediately begin to turn over rapists of children--and their protectors--to police, then we cannot speak of him as having compassion and empathy, but can only speak of his criminal acts, complicit with these horrific acts.
3
Let's see: Homosexuality - a big no-no! Heterosexuality, also a big no -no. What's left for the hapless servants of God? Luckily Human robots are right on the horizon. Soon no one will need to dread Father Fingerman in the closet because robots are programmable. Just lock their programs at "no sex" and all priestly molestations will be a thing of the past.
This feels like an Al Franken moment to me. Pope Francis has done more than anyone in the Catholic Church to bring that institution into modernity. So much is wrong with it, despite much of the good that it does throughout the world. Reform needs to come from within, including bringing insight from women and others excluded from any decisions of import.
Here is one article that challenges the letter that accuses Pope Francis: https://bit.ly/2BTuRuw
12
@Regina McIlvain Thank you. There is so much I never liked about Vigano and his ilk. He is not only anti-Christ as far as his teachings but like a Juda would betray one for his own personal gain.
1
@Rodrian Roadeye something just seemed off about this.
Gee, maybe the long-standing tradition in the catholic church of shaming gay people and calling them sinners is at the heart of this problem! This shaming caused so many gay men to become priests rather than just accepting themselves. This is a very vicious circle.
4
@Bob Davis This does not address the women abused by male priest with raging hormones forced to suppress them through celibacy.
These fools had better look at the average age at Sunday Mass here and abroad. These so-called conservatives will empty churches faster than a second collection.
Pope Francis, like all of us Catholics, know we are sinners. We ask for forgiveness. Francis has been a beacon of hope for those who felt cast aside by the Church as well as those who are not Catholic looking for a moral compass that is forgiving and inclusive.
The vast harm that this group is doing on the backs of abused kids is even more digusting as this fact that these morons do not know the difference between gay men and pedophilia. The two are in no way related.
I'm 68 male, a life long Catholic who went to an Episcopal boarding school. I am also comfortable in that church as well. Maybe I'd better think about a move.
24
@JWMathews
Thanks for this well-stated commentary. Please don't leave the RC church. More than ever it needs voices like yours.
Months and months ago there was a lot written about Steve Bannon and Pope Francis.
I can't help but wonder if Bannon's hand isn't somehow involved in this attack.
16
@JB I was wondering when someone going to bring up Bannon's Name. He is in contact with many of these conservative cardinals.
2
Quite amazing that this account of the Pope's remarks on homosexuality omit the Pope's statement that parents of children showing homosexual tendencies should seek psychiatric help, and the ensuing controversy:
https://www.postbulletin.com/news/world/pope-francis-does-not-view-homos...
1
The 10 Commandments from the Old Testament and the 8 Beatitudes from the New Testament give us a lot more information and inspiration than any left-wing/right-wing members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Let's forget about the fancy brocades and the tassels. Go back to the origins of the "message" of the Church. I believe that's where Pope Francis' found his inspiration for serving the poor.
Clericalism, greed, hunger for power, hypocrisy, pedophilia, homosexuality, are all components of the Church's problems today.
Nowhere have I read any reference to the words of the founder of the Catholic Church, Jesus Christ, in all the articles that have been published this week relating to the Church's positions on these issues.
One thing I'm sure of: the founder of the Catholic Church would not be pleased with the Church's treatment of women and the callous disregard for children's safety. There was no discrimination against any type or category. Pope Francis, I believe, is a Christian in every sense of the word.
9
Could a cogent reporter ask the bigot posse blaming homosexuality for the crime of pedophilia how Pope Francis could be wrong on a matter of faith? These dudes all know the Pope is infallible in Catholic dogma, which is a necessity in the maintenance of the cult, so they are about to blow their whole charade a mile high. Please proceed gentlemen. Prosecute the criminals, old men, and see how many of you are left, then duke it out in your gross power struggle, but leave it off the front page for gawd's sake.
1
Homosexuality does not beget paedophelia. Unchecked power does. Abuse is always about domination and the abuse of power, and only incidentally about sex.
That Viganò and his ilk don't understand this truth (or ignore it to advance their terrible ends) only demonstrates how detached these men are from the real world, without an inclination of how it works. They have lost their way, and can no longer shepherd the flock. The only thing they do understand about the real world is power, and they now demonstrate their lust for it. They are and their ways are the scourge of the Church, and if they unseat Francis, the American Church will be decimated.
16
Time to have Archbishop Vigano sworn in for a deposition about where he’s been all during his career on the child sex abuseissue. He likely well knew. While at it, have Archbishop Chaput, another conservative hypocrite next in line for questioning. Let’s start with “Whats in your bed?”
9
More than 80% of the victims were young male adults. It is a matter of Efebophilia what is all about
2
What is your source and how are you defining adult?
Gay agenda huh? What explains priests or pastors that abuse girls? Catholics need to go back to primitive Christianity where there never was a demand for man or woman to be celibate and serve the Lord.
15
the catholic church has had this problem for it's entire exsistance and now these bankrupt conservitives are trying to blame Gays for thier lifelong child abuse ./ Priceless
5
Right. Blame the gays . . . that is sooooo last generation and fits the entrenched, antiquated hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
When will the followers stick it to the rank and file? It's been like a thousand or so years coming!!
1
Catholic conservatives, talibans, Isis, different names, same dark corners of the human consciousness.
10
Finally, a pope of the people, more approachable but not infallible. As opposed to the conservatives who want to play semantics games with respect to the victims' abuses.
"Some critics of the church have blamed the vows of celibacy, arguing that suppressing the human libido can lead to pedophilia and rape."
Blaming celibacy does not require one to argue that suppressing the libido can lead to pedophilia and rape. It is possible that requiring celibacy discourages, or filters out, men who are not already disposed to pedophilia or rape at a higher rate than it does ones who are.
1
In the past, a bishop unhappy with a pope's theology could simply poison the pontiff's person in private in his bed. Now a disgruntled prelate can poison the pope's reputation in public in the press.
While most of the Church's abuse scandals occurred under previous popes that conservative clerics never called upon to resign, all the scandals remain this Pope's burden to bear and responsibility to repair. It is hypocritical , however, for cardinals and bishops who betrayed the faithful and lied over and over again to them about the extent of the abuse to blame only this pope for their crimes.
The Church is more than the Pope and its bishops, it is the laity as well. Those ever diminishing numbers of faithful within its walls still believe, despite the wrongs, that the Church has always been and still is capable of great good in this sorrowful world. Most laity love this pope and want to help him right these wrongs.
Luther was still a good Catholic when he nailed those theses on the cathedral door. He didn't want to start a new church, he just wanted to reform the corruption of the church to which he belonged. Rome turned its back on his concerns and the rest is history.
Pope Francis should leave the Italian and his instigators to their Machiavellian mischief. The laity are knocking on the Church's door. Let them in. The foundation is still strong but the walls need repair.
23
@southsider
wonderfully expressed comment!
2
Make no mistake: regardless of how Pope Francis may have messed up, the generations of coverups that keep rearing their ugly heads are a manifestation of Catholic Conservatism and worship of authority, not liberalism. After all, they keep cropping up all over the globe, and go back many decades. Ideological rigidity, rarely supported by scripture, is what got the Church into this mess. In approximately 1980 I left the Church precisely because of this authoritarian streak, which had manifested in local politics. Had I know about the abuse, which was going on even then in many places, I would have left even faster. As always, in politics the crime is bad, but the coverup is worse. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
It is also ironic that Pope Francis is more likely to save the reputation of the Church than any ideologue with whom the hard-liners would like to replace him. But the hard-liners only care about their pure extremism, not about ethics. And it is this very trait of institution above individuals that got them in this trouble in the first place. Catholics of good conscience should recognize that they have been made complicit in these offenses by the Church. They should leave for a new, less horribly tainted home. Let the reactionary old martinets cannibalize their purity. See how it sustains them in the absence of ethics.
2
The Church Conservatives were and are the main elements that condoned the atrocities. This is nothing more than a power grab to keep control of the status quo.
4
The Christian Church likes to present the image that it was founded upon the teachings and life of Jesus but that is strictly self serving spin about the real establishment of the Church as the sole legitimate religion of Rome and the representative institution on Earth of God. The Emperor Constantine and the bishop Augustine used every means known to the people of that day to gain power and to eradicate all rivals, including violence and destruction of property and treating non-supporters as enemies to be defeated and humiliated as lessons to others. Then they spun history into fantastic miracle stories to cover up what they had done. This spirit of using any means necessary to establish and preserve power and authority has persisted through all centuries since. The killing of heretics, the crusades against infidels, the inquisitions to root out dissenters and non-believers, and the alliances with truly vicious political authorities all became common practices to maintain the Church's power. Again and again clerics and pious believers who actually were following the teachings of Jesus have challenged that determination to maintain power at any cost only to be treated as heretics and condemned by church authorities.
Once again a prominent cleric has threatened this old institution devoted to power and is being treated as an existential threat.
3
Alas, a dark shadow is falling over the civilized world, foreshadowing another Dark Ages...
2
Nonsense. Power struggles within this archaic church have no real effect on the rest of the world. And the rest of the world will leave this church behind.
So, what do you care about more, your church or getting your way? Apparently, for a number of highly placed Catholics, getting your way matters more. It is a sad state of affairs and a reason why people are leaving the church.
2
I am not Catholic, but I thought the Church has Confession. Is that not available for the Pope?
1
@LV. Yes, it is, as it is to all priests.
1
Thank you Cardinal Cupich and Father Martin for continuing to expose the lie that homosexuality is the cause of clergy sexual abuse. That falsehood has been exposed outside the Church and there is no reason under heaven it would be true within the Catholic clergy but nowhere else. It is the passionate belief of a rigid minority faction on the far-right wing of the Church that is well out of touch with the beliefs of Catholics globally but has an out-sized voice within the Church. Reading the Vigano letter leaves one appalled by his lack of attention to the abuse issue and his brief, vague suggestions for a "solution" compared to the lengthy diatribe against Pope Francis and others within the Church hierarchy who share his concern that the Church regain a focus on issues of social justice. It is straight out of the Bannon and Trump playbook: give your base some red meat on an issue that is sure to grab their attention (in this case homosexuality) then repeat falsehoods on that and other issues. When those lies are repeated and re-tweeted by others they take on the false aura of "facts" and become the basis for advancing the real agenda - replacing the Pope with an ultra-conservative more to their liking on matters such as immigration and refugees, climate change, the place within the Church for divorced Catholics and gay Catholics Catholics, and whether church doors are open or closed to secular non-believers and questioning Catholics.
3
The last two popes were conservatives while the sex abuse scandal was actually happening. But Francis is the guy who is supposed to take the fall?
26
Don't worry he won't take the fall... he's infallible.
Keep the faith, Pope Francis. You are on the right side of history, and humanity.
18
Catholics may have their faith tested at the moment but it will not stop those who practice the faith from attending Church. It certainly will not stop me and I made a visit today and was pleasantly surprised how many were in the pews. I guess we need our religion to sustain us at times like these. We are praying for the Church, the victims and the decent priests who are many in number. Most of the clergy take their vows seriously and abhor this scourge on their religion. They are furious and embarrassed and want it to end now.
2
A lot of comments about conservative anger toward homosexuals, but I think it's directed at priests who molest children. They may or may not be homosexuals, but they don't belong in the Catholic church.
The problem is that the Church's celibacy edict creates an environment that fosters secretive sex and, perhaps, homosexuals. A larger problem is that the Church is becoming increasingly irrelevant in Western, scientific nations and the Church is desperate to recruit anyone who wants to be a priest for whatever reason.
2
I hope that both Cardinal Vigano and Cardinal Burke will be godly role models to us all and quietly resign.
7
The majority of practicing Catholics around the world are on the side of Pope Francis, the best pope by far in the long history of the church!
2
As an outsider, it's pretty clear to me that psychiatry has proven well enough that homosexuality and pederasty are not directly linked. I've also seen interviews with convicted child molesters who say there is basically no difference between genders to them, their victims are just children. It's clear that priests are given more time alone with boys than girls, and this is the main reason for the discrepancy in gender of victims.
Also clear to me that Catholicism's doctrines of homophobia and misogyny (women cannot be priests, because they're apparently lesser in some way) are archaic and should not be tolerated in the modern world. Naturally, this also applies to all orthodox, conservative religions.
I think conservatives in the church are trying to bring down Pope Francis with this scandal, so that they can appoint another European conservative like Benedict in his place, and that then they'll resume ignoring the sex abuse. I don't think this will work out for them.
If this infighting brings about the fragmentation and disempowerment of the Catholic church, that can only be good for the world.
1
Someone check Vigano's closet.
If there is one thing we have learned it is that the vehement accusers and pointers have something of their own they are hiding.
6
The Catholic Church as an institution has done more harm throughout its 1900 year history than the Goths, the Vandals, and Genghis Khan combined. The raping of children has been a common practice of Catholic priests for centuries if not millennia. The popes used to castrate boys to preserve their “angelic” voices. The current furor over the child sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania is just the latest installment in a long-running history of sordid behavior by priests and the supervising clergy. Benedict resigned because his complicity in child sex abuse over many years was revealed. John Paul did nothing about it during his overlong reign. Time to police the Church and remove their tax exempt status. No church should be exempt from paying taxes. And no organization should be permitted to sweep under the carpet the actions of pedophiles (who abused girls as well as boys) with impunity.
6
@Tom Webster, would you post a link to an article or other document with evidence that Pope Benedict resigned because his complicity in sexual abuse was discovered? I have never heard or read this. Thanks.
It's hard to believe that Vagano was ever considered "diplomatic".
His obvious pretense at diplomacy reflects his cabal's disinterest in the actual welfare of vulnerable people, whether in or out of the Catholic Church.
He uses raped children as weapons, ignores all scientific or experiential data in leaping to scapegoat the gays he hates and does not even recognize the oppression of women both through widespread sexual abuse of nuns and lay women and in workhouses, paralyzing lifelong stigmatization, marginalization in Church affairs and refusal to support basic reproductive health care.
It's only about raped little boys, teenagers and seminarians, with all responsibility pointed at Francis. No solutions, no apologies, no recognition that he himself admits knowing about abuse for 20 years.
What a foul, vengeful hypocrite. Francis should send all these guys to permanent monkly solitude and reflection, and promote nuns to take their places in the bureaucracy of the Church.
7
The problem isn't homosexuality, it's just sexuality. If you tell someone that they can never have sex, not even with their own hand, they're going to have sex in secret with whomever they can keep quiet. If seminaries were co-ed instead of single gender, this would be readily apparent Instead, unwilling to admit that sex is part of the human condition, the church condemns gays who've sought salvation from their sinful urges in the pulpit.
1
What needs to happen -Francis makes all bishops and cardinals simple priests again with no authority. Then he puts system in place for laity to choose their bishops regionally. Then @Pontifex also resigns pending election of new Pope by new bishops. #EndCatholicMonarchySystem We need a complete reboot fo church governance with much more power residing in the laity.
1
The issue here is about priests abusing children, and covering it up in ways that those children are harmed even more while others are put at risk. Somehow I am doubtful that catholic conservatives did a better job ... until this is all cleaned up little else matters...
2
The "conservatives pounce" angle - right on schedule.
1
@Ambrose Rivers
Exactly!!!!
1
"Most experts reject the conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia as a dangerous route to bigotry against gays. Outside the church, the belief has been widely discredited as retrograde.... Cardinal Cupich said: 'I think it is wrong to scapegoat gays and homosexuals as though there is a greater likelihood that gay people are going to offend children than straight people. That data doesn’t bear that out.'"
I don't think the Times gives this the critical scrutiny it deserves. The question is what is true not about the general population, but about the population and culture of priests.
If some gay men are attracted to the priesthood because they see that they will be surrounded by other, in many cases gay, men, then perhaps at some level they do not accept celibacy. That would be suggested, anecdotally, by the stories about McCarrick.
3
Thank you NYTimes for a chance to comment. I’m a Deep South liberal Catholic, surrounded by conservatives. My wife and I plan to move when she retires. To me, this archbishop or whoever who is critical of Pope Francis is using the most cliched pretext to pull down a liberal pope. Pope Francis is the Bernie Sanders of the Catholic Church. He cares about the poor, he is humble, he believes in second chances for the divorced. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did away with the priestly vow of celibacy, which, I believe, is at the heart of the recent sexual scandals. Pope Frances is aware of issues like liberation theology (see Oliver Stone film on South America) and totally unfair income inequality, as we have in the US. He wants to house the homeless, care for the sick—things his Trump-like enemies don’t give a hoot about. But things Christ cared about! Let us keep Pope Francis!
19
@Anonymous, I agree that Pope Francis is a good man and a good Pope, and I want to keep him. But he won't get rid of celibacy, and celibacy is not at the root of pedophilia.
1
Isn't there some saying about people living in glass houses not throwing stones?
Conservative Catholics may sense an opening to attack a Pope they consider too liberal, but when it comes to the Church's past, there are an awful lot of skeletons in closets and rocks to overturn. Seems like it would be better for them to just fix the problem and not try to also leverage it into a political battering ram.
Deal with the actual child molesters first, and settle your unrelated internal issues some other time. I find it hard to imagine that the foes of Francis will find many rank-and-file Catholics who are sympathetic to their hypocrisy and opportunism.
6
Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church happened under a more conservative leadership.
Thank you to Pope Francis for helping bring this abuse of the most vulnerable out into the open.
The Child Sexual Abusers should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
15
Is anyone else wondering where the cord on his microphone ends?
Asking for a friend
3
where were these conservatives when these abuses happened? oh, yes, they were the ones in charge. first, they tell the current pope not to go hard on their friends, and then they turn around and blame him for not going hard on them. its time for him to clean that house of them. may be this will help him clean them out!!!
4
Why is this problem so complicated? The pope can simply speak with god and ask her what to do.
4
@Alex. As god is incorporeal, it is an It.
These conservative Catholics are the enemy within the Church. They are hypocrites who would give the Pharisees a run for their money. The audacity of them to attack Pope Francis is indicative of their desperation and frustration. Flocks of disaffected Catholics have taken a second look at the Catholic Church since Pope Francis was elected and that is a threat to their power within the Church itself. The irony in all of this is that Jesus taught us that it is the downtrodden and dispossessed that he wanted to save. The very people who are loathed by the conservative Catholics. That says it all.
7
Why does this have to be made into a conservative vs liberal fight? Sexually abusing children is wrong. The leaders of the church need to work together to get rid of the the problem. Start arresting, firing, bring them down, but for God's sake, making it a conservative vs liberal thing looks like one side condones the behavior and one side doesn't. Blame the ones who are abusing children and get rid of them.
31
Generally speaking, the Church conservatives are hypocrites -- Pharisees if you will far more concerned about ideological purity and feathering their own nests often at the expense of the laity. It is they who are largely responsible for the declining influence of the Church among the truly faithful who grow increasingly frustrated with the willful blindness and uncaring attitude of the Church hierarchy of the past. This Pope has accurately assessed this situation and worked to dismantle the sacred cows (reference intentional) that had become the false pillars of the institution. Their broadside against this Pope bespeaks desperation and hate, the latter wholly unbecoming of men who would call themselves holy. The Pope is correct to demean them as not worthy of argument but would be wrong to ignore their intent -- to continue their campaign of eradication of the still overdue and vital reforms of Vatican II. The Catholic bishops of the US (the ones the Pope has not yet replaced) do have common cause with a Republican conservatives -- the former against Vatican II, the latter against the New Deal. Both dinosaurs worthy only of extinction.
80
@John Figliozzi, please do note that dinosaurs are not extinct. The birds you see outside your home are, in fact, dinosaurs. To be specific, they are part of a group of dinosaurs called the theropods.
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/avians.html
The conservative clerics do have something in common with contemporary dinosaurs, though. These hypocrites, who do nothing for the victims of priestly child abuse and now scream that Pope Francis must go, have not gone extinct. Unfortunately.
2
And by “conservatives,” we are talking about the group of church officials who are more inclined dismiss any reports of sexual abuse and predation, correct?
Fascinating how that works.
53
See? Right off the bat the piece gets it wrong. Francis said, "Who am I to judge?" about gays in general not just "gay priests." Vigano's letter is a not-very-veiled attempt to paint homosexuality as the big problem here, when the problem is pedophilia, which is not remotely the same thing. Read the letter and look at the outlets to which it was sent. Vigano is trying to start his own culture war at the expense of a good man and thousands of victims.
86
@Janet
Vigano would very much like to muddy the water by confusing homosexuality and pedophilia.
It's the "hey, look over hear at the shiny object" ploy that president trump uses on a regular basis.
Sadly, it works on those too weak to understand it is just that: smoke and mirrors to distract the feeble minded.
2
@Janet
Incorrect. The problem is only pedophilia in under 20% of the cases. In over 80% of the sexual abuse of minors cases, the victims were teenagers which are of no interest to pedophiles, only gay men. In 100% of the cases of sexual abuse of power and sexual harassment at seminaries, the perpetrators were gay priests. Those are the facts. Make of them what you will.
1
It took you 25 paragraphs to get to the essence of this fake dispute about the virulent anti-gay posture of the conservative prelates of the Church.
“Most experts reject the conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia as a dangerous route to bigotry against homosexuality. Outside the church, the belief has been roundly discredited as retrograde.”
Why didn’t you put this statement in the 3rd or 4th graph and nib this, ‘homosexuality is the cause’ drivel in the bud?
Shame on you.
46
@Sharon Renzulli
Incorrect, under 20% of cases are actually pedophilia. The vast majority of abused minors were teenagers, of no interest to pedophiles, only gay men. 100% of cases of priest/bishop-on seminarian abuse are perpetrated by gay men. Also, all of the cases of priests paying off gay prostitutes using church funds and hosting gay orgies in church property were involving gay men. Make of this information what you will
So Viagno has been a powerful member of the church for decades. If he care so much about the victims, why didn't he step forward twenty years ago to stop the abuse? If he disapproves so much of how the situation was being handled, why didn't he speak up earlier? Why didn't he organize his fellow prelates to speak up? If he really wanted the abuse to stop, why didn't he do something about it back then?
The answer: Because he is grandstanding in an attempt to shoot down a popular pope, and does not give a darn about the victims. It is all about politics for him. What a despicable hypocrite. He and Steve Bannon should both go take a flying leap into the dark void from whence they both emerged.
129
Vigano's real role here is to buttress Ratzinger's legacy, lest it be torn asunder by an actual Christian.
2
Francis recently asked for and accepted the resignation of 31 active bishops and 3 retired bishops in Chile over sexual abuse. He had at first not believed the reports. He could ask a similar thing here in the United States. The culture of impunity and the life style of the bishops are two items that Francis has fought against. Turning the Church over to the Conservatives would return us to the days of pre-Vatican II reforms. Who knew? Even in the Church one requires proof. When it arrives, that is when you take action. Letting priests marry won't stop this because I have to inform you that it is possible for a woman to be married to a pedofile and a rapist. Let those who want to become priests study for the priesthood, women, so that retaining bad priests isn't an excuse for protecting them. Finally, St. Athanasius, AD 325, is attributed with writing "Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops."
20
Where were these good, conservative cardinals and bishops during the papacies of John Paul11 and Benedict XV1? Francis' silence is highly disturbing and of a piece with past Papal behavior, but the abuses have been going on for 30, 40 years or more and I don't recall a peep from John Paul 11 on the subject and Benedict went out of his way to avoid doing anything about it. These cardinals and bishops are enemies of Francis and it is understandable they want to take him down. But they are prancing, gagging hypocrites to have held their tongues for so long only to find them again
when it suits their secular ambitions.
I hold no brief for Francis or any highly placed churchman. They are almost all complicit by either their silence or actively trying to hide the guilty priests by moving them about. But his accusers are just as guilty as he and they all deserve a special place in prison or in Hell.
30
"Let's talk.., But for God's sakes don't go see a priest!
2
Catholic conservatives suffer from the same ignorance as American evangelicals.
Both groups want the discussion to be on "homosexuals".
Neither group wants any discussion on "pedophiles".
They want to confuse the subject, blaming the child-rapes on same-sexers, on heterosexual "choices" or homosexual "perversions".
That's why Donald is okay - he only abuses women.
That's why Roy Moore was okay: He just wanted them young - but they were a heterosexual "choice", so it was just hunky-dory to the evangelicals.
Now, I'm not sure how it happened that so many Catholic clergy have wound up so ignorant of the difference between a "homosexual" and a "pedophile" but any cleric that is ignorant of that HUGE distinction needs to hang up his dog collar.
This new argument is like debating whether one should go to the hospital because of the hangnail on your thumb or your crushed spine.
Conservatives, worldwide are into their hangnails..
But it's the crushed spine that is going to do them in.
Please: There are enough of us who already view the Catholic Church as nothing but a cult and a pedophile sex-ring.
I don't care whether it is this pope (Francis) or the next one (Vigano) that gets thrown in the slammer.
I'm telling you to STOP or there will be masses outside your doors and they will all be chanting: "LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!!!"
25
Here's a few historical reasons for the latest catholic crisis:
567-2nd Council of Tours: any cleric found in bed with his wife would be excommunicated for a year and reduced to the lay state.
580-Pope Pelagius II: his policy was not to bother married priests as long as they did not hand over church property to wives or children.
590-604-Pope Gregory the Great said that all sexual desire is sinful in itself (meaning that sexual desire is intrinsically evil?).
1074-Pope Gregory VII said anyone to be ordained must first pledge celibacy: priests [must] first escape from the clutches of their wives.
1095-Pope Urban II had priests wives sold into slavery, children were abandoned.
1300s-Bishop Pelagio complains that women are still ordained and hearing confessions.
1400sTransition; 50% of priests are married and accepted by the people.
1545-63-Council of Trent states that celibacy and virginity are superior to marriage.
In short: You can’t sleep with YOUR wife. You can’t “hand over” property to women. All sexual desire is sinful.
Pledge celibacy. Escape your wife. Abandon your children.
36
@matty
Thank you. I had forgotten which pope it was that had sold all those wives into slavery.
Pope Urban II.
How much did the church make on that deal?
2
Conflating homosexuality with pedophilia. What a novel attack.
23
And what about all the young girls that were abused? Or the tearing of babies away from young, unwed mothers and then their abuse? How do you lay that at the feet of homosexuals in the church?
29
How are any of these conservative clergy any better than the Pope? They all knew of the criminal and disgusting behavior of the clergy (many of them probably were the pedophiles), and have never done anything except try to keep it a secret. At least, the Pope is trying to confront the problem. These other conservative voices are no different than Trump and his sexual predator ways with not only teen pageant contestants, but adult women. They are the ones who should resign.
17
I suppose the larger goal of this is to enflame the war on LGBT worldwide. Drawing the equation of “homosexual current” to sexual abuse. I suppose Individual-1 will start tweeting soon.
5
First of all, gays are not pedophiles and ending celibacy (which should be ended) won't stop a pedophile from raping a child! The priesthood drew in gays because it protected them, kept them safely in the closet! I've known many gay priests in my life, it's sad how they hide.
Anyone who believes, this is "new" has not read church history! The abuse of children and women has been going on for....centuries! ALL of them knew about pedophiles and other abusers! They ALL KNEW and know, today!
What has sickened me is that the hierarchy has allowed these monsters to continue to serve as priests "representing God on earth." Which is disgusting!
My family has been Catholic for generations, now only one member is practicing and even he is thinking of leaving. The hypocrisy, is beyond belief I'm sorry we tithed for so long and helped enrich these monsters!
What needs to happen is for us, Catholics, to speak boldly with our wallets and STOP funding this cabal of monsters! Sure there are a few good men out there, but there IS a culture of abuse and corruption that's pure evil!
11
@Mari The church lies about rampant child abuse but is telling the truth about some bizarre god, resurrections and a virgin mother??? Maybe the church lies about everything!
Once Satan enters the house it's difficult to get him to leave.
6
@Antoine
Perhaps he too can be Impeached.....
1
Vatican "conservatives" are using both sex abuse victims and homosexuals as tools to thwart substantive change that threatens their clerical fiefdom. The effort pretty transparently has nothing to do with protecting children from pedophilia or adults from clerical abuses.
They also should be careful what they ask for. What makes them think they can hold onto power in a world where unsubstantiated accusations can force popes to resign?
9
The Trumplike "conservative" cardinals are showing what vultures they really are, circling Francis in the hope that they can soon feed on his corpse. Part of Making the Catholic Church Great Again.
17
I have a ton of bad news for you guys who are trying to unseat Pope Francis. First, most Catholics have zero sympathy for your efforts to get the Church to revert back to that medieval cult you love so well. And, we don’t share your hatred of gays. On the contrary, we know that some people are gay because in his love God made them that way, and we need to support their efforts to find love with gay partners. And, we’re outraged that you would use the sexual abuse crisis as a weapon in your war against them.
Plus, we think a big picture solution to this crisis would be to finally address one issue that enabled the sexual abuse crisis in the first place, the refusal to ordain women and to allow priests to marry—if you’d had even a few women around to help police things a lot of this would never have happened. Denominations like the ELCA made this needed change years ago, and nobody was struck by lightning—we need to do this NOW.
You don’t like Francis? Our only complaint about him is he isn’t moving fast enough. You want to regain control of the Church? To have a church you need people, and we have no interest in heading back to where you’re going. You may have a handful of cult followers, including some with a lot of money. But the rest of us want a Church that busts loose from all this and focuses once again on the call of the Gospel—love one another, minister to the poor and the marginalized, renounce materialism. Remember that stuff? We do, and we’re moving on—see ya!
166
Dear Jerry S.,
Spoken like a progressive, educated, American person, which is not the majority of Catholics in the world. Sorry to give you this bad news, but the continents of Africa and South America are nearly entirely homophobic, to the point of beating gay people to death because they are gay. And South America is mostly Catholic, and Africa has about 176 million Catholics. The top three Catholic nations are Brazil, Mexico, and the Philippines, and they're all highly intolerant of gay people.
So I wouldn't be so sure that the conservative homophobes will fail to regain control. Even if they don't get the Pope to resign, he's 81, they'll have another chance to install a Pope before long. And if most Catholics were really so tolerant of gay people, divorce, women priests, and so on, why wouldn't they have switched churches already?
4
@Jerry S.
Your statement wasn't clear about this, so I'm being explicit here:
The church should not only allow heterosexual priests to marry but homosexual priests as well.
1
@Jerry S.
"You don’t like Francis? Our only complaint about him is he isn’t moving fast enough."
Yep, that's right. He has been pope for how long? From Day One, he should have begun turning over rapists to the police, along with those who protected the rapists.
By not helping prosecute criminals, and by not working to end statutes of limitations on their crimes--NOW--he is protecting them, and becomes criminal himself.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò is aware of the sex scandal 30 years ago, why is he not resigned? It's well documented.
Steve Bannon and Vigano do not want change, they want to keep the status quo and its corruption, then they blame on the weakness among us.
23
So much for the doctrine of the papal infallibility.
4
Oh, it's still true. We never see him fall over.
All of a sudden the conservatives of the church are concerned about the path the church is taking. Do we need reminding of who controlled the church for the last one hundred years? It was under the conservative's control and guidence by hardcore, secretive old men of the Catholic Church. Now that these issues are boiling to the sufface, but conservatives nearly one hundred years of matters suppressed of nuns impregnated, girls molested, and young men used by priest, but now the conservatives are concerned? And why is this issue exclusive to the Catholic Church by the news media and not other faiths. Are the Baptist pure, are the Methodist and Presbyterians pure? Are the other religions genuine, but the NYTimes and other media fixate on the Catholic Church, why?
8
... Because there is overtaking billion of us and where we can, we read The NY Times.
"Who am I to judge?" Jeez, popes used to organize multi-state armies to fight wars.
3
Celibacy primarily means unmarried with the connotation of being sexually abstinent. These days with the continual debasement of the English language, the second meaning has swallowed the first. The proper term is chastity.
1
As a non-Catholic and secularist, I suppose I might still have some dog in this fight between so-called traditionalists and their ostensible opponents, among whom the Pope is supposed to sit. Still, in the midst of yet another scandal, it appears that the parties involved are more interested in upholding more obscurantist versions of patriarchal power on the one hand and slightly less patriarchal but still significant and tone-deaf power on the other with, in both cases, little apparent concern for ordinary Catholics and a creepy obsession with sex. The emphasis might be better placed on the universality of humanity and faith in a complex world where do no harm is the watchword.
5
Many catholic clergy are guilty, but many too are innocent. Pope Francis is a good man. He lives an open life, we see how he lives, and how he has lived, and though human, has a life of good to show. The evil within the church, whom we now encourage him to purge, will not wait to be dealt with. Like Trump, they will pre-emptively attack the good, the enemy as they see it, those that can do their evil harm. Our challenge is to see this early response for the that it is. At this moment, Pope Francis needs the help of those who believe in him.
12
Lapsed Catholic here who like many commentators before me, cannot feel anything but sorrow for those like my siblings, who are still among the faithful and have to put up with the embarrassment of this political intrigue. Vigano represents all of the power abuses the old Italian Church was infamous for and well documented. Celibacy was created to stop the loss of real estate through inheritance. This is the root of all of the evil. Normal well adjusted adults (read men and women) who are capable of having a marital relationship based on fidelity, commitment and love are fully capable of being ministers of the Gospel. Jesus did not preach nor command his Disciples to be celibate; that politically expedient "doctrine' was man made--as much a problem as the ridiculously ornate trappings of the priesthood paid by peasant labor and tithes. Continue along this path your Roman pharisees and your temple, at least your American version of it will soon be empty.
7
@Phil Thomas this was the exact point I was going to bring out... celibacy and the forced rejection of family life was to keep all money and land which the church acquired within the coffers of the church itself. didn't stop the medicis and other wealthy cardinals, bishops, popes and even priests from having families and bestowing titles and riches of the church on them. the church has been corrupt since its beginning, and always ignored the sins of its leaders.
The fact of the matter is that the Archbishop does not care about the children that were victims. In fact, he is using their tragedy as a weapon on a petty political battle. He can keep his indignation, he was also part of this system. Why condemn this Pope? Why now? Oh, because he doesn't hate gays.
31
If I see someone in my family doing wrong and horrible things, I would let my family know and hope for action. If nothing happens, I would go to the police, with enough evidence and let them do their investigation. Instead, Archbishop Viganò is fueling a feud in the Catholic Church in a way that seems to me has other motives than protect the victims of the abuses. If he had proof of the abuses, he failed decades ago for not going directly to the police. Releasing his letter the way he did this week makes me wonder why he chose to attack the Pope instead of denouncing the real perpetrators of the abuses directly to the police a long time ago.
18
Another disgrace, that of making child sexual abuse, a political issue instead of addressing how we are to stop child sexual abuse, anywhere, and not just in the Catholic Church. How dualistic is this thinking and using the sick approach to so much in our society by putting the blame on whatever is not "the norm." Homosexuality has been with us from forever. Move on, address underlying the global issues of violence that lead to such immoral,abhorrent behaviors and the list is long. Begin with the lack of female leadership in the Catholic Church while not ignoring the lack globally. Begin with accessing celibacy. Our God created each of us and sex is a vital part of a person. Why celebacy? Move forward, upward and away from blame, prejudice, and downright hatred. Where is conscience? Our most precious gifts are our children. Protect them. Nurture them. Love them. The world is their community. May we find ways to seek out the most meaningful approaches to build not brand, burn, or break down one another in the meantime.
4
Let he who is without sin write the first letter.
I left Catholicism a long time ago.
It's a flawed institution as most are.
It's a belief system full of antequated beliefs and practices.
In 1,000 more years it will either be very different, or gone.
Ditto for all the other denominations.
3
In terms of the very explosive accusations, I do not believe them right now. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I will not believe that Francis knew and did nothing about child sexual abuse allegations without hard evidence.
I know that it is a common tactic among people on the hard-right to spread false accusations about a public figure on the right; with McCain’s death this weekend, and his unpopularity among hard-right conservatives for not towing Trump’s agenda, I have had to give multiple posters the Snopes treatment for falsely claiming he was responsible for the Forrester fire.
It is not in Pope Francis’s character to allow child sex abuse to continue, but it is in the character of hard-right conservatives to make these kinds of false accusations against people they do not like.
10
None of the conservative bureaucracy has done anything in the past to weed out sexual predators in the church. I'd put my money on Pope Francis to be more successful and progressive in this effort, and this scares the conservatives to death.
26
Just like the Democrats castigating Trump hourly, all the Conservatives can do is talk. The Pope ain't goin' anywhere. (Although I do hope he has someone tasting his food).
3
Sexual abuse occurred for centuries under the rule of the conservatives who now try to use that issue to dislodge Francis. Conservatives don't give a whit about the victims, just about losing power-especially to a non-Italian.
24
Obligatory celibacy is unnatural, and can lead men to seeking another outlet for their physiological sexual desires. It is long past time that the Roman Catholic Church abandones obligatory celibacy. As far as I know priest in the other monotheistic religions are allowed to marry, and those religions do not have the same child abuse problem as the Roman Catholic Church has been experiencing, now and always. The child abuse has nothing to do with homosexuality. The Roman Catholic Church should abolish obligatory celibacy, as well as seriously address their gender inequality in order to stay relevant in modern times.
11
@Lukas: Exactly right. Celibacy is unnatural, unless you’re one of the relatively few asexual people. Myself, when I was was 18, I got up every morning feeling I could populate the world all by myself. Should I have considered the priesthood? No. Though if I were born early enough, the Bible could simply read, “And then Anonymous begot everyone else.”
What has not been stressed by the Vatican yet, is that this has been an on-going problem within the Church for decades. Francis may indicate that he is working on a long-term solution to this problem. The Catholic Church has its own political crises that have been coming for decades.
6
Correction: centuries!
7
@Jules Papp:
In the US most of the hierarchy of the RCC are right in line with the conservative republican agenda.
Bishops did not speak out against a tax plan created to make the wealthy even more wealthy while giving crumbs to everyone else.
Bishops do not speak out when health care coverage is at risk for millions of Americans!
Bishops do not speak out when children are taken from their mothers who are looking for a better life!
The only things they seem to care about are issues that relate to the crotch! That really gets their lace knickers in a twist!
4
Conservative Catholic critics are not recognizing the "longstanding church rules" as a major contributor to the problems facing the Catholic Church these days.
This tenacious defense seems to prioritize the Church as organization over Christ's teachings. It's tragically fascinating to observe the fury directed at the Pope whenever his actions seem to rather clearly reflect God's word.
Those people pining for the good old days would be wise to study the various calamities that have befallen the Church as a result.
36
Where to start?
Let's just say and pray that this coup-de-tat does not succeed.
29
The 2018 overused over distorted word of the year:"weaponize."
4
I'm sure many in the Catholic Church are saddened to see their cherished organization reduced to headlines worthy of a tabloid. I, a wayward Catholic, see a bright side to this: this lays bare the petty, power-seeking behaviors of the men within that organization. The horrors that were visited upon thousands of children, by men of the church, could continue because those children, and their parents, could not fathom that individuals they viewed as God's representatives on earth would do something so wrong and harmful. They had to question their own experiences and wonder, "am I just interpreting my experience incorrectly?". Having these messy internecine power struggles play out in public makes it clear that these men, as a whole, are really no more special than any other man you may encounter in your life, and their behaviors should be questioned by parishioners in that same light.
The church employs fancy garb, and baffling rituals to hypnotize the herd. But in the end it is just a man in a pretty gown acting strangely. He may be a man who cares deeply about you and your family. Or he may be a troubled man with derangements he needs to address in a more appropriate manner. Or he may be a man cravenly seeking power and position in an organization that demands its adherents to genuflect to them weekly (weakly).
55
It is a good opportunity for Vatican to make clear what is occurring in it. Transparency is essential for them to get trust from believers. Sexual abuse is the worst matter in religious world. Vatican should expel abusers as fast as possible.
12
@Matsuda Problem is, it's become very difficult to find replacements.
2
The Roman martyrs, the reformation, the plague, the inquisition, the corrupt Borgias Papacy, European anti-clericalism, Nazis, Communism, etc... this Church survives every horrible disaster. The child abuse was horrific, but the Catholic Church and those few who remain will atone, endure and become better and stronger souls. Suffering, Death, Love and Resurrection have been theme for 2000 years. It will continue.
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@Gerry
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Sigh.
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Seems as though Roy Moore from Alabama would fit in just fine with Viganò, Burke, and the likes.
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If this continuing disgrace happened in a US. corporation, the CEO would have been replaced, long ago.
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They all need to resign, every one of them. You think this is new? Been going on for centuries!
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With another apparently just like him.
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@benny:
That would depend on how corrupt the BOD is!
This is a deeply difficult time to be a Catholic. Anyone who sexually abused either children or an adult should, of course, be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Yet on the other hand, allegations are only allegations and the accused should get a presumption of innocence until trials are held and evidence presented. Behind and beyond all that, many non-Catholics and non-Christians seem to not understand the nature of sin, nor the Catholic / Christian conception of human nature. Remember that Judas betrayed Christ, for example, and that the Christian conception of human nature is that it is deeply flawed. We should - unfortunately - expect all human institutions, including the Church, to be vulnerable to evil and corruption. We should - unfortunately - expect all human beings to be vulnerable to the fact that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In our fallen world, even the Church is vulnerable to evil and even in the Church, we find horrible examples of corruption. More than anything, it is up to the secular authorities and the secular press to put pressure on the Church to live up to standards of basic decency. The hierarchy itself has proven itself to be disastrously corrupted, not - sadly - for the first time in the history of the Catholic Church in our broken world.
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@Jason McDonald
"Yet on the other hand, allegations are only allegations and the accused should get a presumption of innocence until trials are held and evidence presented."
The problem with that, of course, is that the "church" has given these rapists job transfers instead of calling the police. Now statutes of limitations ( which Francis and the "church" should fight to end) have let many criminals--and the criminals who protected them--off the hook.
If Francis doesn't begin today to turn over criminals to law enforcement, he becomes criminal himself.
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You're right, and the truth is that the abuse of children and women, has been going on for centuries. Most of us, Catholics, were blind to it. I left the RCC two years ago, after a lifetime of being a "good and faithful" Catholic. The corruption is clear, it's rotten from the core.
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I’ll remind you that St. Augustine created the “flawed human nature,” idea.
Oh, that original sin the church slapped on our souls at baptism.
Balderdash.
What does this have to do with conservatives vs liberals if Francis did, in fact, know about this and attempt to cover it up? To frame as a conservative attack is simply spin to provide cover for a Pope that American liberals like. Where is the hard hitting reporting by the NYT investigating what Francis knew and when he knew it?
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Conservatives in the church would love to have Francis step down. That's what this has to do with Conservatives versus Liberals. Francis is much more liberal than any recent pope.
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@Ryan Where does the article talk about liberals? Catholic conservatives refers to Catholicism. It's well documented that there are groups that don't like the direction of the Vatican. How would you call them instead?
Seems like the conservative push-back is happening in the Church just like the conservative push-back against a Black president here brought us Trump. These conservative white men all over the world are so upset that their traditional supremacy has been challenged that they are willing to bring down the world's institutions--the Church, the Presidency--to show their anger. Isn't this what Steve Bannon et al want--if they can't have dominance because of their gender and race, no one can? It's a dangerous time to be a reformer--the radical old guard are getting vicious in their fury over losing their traditional power.
For many of us lapsed Catholics, it seems obvious that adding the voices and presence of women to the Church hierarchy would cause positive change. But when we see the election of Trump as a response to a Black president, perhaps the fragile white male egos couldn't take women in the halls of the Vatican as other than tourists.
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As the article points out there are plenty if conservative priests and bishops in Africa so the characterization of these conservatives as all white is incorrect. The Church is world wide.
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Weren’t these same conservatives in power during the decades of abuse? Seems like the Pope is one of the few in power willing to accept ‘some’ responsibility. His critics are deflecting from their own culpability!
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@Jim F BINGO!!
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Gee, old, straight, white Conservative men are the problem in the Church, too. Who would'a thunk it?
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As a long time Catholic, I could hardly wait for the ordination of the first ever Jesuit Pope. Conservative priests struggle with the Jesuit order and its open-mindedness because Jesuits see the need to change the clericalism that allowed abuse to happen in the first place. Jesuits, like Francis, understand that homosexuality and pedophilia are two different things. The later is a serious sickness.
The open letter ascribed to Carlo Maria Viganòcannot is a rebuke for change. I pray that Pope Francis stays strong, and the old order fades away into obscurity.
The church needs more women in its ranks. Francis needs to make it happen, but at least it is a topic of discussion that might bear fruit. Had the clerical order understood that they needed to open the doors of the church in new ways, the pedophiles would have been hard pressed to get in. It was the clericalism that preceded Pope Francis that allowed the abuse to happen.
If Carlo Maria Viganòcannot believed sexual abuse happened, he could have easily gone to the police. It takes courage to right the wrongs. Pope Francis is cleaning up decades of clerical mess.
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True, Jesuits have always been the black sheep! However, the abuse that's being uncovered has been going on for centuries! When do we, the church, say ENOUGH?! It's not the fault of Francis, alone! The entire hierarchy IS guilty of aiding and abetting abusers. And by the way, gays are not pedophiles!
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@Sean James
I think if Ignatius Loyola was alive today he would lead a crusade against his own order.
It sounds like a conflict between traditionalist child-molestation enablers and progressive child-molestation enablers.
Please, law enforcement, arrest and prosecute all the molesters and all their enablers.
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@Chris
The abuse scandal crosses both the right and left. Both sides were abusers and both were ones that kept silent and/or aided in the coverup.
Archbishop Vigano's decision to blame Pope Francis for a 'homosexual current' in the Vatican is laughable. 30 years ago, my wife's employer was a priest. She taught at a parochial school. Father was experiencing a crisis with his vocation and his archbishop (Theodore McCarrick) sent him to the Vatican for a year of study, prayer, and rest. Upon his return, my wife and I had a private dinner with Father. Of course, he spoke glowingly of all that he had seen in the Vatican and Rome and then, he became quiet. And somewhat sad. Slowly, Father spoke of the open homosexuality among younger priests and those who held the strings of power. He didn't judge their choice to be gay, but their wanton disregard of the celibacy explicit in their vows. Again, this is 30 years ago, while "conservatism" ruled the church. Shortly after Father returned to the States, he began the process of leaving the priesthood. He later married and enjoyed over 20 years with his wife before passing two years ago. In my opinion, this pope needs to drop the hammer on these hypocrites. They represent the clerical culture that has caused so much pain and suffering among innocents, worldwide.
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@ETF
When you're gay it's not a choice.
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Outrageous and antiquated to correlate pedophilia with homosexuality. Aren't we past that ridiculous, disgusting and dangerous lunatic view? The good old Catholic boys network could start with letting women become priests (they'd have to so something about the washrooms in the Vatican), which would help create balance. Celibacy would be next. Don't expect reform anytime soon, however.
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@AndreaK exactly, and what about the complaints that priests abused little girls and teenage girls? how does that fit in with the homosexual fears? all of the church's high crimes and misdemeanors are becoming public: not just peadophilia, not just physical and mental abuse by those who hold power over their parishioners, but thousands of young women in Ireland (and who know what other catholic countries) put into virtual prisons for the rest of their lives for having children, often the not by choice product of rape by their own priests or fathers or neighbors, then having those children taken from them? or the hundreds at the very least of babies who died in these laundries and orphanages, unsung, unwept and unadmitted? the catholic church is the prime example of the adage: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I rejected the catholic church so many years ago, and yet, there is still a lingering anger and horror against the institution, the priests and other practitioners who protected it and its sins for so long.
2
This is not a conservatives vs. liberals issue. This is a Good vs. Evil issue.
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@Karen Walker Exactly. This is the first mention in this debate of the concept of evil, which should be obvious as it appears so often in Catholic doctrine.
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@Karen Walker
yes, exactly.
And if Francis fails to immediately begin turning over these rapists and this who protect them to the police, if he fails to fight to end statutes of limitations for these crimes, he becomes part of the evil. I felt very hopeful about him, but he can delay no longer.
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@Karen Walker: No, it’s capitalist vs. socialist, to be perfectly blunt.
"blamed a 'homosexual current' in the Vatican hierarchy for sexual abuse"
Wait just a second, so this diplomat is saying that homosexuality leads to sexual abuse? As a gay man, I'm quite offended by that false sentiment. Indeed, many of the #MeToo movement's offenders have been heterosexual. This seems like a typical conservative religious viewpoint, despite the lack of evidence to support it.
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@Andrew
Irresponsible people like Archbishop Viganò always want to blame on the weakness among us, instead of taken full responsibility to change thing.
4
@Andrew
As a gay man, I can tell you that homosexuality and sexual abuse are not mutually inclusive, yes.
But we're talking about the catholic church.
"Conservative" catholics are half-blind. They need a scapegoat and a quick resolution to this to save themselves. What the diplomat said is false, BUT, that former diplomat is an archbishop, so what would you expect. There's no homosexual current in the vatican. There's a strong homosexual tradition in the vatican since at least the time of institutional celibacy. The problem is with the repression of sex AND sexuality by the catholic church. There has been for centuries an organization led by self-loathing homosexuals who have unflinchingly preached that homosexuality is evil. The priesthood of the church has been filled for centuries by frightened, sexually repressed, self-loathing homosexual men. The catholic priesthood is filled to the brim with holy homosexuals acting as priests.
And one other thing. Like it or not, homosexuals can also be pedophiles as is true with heterosexuals. Especially in a world where people have told gay people from their earliest memory that there is something wrong with them. Especially when we have an organization where the ranks are filled by homosexuals who, in turn, preach the evilness of their being.
What a pathetic organization.
31
I left the Catholic Church, a faith tradition I loved, years ago due to this very issue. I worked as a counselor for over 30 years and had several catholic priest tell me that they had abused children. Some had left the Church but many remain. How I would love to return to the Church I love, but I won't as long as this abuse of children and openness to unacceptable and criminal behavior continues.
16
@Annie - If so, they committed crimes of child sexual abuse. Didn't you have a duty to report this to the authorities?
What indicts the Pope’s accusers is that nowhere do any of them express concern for the unrelenting atrocities committed against children and the church’s complicity in these crimes.
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@Susan Swartz
It is the pot calling the kettle black— a convenient way to get rid of a man who has made unpalatable comments about not judging those the conservatives openly abhor.
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@Susan Swartz...Vigano has thoroughly outed himself. It's all about Vatican politics, and the victims mean nothing to him. They are invisible, of no consequence. His arrogance is stunning.
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@Susan Swartz
And Francis, if he does not start turning rapists over to the police, becomes part of the atrocities.
4
Conservatives "pounce." You got that right. They wait for an opening, a vulnerability, a chance to take control. The children were easy, but this liberal pope, much harder.
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@Tom J
Conservatives Cardinal Medina and his boss Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedictus XVI) were the ones who got from John Paul II the punishment for abuser Marcial Maciel, founder of Legionaires of Christ.
This Pope was the one who named bishop and defended Juan Barros in Chile, to the horror of the victims of the priest Fernando Karadima, to whom Barros -so they claim- was an accomplice.
The crisis generated by Franciscus in rejecting the attacks on Barros, and later accepting those charges against the bishop, led to the (forced) resignation of all Chile bishops.
This is a little piece of this global cake.
1