Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in
Missouri, will be tried on charges that he failed to report suspicions
that one of his priests might be an abuser. If Finn is convicted, he
would be the first bishop ever found guilty in the abuse scandal. “If Finn gets convicted, that is certainly going to send a message” to
other church officials, said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest
and political scientist who is a fellow at the Woodstock Theological
Center at Georgetown University.
Link (here) to The Washington Post
16 comments:
Seems the Society has a few problems of its own in Philly:
The Philadelphia Daily News ran a story:
[Former Jesuit scholastic] John Bollard alleged in the suit that Gleeson and two other priests harassed him for five years while he was a seminarian at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where Gleeson was president.
The suit was settled in 2000 out of court, with the priests denying any wrongdoing.
Unwillingness to argue the case is typical. Monetary settlement has been the norm in Catholic abuse cases, presumably according to legal and public-relations advice. But Bollard told his side on “Sixty Minutes,” and the grim details, never contested in court, remained to shock many and besmirch reputations.
Bollard, who said he was 25 when the incidents started, alleged in the suit that Gleeson had asked him to masturbate with him.
The other Jesuit priests, Drew Sotelo and Anton Harris, were accused of sending suggestive pornographic pictures of naked men to Bollard and asking him to cruise gay bars.
Harris sent a card “depicting a fully aroused man,” with the note, “Thought this might inspire some theological thoughts.”
Indeed, Harris lost his Seattle U. vice
blithespirit.wordpress.com/.../jesuit-snapd-again-this-time-in-philadelphia
Wow. This must be some sort of new trick moral theology they developed at Louvain wherein Jesuits get to simultaneously:
(1) promote sodomy as a moral virtue in the public square without censure (examples too numerous for counting)
(2) denouce sodomoy when discovered amongst priests of Diocesan order
(3) deny the moral atocities of sodomy in their own backyard
One hundred sixty million. We all remember that figure, right? The tab is high, very high, for sodomy in the Society of Jesus.
How does Fr. Reese summon the moxie to make the statements that he makes?
Sure, they do. I agree
Hey, does this mean Maria supports throwing the book at all clerics and hierarchy that covered up? Or, is she just trying to score points against the Jesuit?
If the NCAA has the right to fine Penn State 60 million dollars for Coach Sandusky, then maybe the Catholic Church should start fining orders and taking vocation spots for members and their orders that commit similar crimes.
And the Vatican can shut down for a while too.
Reese's hypocrisy reminds me of a former American provincial who, at the early stages of the sexual abuse scandal in Boston, almost bragged that the SJ, thanks to the "manifestation of conscience," did not have these problems. In a very short time, Father Provincial was hit in the face very hard by the reality that not a few of his men were perverts and criminals. That was the end of his praise of the "manifestation."
Hey, Reese, go chat with your superiors in California and maybe you will learn a little humility. While you are at Los Gatos, stop in to see Fr. Jerry Lindner. Maybe he could enlighten you. Weren't you two in "formation" together? SHAME on you and all the lefties like you.
Their conscience is their get out jail free card, in their mind, for every act of moral depravity that they assert as a moral good. Heaven help them. Really.
The Pope knew and did not do the right thing.
Anonymous @ 10:56
I have long wondered the Holy Father and Blessed John Paul II refrained from intervention. I think I found the answer in this review of the book "Passionate Uncertainty" by Fr. Paul Shaughnessy SJ:
Are the Jesuits Catholic?
A review of "Passionate Uncertainty."
Jun 3, 2002, Vol. 7, No. 37 • By PAUL SHAUGHNESSY SJ
Weekly Standard
"SO, IF THE SITUATION in the Society of Jesus is really as McDonough and Bianchi describe it in "Passionate Uncertainty," why doesn't the pope intervene and make radical changes? Two reasons suggest themselves. On the one hand, the attitude of Pope John Paul II towards religious congregations, female as well as male, is somewhat Darwinian. He is content to let the healthy groups prosper--Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity are a parade example--while letting the unhealthy ones die out of their own accord, like sick caribou amid the permafrost. On the other hand, recent popes have judged the political cost of intervening to reform failing congregations as excessive in view of the likely benefits to be gained. A close analogy can be drawn with the moles that surfaced in the British Secret Service in the 1950s. Their treachery was known long before action was taken against them; bit by bit they were denied access to sensitive material, simply so that they'd have less to betray. In the same way, and for the same reasons, the popes have declined a dramatic showdown with the new Jesuits, preferring instead, without calling attention to the fact, to give the really important business to more dependable agents."
Read the rest here:
https://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/.../295pzsns.asp
I think guys like Reese know the barque is turning in a direction they don't like. They are losing the war. Hence the petutlant, adolescent outbursts we see on display by Reese and his confreres.
Petulant. Sorry.
Maria huge difference between an adult being sexually harassed and knowingly covering up the sexual abuse of a child.
Sodomy is sodomy, mon frere, any way you look at it.
I should ask, parenthetically, are you saying that if Catholic priests are only seeking sodomy w/ Catholic priests, and in turn thwarting their priesthood, as opposed to perpetrating sodomy against little boys, then we are in some altogether different moral sphere? Whow Nellie. It is some strage universe you inhabit, my friend.
one problem in my church is conservative thinking like Maria keep ring wearing prada loafer wearing closet cases in power whos mothers forced them to priests if these "seminarians" had developed their sexuality normally they would realize their homosexual and or heterosexual tendencies at an early age and would not as many be sick basket case priests out there
it is not healthy to be celibate or chaste for most people
countless studies have shown there is no correlation between gay men and pedophiles
WAKE THE F up to see how many gays are in the church closeted or not - you are DELUSIONAL if you think Cardinal Egan does not have a lover ask the Bishop of Brooklyn what his Auxiliary Bishops do in the Caribbean with their escorts organist choir directors cantors choir members GAY GAY GAY you want a piece of a requiem mass the guy signing it is prob a gay WAKE UP
@ Anonymous @ 11:56 AM
I am a little confused. Let us assume for the purposes of argument that you are correct in your claim that there is a preponderance of sodomites in the clergy. One would indeed have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to notice the homosexual clegy in out midst; however, are you saying that the increase in the number of sodomites in the clergy somehow renders sodomy a sinless act? Does that mean that if we had an increase in the number of murders amongst our priests that that the act of murder would also be similarly rendered sinless?
As for the correlation between homosexual men and pedophiles, commentary by Dononhue w/ regard to the John Jay study, notes: "Celibacy as a cause (of abuse) is quickly dismissed, and pedophilia is similarly rejected as an explanatory variable. The report astutely notes that “Celibacy has been constant in the Catholic Church since the eleventh century and could not account for the rise and subsequent decline in abuse cases from the 1960s through the 1980s.” The logic is sound.
Importantly, pedophilia is discounted: less than 5 percent of the abusive priests fit the diagnosis of pedophilia, thus, “it is inaccurate to refer to abusers as ‘pedophile priests.’”
Regrettably, the authors allowed political considerations to color their conclusions on the role homosexuality played in driving the scandal. Let it be said at the outset that it is not my position that homosexuality causes predatory behavior. Indeed, this argument is absurd. As I have said many times, while it is true that most gay priests are not molesters, most of the molesters have been gay. Nothing in the report changes my mind, and indeed there is much in it that fortifies my position.
“Interestingly,” the report says, “an increase in the number of male victims occurred during the peak years of the abuse crisis.” From my perspective, it would have made more sense to say, “Unsurprisingly” than “Interestingly.” Here’s why.
Four related events emerged at the peak of the crisis that account for what happened:
• there was an exodus of heterosexual priests after Vatican II, a large percentage of whom got married
• the effect of this exodus was to leave behind a greater proportion of homosexual priests
• a tolerance for sexual expression in the seminaries was evident at this time, leading many previously celibate homosexual priests to act out
• there was a surge of homosexuals into the seminaries. It was the interaction of these four factors, I would argue, that accounts for the increase in male victims at the height of the sexual abuse crisis.
The authors insist that homosexuality played no role in the abuse crisis, but their own data undermine this conclusion. For example, they plainly admit that “81 percent of the victims [between 1950 and 2002] were male,” and that 78 percent were post pubescent. So if the abusers weren’t pedophiles, and the victims were mostly adolescent males, wouldn’t that make the victimizers homosexuals? What else could we possibly be talking about if not homosexuality?"
Above is an excerpt from Donohue’s “John Jay Study on Sexual Abuse: A Critical Analysis.” The longer version was sent to all the bishops and is available online at catholicleague.org.
lets have a real university with preeminent scholars do a study not some public trade school in nyc
what about the homosexual orgies some of the popes would have ???
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