"Call to Disobedience" - An Effort to Change Catholicism

I often make the case that the only way to bring change to the Roman Catholic Church is to have large numbers of Catholics walk away and, most importantly, cease funding the Church hierarchy (a portion of every dollar given at the parish level goes to the local bishop and another portion goes to Rome under the Church's feudal power structure).  Throughout the Church's history, the loss of membership and money has been the only guaranteed means to fore change.  Nonetheless, there are some valiant individuals who are seeking to change the Church from within.  One such individual is Fr. Helmut Schüller who has just finished an American tour titled "Catholic Tipping Point."  One has to how soon before the Vatican tries to silence him.  Here are highlights from the National Catholic Reporter:

Fr. Helmut Schüller's "Catholic Tipping Point" tour of the United States ended where it began: in New York. He gave an address Wednesday evening in Manhasset and on Thursday, he visited St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan, where he delivered thousands of red ribbons and signatures he collected in 15 cities across the nation.

In the last three weeks, Schüller traveled from the East Coast to the West, spreading a message of "disobedience" and church reform. In each city, Schüller preached the values of the "Call to Disobedience," a 2011 document published by the Austrian Priests' Initiative. His message includes opening the priesthood to women and married people. He also advocates for a stronger relationship between the church and Catholic gay couples.

Even before Schüller stepped foot in the United States, U.S. bishops tried to block him, he said, confirming that Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley and Dolan contacted Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, his bishop in Vienna, to prevent the tour.



The reaction by U.S. bishops is nothing new for the Austrian priest. "I was not surprised. It's familiar. I had heard it in Germany from the bishops there," Schüller said.

Schüller was formally banned from speaking on Catholic property in Boston, Detroit and Chicago, and the archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, said Schüller could not speak on archdiocesan property in the city. But the Sisters of St. Joseph welcomed Schüller to the Catholic venue of Chestnut Hill College, a move Chaput later said was "regrettable."

In his final speaking event Wednesday in Manhasset, Schüller used his experience in the United States to make his case for reform. In the United States, he said, "priests are totally reliant on the bishops for their livelihood. These are the methods of a dictatorship." Making his point, he said in Detroit, priests were forbidden to meet with him in their own homes.

This "top-to-bottom obedience" is evident even in the sacraments, Schüller said. Because "official sinners" are turned away from Communion, he said, "the Eucharist has become a symbol of exclusion." To erase this "symbol," divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive the Eucharist, he said.

Furthermore, the church's stance on gay relationships presents another challenge for parishes across the world, Schüller said, saying the church should be welcoming on this issue rather than exclusionary. The church should "concentrate on the quality of this partnership: fidelity, respect," he said, rather than focus on whether it is a homosexual or heterosexual relationship.

 Would that there were more voices like Schüller in the Church.

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Cardinal: Pope Francis Did Not Signal A New Tone On Gays

I noted yesterday how some are either in tears or nearly wetting themselves over remarks made by Pope Francis which these wishful thinkers are interpreting to be a signal that the Roman Catholic Church is going to cease its anti-gay jihad.  Today, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York City, threw cold water on these wishful fantasies by saying that nothing has changed and that Francis only repeated official Church positions on gays - namely, that we need to repent and be alone and celibate for the rest of our lives.  Think Progress has details.  Here are highlights:

Tuesday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who is also the archbishop of New York, sought to downplay the Pope’s comments. During an appearance on CBS’ This Morning, Dolan insisted that the Church has long embraced gay people and that Francis’ answer did not represent a new tone or establish a more liberal precedent.

“Homosexual acts,” he said, are still a sin. “Homosexuality is not a sin, right? Homosexual acts are,” Dolan said, “just like heterosexuality is not a sin outside of marriage, that would be sinful.” “While certain acts may be wrong, [the Pope] would always love and respect the person and treat the person with dignity and not judge them,” Dolan continued. 

But the Cardinal hasn’t always followed his own advice and has repeatedly condemned the rights of same-sex couples under the guise of love and support for the gay community.

After lobbying against New York’s marriage equality law, Dolan prohibited by decree any Church personnel or property from being utilized for same-sex marriage ceremonies under penalty of “canonical sanctions,” calling the state’s law “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law.” He has also compared the “threat” posed to marriage by gays and lesbians to that of polygamy, adultery, forced marriage, communist dictatorships, and incest.
Despite his rhetoric, a majority of New York Catholics supported the marriage equality bill months before it came to a vote and still do. 

The porcine Dolan is a nasty piece of work and a prime example of why I left Catholicism after the sex abuse scandal exploded in 2002.

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Bill O'Reilly: Telling a Gay Person They're Going to Hell Should Be Illegal

I generally view Billy O'Reilly to be a crazy, mean spirited windbag.  But every now and then he will say something that is dead on target correct.  Such as his statement that telling a gay person "you're going to Hell" should be illegal.   One can just imagine the swoons and flying spittle amongst the Christofascist set at O'Reilly apostasy.   Nothing gives these modern day Pharisees more joy than telling us gays that we are going to Hell, although I suspect that, if there is a Hell, it is mostly peopled by truly horrible people - e.g., Hitler and Stalin - and the modern day Pharisee crowd and conservative religious leaders such as John Paul II.  Towleroad looks at O'Reilly's statement:

[O]n his show last night, the Fox News host expressed a belief that telling a gay person "you're going to Hell" should be illegal--at least, in some instances.

O'Reilly's guest last night was John Stossel--who hosts a weekly show on Fox Business--and the comment came amidst a discussion of American evangelist Tony Miano, who was arrested in London last week after preaching against homosexuality in front of a shopping center in Wimbledon.  According to the Telegraph, Miano was arrested "under the controversial clause of the Public Order Act which bans 'insulting' words or behaviour."

"I think that should be against the law," O'Reilly said of any hypothetical anti-gay preacher who "went up to a homosexual, got in his face and said, 'you're going to hell, you're going to hell.' He’s invading the person’s space. He’s bringing intentional, personal anguish to the person. I think that person should be protected.”

Stossel expressed some agreement with O'Reilly but said that the standard should be based on "fighting words" that were meant to incite violence.

As I said, the Christofascists - think Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, et al -  must be livid with O'Reilly since they believe that they can do whatever they want to whoever they want as long as they hide behind the smoke screen of professed "deeply held religious belief."  Here's the video:

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The Church’s Monstrous Shepherds

Some question why I so frequently slam the Roman Catholic Church.  There are several, not the least is the anger I still harbor for the institution that caused so much self-hate and so many years of needless unhappiness.  The largest reason is that the Church hierarchy continues to disseminate the same anti-gay lies and propaganda that harmed so many years of my life and in the process harms thousands and thousands of young gays as well as older gays who cannot let go of the brainwashing they received growing up.  Few things can screw one up psychologically and emotionally than being raised a Roman Catholic,  Perhaps the second reason I have such contempt for the Church is the utter hypocrisy of the Church leadership which shows no signs of changing under Pope Francis.  Hundreds of thousands of crimes against children covered up and predators protected - all by those who put on false shows of piety and demand respect and deference.  Frank Bruni has a column in the New York Times that looks at the sins of the Church hierarchy.  Here are excerpts:

BOSTON, Philadelphia, Los Angeles. The archdioceses change but the overarching story line doesn’t, and last week Milwaukee had a turn in the spotlight, with the release of roughly 6,000 pages of records detailing decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests there, a sweeping, searing encyclopedia of crime and insufficient punishment. 

But the words I keep marveling at aren’t from that wretched trove. They’re from an open letter that Jerome Listecki, the archbishop of Milwaukee, wrote to Catholics just before the documents came out.   “Prepare to be shocked,” he said. What a quaint warning, and what a clueless one. 

Quaint because at this grim point in 2013, a quarter-century since child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church first captured serious public attention, few if any Catholics are still surprised by a priest’s predations. 

Clueless because Listecki was referring to the rapes and molestations themselves, not to what has ultimately eroded many Catholics’ faith and what continues to be even more galling than the evil that a man — any man, including one in a cassock or collar — can do. I mean the evil that an entire institution can do, though it supposedly dedicates itself to good.

The Milwaukee documents underscore this, especially in the person of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, previously the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009 and thus one of the characters in the story that the documents tell. Last week’s headlines rightly focused on his part, because he typifies the slippery ways of too many Catholic leaders.

[Dolan's] his letter contradicts his strenuous insistence before its emergence that he never sought to shield church funds. He did precisely that, no matter the nuances of the motivation. 

Dolan has quibbled disingenuously over whether the $20,000 given to each abusive priest in Milwaukee who agreed to be defrocked can be characterized as a payoff, and he has blasted the main national group representing victims of priests as having “no credibility whatsoever.” Some of the group’s members have surely engaged in crude, provocative tactics, but let’s have a reality check: the group exists because of widespread crimes and a persistent cover-up in the church, because child after child was raped and priest after priest evaded accountability.

That’s what church leaders and church defenders who routinely question the amount of attention lavished on the church’s child sexual abuse crisis still don’t fully get. 

[O]ver the last few decades we’ve watched an organization that claims a special moral authority in the world pursue many of the same legal and public-relations strategies — shuttling around money, looking for loopholes, tarring accusers, massaging the truth — that are employed by organizations devoted to nothing more than the bottom line. 

[B]y last week the only shocker left was that some Catholic leaders don’t grasp its greatest component: their evasions and machinations.  

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New York Times Slams Cardinal Timothy Dolan

In a previous blog post I noted how Cardinal Timothy Dolan - a/k/a Porky Pig on this blog - worked to hide $57 million in church funds form victims of sexual abuse by priests aided, abetted and protected by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.  And not surprisingly, (i) Dolan lied about his activities in the past, and (ii) Dolan's actions were blessed by the Vatican in a matter of a few days.  The New York Times has rightly joined in the condemnation of Dolan and the Church's larger moral bankruptcy.  Here are editorial excerpts:

Tragic as the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has been, it is shocking to discover that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, while archbishop of Milwaukee, moved $57 million off the archdiocesan books into a cemetery trust fund six years ago in order to protect the money from damage suits by victims of abuse by priests. 

Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has denied shielding the funds as an “old and discredited” allegation and “malarkey.” But newly released court documents make it clear that he sought and received fast approval from the Vatican to transfer the money just as the Wisconsin Supreme Court was about to open the door to damage suits by victims raped and abused as children by Roman Catholic clergy. 

The release of about 6,000 pages of documents provided a grim backstage look at the scandal, graphically detailing the patterns of serial abuse by dozens of priests who were systematically rotated to new assignments as church officials kept criminal behavior secret from civil authority. 

It is disturbing that the current Milwaukee leader, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, said last week that the church underwent an “arc of understanding” across time to come to grips with the scandal — as if the statutory rapes of children were not always a glaring crime in the eyes of society as well as the church itself. 

The documents showed how the Vatican slowly took years to allow dioceses to defrock embarrassing priests. Yet the same bureaucracy approved Cardinal Dolan’s $57 million transfer just days after the Wisconsin court allowed victims’ damage suits. 

I ask again: how can any moral person give these foul men any respect or deference?  They belong behind bars and a full blown government investigation of the Catholic Church should be commenced.

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Cardinal Dolan Sought to Hide Church Assets

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has begun a huge file dump in connection with the huge sex abuse scandal that rocked the archdiocese and some of the newly released documents indicate that as long suspected, Cardinal Timothy Dolan - a major loud mouthed homophobe - tried to hide archdiocese assets so as to screw over sex-abuse victims seeking compensation for the criminal actions done against them.  The man is a disgusting pig and obviously a huge liar.  Note too that the Vatican was in on the move to hide assets. The New York Times has details:

Files released by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday reveal that in 2007, Cardinal Timothy F. Dolan, then the archbishop there, requested permission from the Vatican to move nearly $57 million into a cemetery trust fund to protect the assets from victims of clergy sexual abuse who were demanding compensation. 

Cardinal Dolan, now the archbishop of New York, has emphatically denied seeking to shield church funds as the archbishop of Milwaukee from 2002 to 2009. He reiterated in a statement Monday that these were “old and discredited attacks.” 

However, the files contain a 2007 letter to the Vatican in which he explains that by transferring the assets, “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from any legal claim and liability.” The Vatican approved the request in five weeks, the files show. 

The release of more than 6,000 pages of documents on Monday was hailed by victims and their advocates as a vindication and a historic step toward transparency and accountability. They were well aware that the archives would bring unusually intense scrutiny to the country’s most high-profile prelate, Cardinal Dolan, who as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the archbishop of New York has sought to help the church turn the corner on the era of scandal. 

[T]he documents lift the curtain on his role as a workaday church functionary concerned with safeguarding assets, persuading abusive priests to leave voluntarily in exchange for continued stipends and benefits, and complying with Rome’s sluggish canonical procedures for dismissing uncooperative priests who he had long concluded were remorseless and a serious risk to children. In one case, the Vatican took five years to remove a convicted sex offender from the priesthood. 

Victims on Monday called for a federal investigation into the actions of Cardinal Dolan and his predecessors, but the cardinal sought to deflect criticism by saying in a statement Monday that he welcomed the release of the documents. 

The current archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E. Listecki, had announced his decision to release the documents in April, one day before a judicial hearing. Lawyers for abuse victims had asked a judge to compel their release. 

There is more in the article that deserves a read.  I have long maintained that Dolan is a liar and needs to be criminally prosecuted.

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Italian Police Investigate Whether Catholic Priests Hired Rentboys for Sex in Churches

Yesterday porcine Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York was whining and spewing untruths in reaction to the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Windsor.  Here's a sampling of Dolan's batshitery via the New Civil Rights Movement:

“Today is a tragic day for marriage and our nation,” Dolan, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and thus the head of the Roman Catholic Church in America.

“The Court got it wrong,” Dolan added, in a joint statement with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, chair of the U.S. bishops’ Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.

In typical false-framing and fear-mongering, the pair continued: "The common good of all, especially our children, depends upon a society that strives to uphold the truth of marriage. Now is the time to redouble our efforts in witness to this truth. These decisions are part of a public debate of great consequence. The future of marriage and the well-being of our society hang in the balance."

But just as always seems to be the case, as the Catholic hierarchy was loudly decrying gays as a threat to America and society in general, yet another scandal was breaking in Rome involving, yes, you guessed it, priests and underage boys.  As always, the bitter old queens in dresses cannot abide normal, well adjusted gays living their lives openly  and with legal recognition of their relationships even as members of the priesthood continue to engage in sex crimes against minors.  The hypocrisy is truly mind numbing.  The latest dirt comes via the International Business Times.  Here are excerpts:

Italian investigators have opened an inquiry into claims by a convicted paedophile priest that an underage prostitution ring has been operating inside the Holy Roman Church with clergymen hiring rentboys for sex inside churches.

Don Patrizio Poggi, 46, told Italian authorities that a former Carabinieri pimped boys for nine clergymen.

The boys were chosen because they were starving and desperate, he claimed, according to Il Messaggero newspaper.

The former policeman used to recruit the boys, mostly eastern European immigrants, outside a gay bar named Twink near Rome's Termini train station. He reportedly sat in his Fiat Panda - marked "Emergency Blood" to avoid parking fines - to make his selection.

He was helped in the recruitment process by a friend who ran a modelling agency. He lured underage boys into prostitution through "false work offers for modelling and acting roles", Poggi said.

The agent also looked for rentboys at gay discos, saunas and gyms across Rome. An accountant was also said to be involved.  The boys were paid €150-€500 (£130-£425) to perform sex acts in church premises across the capital.

Poggi reportedly presented documentary and photographic evidence to police in the company of two senior Vatican clergymen who vouched for his credibility.

Poggi identified the nine clergymen, including two senior church officials and a religion lecturer. Three people have been placed under formal investigation.

And meanwhile, there is this headline out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Dolan's former archdiocese "Capuchins Protected Sex Abusers for Years."  Here are some highlights from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

It's been 44 years since Father Mel Hermanns sexually abused a boy at St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary in Fond du Lac County.

It's been 23 years since a separate case of suspicious conduct "involving physical activities with minor males" was reported.

And 20 years since the Capuchin priest's order paid for the seminary victim's counseling, and sent Hermanns to a treatment center known for its programs for sex offenders.  But Hermanns was not removed from ministry until just last fall, and even then there was little public notification.

Hermanns' name appears on a list of 23 current and former Capuchin friars removed for sexually abusing minors. It was released last week as part of an unprecedented audit commissioned by the Detroit-based Capuchin Province of St. Joseph, which operates parishes and other ministries in Milwaukee, to assess its sexual abuse policies and come to terms with its history.

The audit echoes the broader church's handling of the global sex abuse crisis, and provides insight into how one religious order systematically protected abusers and put the concerns of friars and their organization ahead of their responsibility to victims.

I'm sorry, but I would argue that the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood are a far greater threat to society and certainly the welfare of children than gay marriage.  One has to wonder why individuals like Dolan - who is rumored to have hidden millions in Church assets rather than pay compensation to abuse victims - are not behind bars at this very moment. 

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