The media responses to the final order to disclose all the files of predator priests and descriptions of the 10-year saga that preceded the court's decision on Jan. 31 do not come close to telling the full story of the nightmare that led up to that day. The last major act, Archbishop Jose Gomez’s meaningless censure of Mahony and Mahony’s whining retort on his blog, is all about them and not about the real core of this almost incredible decade of events. At the heart of it all are the victims of Los Angeles priests, several hundred men and women. Yet the legal battle that went on and on not only overlooked them but continued to heap pain on their already scarred souls. … The real cost of his hat was in people.
There were 508 victim/survivors as plaintiffs in the cases that eventually were settled in 2007 for $660 million. They had been put through agony during the months and years they were manipulated, lied to and revictimized before any of them went to court. Then the first phase of the nightmare began…
The weight of the news is just too oppressive to bear for some conservative Roman Catholics, who, finally, again, are perceiving a “yuck” factor associated with all of this, and it’s being brought to light amid stories of this current papal resignation and upcoming conclave.
For example, uber-Catholic-convert and First Things editor is Staying Home from the Conclave, and recommending that other tainted Cardinals do the same:
I wish some of the other Cardinals would give up the privileges of their office and refrain from attending the conclave. Cardinal Mahony offers a good example. The most generous thing we can say for his work as archbishop of Los Angeles is that it involved egregious errors of judgment. I’d like to be charitable, but I’m inclined to think much worse. The same holds for Cardinal Danneels of Belgium.
Cardinal O’Brien isn’t the only precedent. Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation was historic, and it was not prompted by any accusations of misdeeds and misconduct.
Still, if the underlings are tainted, shouldn’t the boss be held accountable? Not in the wonder-world of Roman Catholicism. Reno again:
… it would be a good witness for our age if a few of the Church’s princes accepted the fact that the best service they could provide to the Church is to acknowledge the damage they’ve done by staying home….
Meanwhile, the conservative Roman Catholic LifeSite News “details” a Huge homosexual underground in the Church. Not that not that that’s something we didn’t know about before. But that conservative Roman Catholics are bringing it up now points again to that “yuck” factor.
Of course, they are stuck with it now – it’s been enshrined into dogma. Note how the Catechism of the Catholic Church has given practicing homosexuals in the priesthood (and higher) a license to practice, practice, practice, while only gradually approaching the “Christian perfection” of “chastity”, to which they are called:
Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.
See also: “Dung in their faces”: “All the dignity which ye pretend shall be abolished”.
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