R. R. Reno: Catholicism After 2018

Theodore McCarrick has been stripped of his status as cardinal for pursuing young men throughout his clerical career. “­Uncle Ted” liked to take his “nephews” to bed with him. The public revelations of this fact evoked outrage. It was not so much that a churchman sinned as that he did so with impunity, protected by the see-no-evil mentality and, perhaps, the complicity of those who have their own secrets to keep. The anger was further stoked by an initial wave of denials. McCarrick’s protégés—some now bishops—ran for cover, insisting they knew nothing about his misdeeds.

I was not shocked by the news. I entered the Catholic Church in 2004, two years after clerical sex abuse of adolescent boys and its cover-up were exposed in Boston. We learned that many of the bishops of the United States—perhaps nearly all during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s—did little to root out priests who preyed upon boys and adolescents. Men who made a habit of grooming altar boys as sexual prey were shuttled from one parish to another. Pressure was exerted to keep aggrieved parents silent. Victims were stiff-armed. Insofar as there was strenuous episcopal effort, it was devoted to keeping a festering problem secret. The recently released Pennsylvania Grand Jury report deepens our knowledge of this pattern of behavior.

The moral corruption and the failure of those in charge to deal with it properly is disheartening but, for me, ­unsurprising. From 1990 until 2010, I taught at a Jesuit University and was privy to insider gossip. The Irish philosopher William Desmond recounted some of his experiences as a young scholar visiting Fordham in the 1970s. The main debate in the Jesuit dining room concerned whether or not sodomy constituted a violation of the vow of celibacy. Some priests took the line that celibacy concerns the conjugal act, not sterile sex between men. A friend who spent time as a Jesuit novice during that slouching decade told me that novice masters regarded homo­sexual relations as healthy, even necessary for proper priestly formation. Sometimes the novice masters insisted that they be the agents of this “formation.”

The passing of the decades brought changes. I don’t think there is quite the same spirit of open experimentation abroad in the Church today, not even among Jesuits, though I may be too sanguine. Since the revelations about McCarrick, a number of younger men have recounted hair-raising stories about their experiences in corrupt seminaries, events that took place after 2002 and public outrage about clerical sexual abuse. Whether or not things have gotten better—and, again, I think they have—the past shapes the present. It wasn’t long ago that homosexual sex wasn’t just tolerated among clergy; it was protected. And it still is in some quarters, as McCarrick’s career indicates. Were it not for revelations about sex with a minor and abuse of power, he would have remained a much-feted ecclesiastical eminence. He was part of a much larger quasi secret about gay clergy that implicates even the best of men, undermining them in the way that unaddressed, openly tolerated corruption destroys the morale of any unit.

Read more at First Things >> 

 

We Told You About Cardinal McCarrick 10 Years Ago

We have been fascinated and vindicated in recent weeks to see one of the most sordid stories in the history of the Catholic Church in America finally brought into the cleansing light of day, and we pray, some justice and reparation done regarding the thoroughly corrupt priesthood of Theodore J. McCarrick.  We also take some satisfaction in having revealed the McCarrick crimes more than ten years ago.

Your editor received much of his adult faith formation in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, a place of orthodoxy, holiness, growth and zeal.  When I moved to the Archdiocese of Newark in 1994, it was very much like stepping into another world -- a place where cultural Catholicism lingered, but real, living faith was cold and dead.  Instead of parishes sponsoring vibrant faith formation programs for all age levels, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, magnificent, reverent liturgies faithful to Church tradition and the Roman Missal, only "bare, ruined choirs" were to be found in Newark.   If there was any organized parish activity, it was most likely a parish chartered bus trip to Atlantic City for a day of gambling.  A few, mostly Polish parishes were and are the exceptions to the Newark wasteland.

During my ten years in New Jersey I heard all the recently revealed, salacious stories about McCarrick and his abuse of youths, seminarians and priests under his charge.  In 2009, I wrote:

Here at Sunlit Uplands we love our Holy Father and respect most of our bishops; but as we have noted before, there are a few wolves in the sheepfold.

In our view, there is none more corrupt, evil, and destructive than the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. When he was Archbishop of Newark we experienced first-hand the ways in which this dark soul destroys what is orthodox and good, while promoting a dissident, heterodox vision of the Church, fashionable in the 1970's. This notorious deceiver and corrupter of young seminarians, who was caught lying to all of his brother bishops, never misses a media opportunity to sow falsehood and division.

We also published this detailed revelation of McCarrick's scandalous and sinful behavior in April 2008:  Church Critic "Outs" Cardinal McCarrick.   In that article, published 10 years ago, all the misbehavior with seminarians and young priests, which has resulted in "Uncle Ted" being stripped of the rank of Cardinal was revealed.

It gives no pleasure to have been right about this despicable creature, particularly when one considers all of the unfulfilled vocations resulting from the scandal, the many tepid souls who have turned away from the Church, the many souls who have been wounded in mind and spirit by the evil, and the closure of schools and parishes because millions have been repulsed by wolves masquerading as churchmen.

Saint Augustine wrote that "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”   We pray that upon these ashes a humbled, but truly holy Church, the Body of Christ, led by true servants of the servants of God, may arise, bring light to the world, and renew the face of the earth.

From Under the Rubble

Theodore Cardinal McCarrick: 'Show Me The Money!'

From The Wanderer
By Christopher Manion

America’s prelates have finally rallied to confront a pressing moral issue. No, not to oppose the billions in federal funding for Planned Parenthood, nor the additional billions for foreign- aid population programs targeting Catholic Third World countries. No, our prelates have united to condemn those “ mean- spirited” Americans, millions of them practicing Catholics, who support Arizona’s decision to enforce longstanding federal immigration statutes. The bishops’ spokesman on the issue, Roger Cardinal Mahony, charitably accuses the law’s supporters of favoring “ German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques.”

This is nothing new. For years — decades, really — most of our bishops have calibrated Catholic social teaching to conform to the increasingly liberal Democrat agenda. For instance, embattled Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has often branded opponents of amnesty as “ anti- immigrant.” In less- than- perfect charity, the USCCB has obediently perpetuated that canard. But again, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

And the piper’s tune was called with truly brazen audacity on May 6 by America’s leading pro- abortion Catholic Democrat, who made it perfectly clear just who’s boss when it comes to the Church’s politics.

From Foxnews. com: “ House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday urged Catholic leaders to ‘ instruct’ their parishioners to support immigration reforms, saying clerics should ‘ play a very major role’ in supporting Democratic policies.

“‘ The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, “ We want you to pass immigration reform,” and I said, “ I want you to speak about it from the pulpit…. The people, some ( of whom) oppose immigration reform, are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels”,’ she said.”

Now this triumphal diktat represents a verifiably “ German Nazi and Russian Communist technique,” aimed directly at the heart of the Church on the part of the omnipotent state. Has even one prelate had the temerity to condemn it publicly? Or did Pelosi’s cardinals, archbishops, and bishops show up with their birettas in hand, instead of Canon 915? ( Canon 915 states in part: “ Those who have been . . . obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”)

Conflict Or Capitulation?

“ In my judgment a conflict between the state claiming unlimited powers and the Catholic Church is inevitable” — Hilaire Belloc, Essays of a Catholic ( 1931).

Pelosi’s brazen outburst represents a primal scream from a depraved powermonger railing at the successors of the apostles: “ Get in line!” But the bishops quietly comply. How did it come to this?

A longtime conservative activist recently gave me a clue. He was explaining why government spending kept growing under George W. Bush, even though most Republicans opposed it. “ The way politicians see it,” he explained, “ interest groups have very specific priorities. When they get their first priority, they are happy. Under George W. Bush, pro- lifers got their judges, the neocons got their war, and evangelicals got their ‘ Faith- Based Initiatives.’ Now, while many groups might want less spending, no powerful interest group came to Bush with ‘ less spending’ as its first priority. So spending just kept going up.”

So the politician’s task is to deliver a group’s first priority. He doesn’t ask, “ What else do you want,” he turns to the next interest group and addresses their highest priority. No matter how much members of an interest group might talk about “ too much spending,” the politician knows that, if they get their first priority, the rest is just background noise.

Let’s analyze the USCCB from this perspective. What does the hard- nosed Capitol Hill pol see as the Catholic Church’s “first priority”? Remember, even though the bishops are undoubtedly a powerful interest group, their first priority is all they will get. Their lower priorities will stay on the shelf — that is the way the game is played.

For almost 100 years — especially since Archbishop Joseph Bernardin planted the USCC’s flag firmly on the left 40 years ago — our bishops have advocated a wide range of liberal social welfare initiatives. They have also strongly opposed abortion. So what’s the score in 2010? Abortion is still legal, but the liberal social welfare agenda has prospered — and so has the USCCB. Catholic “ social justice” bureaucracies flourish, from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to the huge USCCB headquarters in Washington. The bishops’ anointed experts have developed strong ties with the Washington left, on and off Capitol Hill, and those ties have paid off.

Today the Church receives two billion dollars a year from the government for Catholic Charities, tens of millions more for Catholic universities and hospitals, and tens of millions a year more for the USCCB itself.

With that scorecard, would the average Washington politician draw the conclusion that the life issues — especially abortion — are the bishops’ first priority?

Politicians might not be saints, but they’re not dumb. Politicians also understand the law. So they notice when bishops refuse to implement Canon Law (and Canon 915 is mandatory, not optional) in the case of even the most flagrant Catholic pro-abortion scandalmongers. Politicians draw the logical conclusion. And politicians are also well aware that, as Cardinal McCarrick judiciously put it a few years back, Catholic bishops do not want to “alienate” important pro-abortion Catholics on Capitol Hill because “[taxpayer] money is needed for Catholic hospitals, charities, and education.”

The bottom line: To the crass politician — the vast majority — the bishops’ actions have made it clear that their first priority is money.

Winners And Losers

Does that mean our bishops don’t really oppose abortion? Of course not. But listen to them with a politician’s ear. Left- wing politicians will always invoke the usual nostrums condemning “ waste, fraud, and abuse.” Of course, they do not mean it. Those categories finance the power of the left, and they are not about to eliminate them. To repeat: When leftist politicians rant and rave against “ waste, fraud, and abuse,” they are lying. Now, when bishops condemn abortion, they are telling the truth. But politicians wonder, do they really mean it? If they do, why has it never been the bishops’ first priority?

When bishops condemn abortion, as Theodore Cardinal McCarrick carefully observed, they must always keep in view their first priority — the money. If our bishops were seriously to make the life issues their first priority, they would invite a long and bruising battle. Eventually they might win on abortion ( I think they would, in fact, and pretty quickly), but they would definitely lose the money. Nothing personal, that’s just the way the system works. And that’s not all. The left is spiteful. After the enraged pols shut the water off, they might decide to go after the Church’s tax exemptions.

And there’s more: Imagine pro- abortion Sen. Patrick Leahy’s outrage if he were excommunicated. He might not be able to receive the Eucharist, but as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, he could still issue subpoenas.

In recent years, the bishops have received tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. The way the politicians see it, that money has bought the bishops’ tacit agreement never to go to the mat about abortion. Sure enough, the bishops never have. Instead, while formally opposing abortion, their “ experts” have for 40 years emitted a steady ooze of “ social justice” drivel, imparting the imprimatur of the Catholic Church to virtually every line- item in the left- wing policy agenda of the proabortion Democratic Party. In return, the bishops have gotten — the money.

To put it plainly, since 1968, in the hearts and minds of American bishops and in the halls of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there has been a struggle between Humanae Vitae — which is the infallible teaching of the Magisterium — and government- funded “ social justice,” the left- wing Marxist agenda upon which the bishops have bestowed a Catholic imprimatur.

It’s clear today that Humanae Vitae has lost.

EWTN's Arroyo Takes Cardinal McCarrick to Task over Kennedy & Pope Letters

Here at Sunlit Uplands we love our Holy Father and respect most of our bishops; but as we have noted before, there are a few wolves in the sheepfold.

In our view, there is none more corrupt, evil, and destructive than the former Archbishop of Washington, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. When he was Archbishop of Newark we experienced first-hand the ways in which this dark soul destroys what is orthodox and good, while promoting a dissident, heterodox vision of the Church, fashionable in the 1970's. This notorious deceiver and corrupter of young seminarians, who was caught lying to all of his brother bishops, never misses a media opportunity to sow falsehood and division.

He was at work again during the Kennedy funeral, attempting to distort the Church's teachings by suggesting that those who dedicate a lifetime to promoting the culture of death can also be Catholics in good standing, and indeed, models to be emulated.

Raymond Arroyo exposes this modern-day Judas.

From LifeSiteNews
By John-Henry Westen

EWTN News Director and host of the popular EWTN program 'The World Over,' Raymond Arroyo, has written a compelling commentary on retired Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's part in Saturday's burial of Senator Ted Kennedy. Arroyo begins by calling McCarrick's reading of portions of Kennedy's letter and a Vatican response a "marvelous bit of political theatre (as so much of Senator Kennedy's funeral was)."

The renowned EWTN show host, who is seen each week in more than 100 million homes around the globe on the Catholic network, then reflects on McCarrick's controversial history.

"First of all, it must be recalled that Cardinal McCarrick has a rather unfortunate history involving the delivery of letters, particularly those from a certain Vatican official by the name of Ratzinger," says Arroyo. "In 2004, when the Bishops of the US were anguishing over whether to allow communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion laws, Cardinal McCarrick concealed a letter from his brother bishops. The missive was from the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then Cardinal (now Pope) Joseph Ratzinger. Had the bishops received the letter intended to help guide their debate, things might have gone very differently. The contents of that letter are still relevant, particularly now when dissenting Catholics have made grandiose pronouncements about what it means to be a Catholic in public life."

Arroyo says that he and other faithful Catholics are "not upset about Chappaquiddick or the huge lapses in the Senator's long and storied life," knowing that forgiveness is possible. "The problem here," he said, "is one of public witness and appearances - the corrupting example."

Arroyo's central thesis is that the story of the Kennedy funeral had less to do with Kennedy than with an attempt to falsely portray what it means to be a Catholic and a Catholic politician. "What most in the media and the public fail to recognize is that this entire spectacle - the Catholic funeral trappings and the wall to wall coverage - was only partially about Ted Kennedy," he wrote. "It was truly about cementing the impression, indeed catechizing the faithful, that one can be a Catholic politician, and so long as you claim to care about the poor, you may licitly ignore the cause of life."

The responsibility of this corrupting example falls not so much with Kennedy as with the prelates who orchestrated the showcase funeral. Says Arroyo: "As a final desperate attempt to stamp the imprimatur of the Pope upon the funereal proceedings, Cardinal McCarrick read what he called the 'Pope's response' to Senator Kennedy. Actually it was a note, very likely from the Secretariat of State. This is the sort of thing any member of laity receives when they send a prayer request or a Christmas card to the Pope. Cardinal McCarrick made it seem as if it had the weight of a new encyclical."

Church Critic "Outs" Cardinal McCarrick

Washington, Apr. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) -

Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine priest and psychologist who has commented extensively on the sex-abuse scandal in the US, has accused Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired Archbishop of Washington, of recruiting seminarians as sexual partners.

The problem of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church "is not generated from the bottom up— that is only from unsuitable candidates—but from the top down— that is from the sexual behaviors of superiors, even bishops and cardinals," Sipe wrote in an open message to Pope Benedict XVI (bio - news).

Sipe said that he had received evidence that several prelates had preyed on adolescents and seminarians. He claimed to have received reports about the homosexual activities of the future Cardinal McCarrick more than 20 years ago, and to have "documents and letters that record first-hand testimony and eyewitness accounts" to support those accounts.

Sipe-- who in the past has charged that the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin also "partied" with seminarians-- said that although other reporters were aware of Cardinal McCarrick's activities in a beach house in New Jersey, "legal documentation has not been available. And even at this point the complete story cannot be published because priest reporters are afraid of reprisals."

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UPDATE: STATEMENT BY RICHARD SIPE