Red, White, and Blue in the Face!

defending child abusers?

Over the past week I’ve had two occasions where I was accused of defending child abusers when what I was doing was defending the Holy Father and the Church.

What did I say? I simply told the truth — the Church always has been, is, and always will be a target for anyone and everyone who wants to do what is right in their own eyes and not what the Church teaches is right. Freedom for them is freedom to do as they please not to do what is right. The awful fact is that many of those who rail against the Church and repeat false and scandalous charges are passing themselves off as Catholic.

Facts are facts and the facts are that despite the likelihood that Catholic priests are actually in the minority of abusers the media reports and the hue and cry make it appear as if Catholic priests are the ONLY abusers! I’m not going to rehash the stats — anyone with an internet connection can get all the stats they need — but I will say this. The fact is that the Church is an easy target and is being heavily targeted by forces that actually believe they can take her down and out. It ain’t gonna happen folks. Those who would have the Church in ruins (whether they pretend to be Catholic or not) are obviously not believers otherwise they’d know the simple truth.

What’s the simple truth? That the Church is the work of Jesus Christ who is its head and who has promised that His Church will prevail until the end of time. And so it will. Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests, Religious, lay, theologians, the good, the bad, the ugly, the saintly, the satanic will all pass away with time but the Church that Christ founded and to whom He willed His Body and Blood will outlast us all.

Shame on us who are so quick to believe the worst — at the first hint of reporting against Pope Benedict most of us never even read the story, just gasped at the headlines and immediately declared the Holy Father’s conviction a done deal. Shame on us for falling victim to and then joining in on the slander and calumny.

Shame on us. Pray, pray that we may not undergo the trial. Pray for the Holy Father for he *is* undergoing the trial.

The Church is beginning a process of purification and healing. The beginnings of  the purification are slowly but surely being seen in Europe and Ireland — Bishops who failed to protect their flocks have resigned, some I’m sure unwillingly, but the evidence has left them no choice. In the United States we’ve seen nothing to indicate the same has happened here but I am praying that before long we will see the resignations of clergy, be they Cardinal or Bishop, who failed to properly shepherd their flocks and, for whatever reason, allowed the wolves to have their way. Pray that anyone responsible for permitting the continued abuse of children who were in the trust or custody of the Church will, if appropriate, be dealt with in the justice system, at the least be made to resign if they do not do so willingly. I fail to find sympathy in the “we were told they could be cured” story. There were those who believed that but there were also those who knew better. Why were the voices of common sense ignored? Why were men allowed to prey and hurt time and time again without being punished, without being removed? I pray the purification will continue and will spread around the world because this is not simply isolated to the U.S., Germany, and Ireland – I am certain more will be revealed and will show that these people were everywhere. But only with a purification will we have healing. When one person wrongs another and the wrong is as serious as these abuses have been the response must be to say you are sorry and to make amends in any way possible. The only way the leadership of the Catholic Church in the United States is going to protect the credibility of the Church is to respond in a way they may well abhor — admit they did wrong and, if their culpability is great enough, resign their positions and retire. Only then will we begin to heal the many wounds the sexual abuse scandal has caused in the Body of Christ, His Church.

The irony in my title concerns an anniversary– the 50th anniversary of “The Pill”. Under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t even have been aware of this “anniversary” but it happened that I saw an op-ed piece in today’s NY Times online (and for the life of me can’t remember why I was even looking at the NY Times in the first place) titled “Promises the Pill Could Never Keep”. The title intrigued me – could this actually be a piece proclaiming the truth about contraception and in the NY Times to boot? Nope, not a chance. Sadly, the woman who wrote the piece hasn’t a clue what “The Pill” has done, the damage it has wrought. Even more, she doesn’t understand that the damage its done and the promises it didn’t keep are merely symptoms of a larger problem. Ironically, the author of this piece celebrates “The Pill” because 

In spite of all the missed predictions, there were at least two people who understood the pill’s revolutionary potential from the beginning: Margaret Sanger, who had first imagined a contraceptive pill in 1912, and Katharine McCormick, a wealthy feminist — both elderly women who had been advocates for women’s rights since the early 20th century, and who teamed up in the 1950s to bring the pill project to fruition. Sanger and McCormick financed the research and found the scientists to conduct it. (emphasis mine)

The irony is that the author completely misses the connection between what’s happening now in the Church and in the world and the results of the release of the “The Pill” onto an unsuspecting world.

May God have mercy on us.

Join the Knights of Columbus in a special novena for Pope Benedict XVI, beginning Divine Mercy Sunday, April 11, and concluding Monday, April 19, the fifth anniversary of the Holy Father’s election in 2005.

Novena for Pope Benedict XVI

4/9/10: Cardinal Newman Society also offering prayers – give a Spiritual Bouquet