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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 19:30:15 GMT -5
Welcome to the nightmare of Medieval European Theocracy: Politics in red robes Bush's attendance at the Pope's funeral merely masks White House exploitation of Catholic division Sidney Blumenthal Thursday April 7, 2005 The Guardian President Bush, a militant evangelical Protestant, has lowered the American flag to half-staff for the first time at the death of a pope. Also for the first time, a US president will attend a papal funeral. Bush's political rhetoric is deliberately inflected with Catholic theological phrases, in particular "the culture of life", words he used to justify his interference in the case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman, the removal of whose feeding tube was upheld 19 times by state and federal courts. In the 2004 election, Bush's campaign helped organise the attack on John Kerry's Catholic authenticity by conservative bishops who threatened to deny him communion. Inside the White House, policy and personnel are coordinated in line with rightwing Catholicism. Not only are issues like international population control, reproductive health and women's rights vetted, but so are appointments. Since the accession of Pope John Paul II, the conservative mobilisation within the American church has been a microcosmic version of the ascendancy of the conservative movement in the country generally. As the authority of the Vatican was marshalled on behalf of the conservatives, the Republican right adopted its position as its own in order to capture Catholic votes. Now the social agendas of conservative Catholics and Republicans are indistinguishable. John Paul II welcomed American democracy as a counter to communism, but he had no experience with democracy of any kind. He envisioned his mission as restoring the authority of the church. America appeared to him as a liberal inferno - its citizens, he lectured American bishops last year, were "hypnotised by materialism, teetering before a soulless vision of the world". The Pope asserted his control over the American church in 1984 with his naming of conservatives Bernard Law and John O'Connor as archbishops of Boston and New York. They became his chief agents. At the same time, the Vatican refused to deal with the elected officers of the US conference of Catholic bishops, who were largely imbued with the spirit of Vatican II. Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago was acknowledged as the leader of the bishops and represented the broad progressive tradition of the American church. He articulated the concept of Catholicism as a "seamless garment" in which abortion was only one among many important issues. In 1994 he announced a common ground initiative, entitled Church in a Time of Peril, calling on the church to overcome its polarisation and suppression of discussion on the issues tearing it apart - from women's changing roles to the fact that many Catholics did not accept most church teachings on sexuality to the declining numbers of priests. Bernardin was a consensus builder and believed he had touched all bases with the Vatican before unveiling his project. But the same day, Cardinal Law, clearly acting with Vatican authority, denounced it: "The fundamental flaw in this document is its appeal for 'dialogue' as a path to 'common ground'. " Bernardin died months later and was replaced by a protege of Law's. In 2002, the Boston Globe ran the first of more than 250 stories on paedophilic molestation by parish priests. Law resisted investigating the sex scandal and faced potential criminal prosecution for his cover-ups. The Pope rescued him with a sinecure in the Vatican. In the aftermath of the sex scandal, conservatives under siege lashed out more ferociously. As they saw it, their failure to overturn the law on abortion demonstrated that they had not been hardline enough. Thus the sex scandal set the stage for the rightwing Catholic offensive on behalf of Bush in the 2004 campaign. With the Pope's death, American Catholics yearn for openness. According to a poll by Gallup, 78% want the next pope to allow Catholics to use birth control; 63% say he should let priests marry; 59% believe he should have a less strict policy on stem cell research; 55% say he should allow women to be priests. But the Republicans are moving aggressively on the conservative social agenda. This week, in Kansas, gay marriage was banned in a referendum. Four states have passed bills permitting pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. The governor of Illinois has issued an emergency order to ensure that pharmacists fill all prescriptions. California's legislature is debating a law to require druggists to do the same. By consolidating power, the Pope believed that he was strengthening the church. Now the conservatives want a post-John Paul papacy to extend his stringency. Others want moderation, openness and discussion. Catholics in America do not now hold the same principle of hope. No one monitors the church's crisis more closely than the White House, and no one plots to exploit its division more ruthlessly. Religion is politics under red robes. So Bush travels to Rome.
· Sidney Blumenthal is former senior adviser to President Clinton and author of The Clinton Wars sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 19:44:27 GMT -5
Vatican Gives Cardinal Law Role of Honor[/size] By RACHEL ZOLL AP Religion Writer April 7, 2005, 1:08 PM EDT VATICAN CITY -- Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned in disgrace as archbishop of Boston over his role in the clergy sex abuse crisis, has been given a role of honor in the mourning for Pope John Paul II. The Vatican announced Thursday he will lead one of the daily Masses celebrated in the pope's memory during the nine-day period that follows the funeral, called Novemdiales. The service will be held Monday at Rome's St. Mary Major Basilica, where Law was appointed archpriest after leaving Boston. Some Roman Catholics in his former archdiocese immediately protested. Suzanne Morse, spokeswoman for Voice of the Faithful, a Massachusetts-based reform group that emerged from the scandal, said Law's visibility since the pope's death has been "extremely painful" both for abuse survivors and rank-and-file Catholics. "It certainly shows and puts a spotlight on the lack of accountability in the Catholic Church, that the most visible bishop in the clergy sexual abuse crisis has been given these honorary opportunities," she said. David Clohessy, national director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called it "terribly insensitive." "It rubs salt into the already deep wounds of victims and it allows the best-documented complicit bishop to exploit the pope's death for his own selfish purposes," Clohessy said. Law did not respond to a phone message left at the basilica. Law stepped down as archbishop within months after a judge unsealed court records in January 2002 that showed he had allowed priests with confirmed histories of molesting children to continue working in parishes. Among the records were letters Law had written to some of the predators expressing support and thanks for their service to the church. Many Boston Catholics already were upset about the pope's decision to appoint him to the basilica. The post is ceremonial but highly visible; the church is one of four basilicas under direct Vatican jurisdiction. Chester Gillis, an expert in Catholicism at Georgetown University, said celebrating a Mass during the mourning period is not only an honor, but a position of influence. In their homilies, cardinals usually indicate what they think are the key issues for the church ahead. Observers scour the speeches for clues to how a cardinal will vote. "This is an ability to express oneself to one's colleagues all at one time," Gillis said. Washington Cardinal Theodore McCarrick said he did not know why Law was chosen, but said it was likely because the basilica is one of the great churches of Rome. "It would be a natural selection," McCarrick said. "The choice was certainly not made for any reason except to honor St. Mary Major." Asked if it was a Vatican signal that Law should be forgiven, McCarrick said, "I think we feel we are all Easter people. ... We look at the light rather than the darkness." The fourth-largest U.S. diocese has been shaken not only by Law's resignation after 18 years, but also by settlements of more than $85 million with more than 550 victims. Law's successor, Archbishop Sean O'Malley, has also had to oversee a series of painful parish closures as the archdiocese adjusts to a shortage of priests and drop in collections. O'Malley, in Rome for the pope's funeral, declined to comment on Law. "We're here to talk about the pope," he said. In Boston, Ronald Lacey, 35, was among those who said Law's resignation as archbishop was irrelevant to his role in memorializing the pope. "I think it was right for him to leave the Archdiocese of Boston. But if he grieves the death of the Holy Father, I think that's right, too," said Lacey, who was attending midday Mass at a downtown church.
Associated Press writer Mark Jewell in Boston contributed to this report. Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 19:52:56 GMT -5
A Moral, Abject Failure When It Mattered Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005 by GUSTAVO ARELLANO Let’s cut the beatitudes: Pope John Paul II was a moral, abject failure when it mattered. Screw his ecumenical efforts. Never mind his opposition to communism. Forget his apologies for the horrors that the Roman Catholic Church inflicted upon so many of the world’s innocent throughout two millennia. All those “breakthroughs” were inevitable, none of them particularly revolutionary, the media spectacles surrounding each vanity and striving after the wind. Pay attention to the times when the pope, who died on April 2, had the opportunity to right the Catholic Church in the here and now. Pay attention to the Americas. In two of the more profound matters to affect Roman Catholicism during his 25-year reign—the struggle of liberation theology in Latin America during the 1980s and the sex-abuse scandal in the United States—the man born Karol Wojtyla did worse than nothing: he comforted the comfortable and afflicted the afflicted. This supposed champion of the oppressed, this Vicar of Christ, consistently supported the church where it aligned itself with the despots of the Americas. Last year, he allowed American bishops to publicly declare Democratic presidential nominee and Catholic John Kerry unfit to receive Communion, a blatantly political stance to sway numerous Catholics toward the Republican Party. In Mexico, John Paul II canonized 26 people associated with the Cristeros revolt, the 1920s movement in which the Catholic Church, infuriated by the Mexican government’s call to surrender its extensive land holdings, organized parishioners against the government. But John Paul II’s most egregious sin was committed in Latin America. There, during the 1960s, Catholics married Marx’s paean to the working class with Jesus’ radical notion that “the meek shall inherit the Earth.” With the advent of this liberation theology, the Latin American faithful sighed in relief: the Roman Catholic hierarchy—which had aligned itself with the ruling class in the New World since the time of Columbus—would finally fuse the light of heaven with the struggle of Earth. Now the Church would join the oppressed rather than merely bathe their wounds with the promise of salvation in the afterlife. The Latin American gentry, understandably, became furious and called upon the United States for funds and troops—the infamous contras and death squads. Soon came the murders of priests, nuns, brothers, parishioners, even bishops—any Catholic who dared question social inequity. But rather than reprimand these right-wing governments and their henchmen, John Paul II choked the life out of liberation theology. He removed priests and bishops who bravely stood against the marauding forces. In one famous incident, he reprimanded Nicaraguan priest Ernesto Cardenal on national television for his support of the Sandinistas over the Reagan-backed contras and scolded into silence a crowd of parishioners who shouted, “¡Queremos la paz!” (“We want peace!”) John Paul II’s defenders will claim that his opposition to liberation theology wasn’t because it loved the poor too much, but rather because of its relationship to Marxism, which Wojtyla suffered through as a young priest in Poland. They’ll even point out that John Paul II would visit the tomb of Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero, the most prominent practitioner of liberation theology, who was shot through the heart by a government sniper’s bullet while saying Mass in 1980. At Romero’s shrine in 1983, the pontiff remarked the bishop was a “zealous and venerated pastor who tried to stop violence. I ask that his memory be always respected and let no ideological interest try to distort his sacrifice as a pastor given over to his flock.” But that was all flapping lips. While Romero lived, John Paul II reprimanded him thrice in private, once even asking him to align himself with the Salvadoran dictatorship; Romero refused, calling such a request “unjust.” Shortly after Romero died, a Washington Post columnist gasped that “the pope’s outrage was so muted that it was taken as a political statement of its own.” And while John Paul II rewarded other, lesser Catholics with sainthood, Romero isn’t so much as beatified, even though his shrine in San Salvador includes crutches, photographs, testimonies—the witness of thousands. When the opportunity was there, John Paul II spat on the graves of martyrs. Consider Fernando Saenz Lacalle, a member of the ultra-conservative Catholic lay organization Opus Dei. In 1996, John Paul II appointed Lacalle as the archbishop of San Salvador, the very position Romero once held. Shortly after assuming the bishopric, Lacalle accepted the post of honorary brigadier general in the Salvadoran military—the very military that covered up the rape and murder of four American nuns in 1980. When Pope John Paul II visited the country in 1996 for Lacalle’s installation, both refused to visit the tomb of six Jesuits murdered by the Salvadoran military in one gruesome night in 1989. Most outrageously, Lacalle asked for and received a $2 million donation for a brand-new cathedral from the Republican Nationalist Alliance (known by its Spanish acronym, ARENA), the coalition whose founder, Roberto D’Aubuisson, allegedly ordered Romero’s assassination personally and routinely declared his admiration for Hitler. “While the church seeks the political, social and economic liberation of the downtrodden, its primary goal is the spiritual one of liberation from evil,” the Vatican said in a 1986 statement. By then, its inaction had already led to the murders of hundreds of thousands of Central Americans and the forced migrations of millions. More tellingly, the withdrawal of the Roman Catholic Church from an active role in the Latin American struggles of the 1980s led to a region-wide exodus into Protestantism that continues to this day. Shortly after the pope’s 1996 visit, one Salvadoran Jesuit summed up John Paul II’s influence over Latin America in an open letter to one of his slain fellow Jesuits: “Our church has changed, Ellacu. I don’t know if you would recognize in her the church of Monsignor Romero, the church that gave voice to the voiceless and the one that reminded us of Jesus of Nazareth. . . . She doesn’t cause many stirs anymore. The powerful don’t feel she is a threat, and I don’t know if the poor find in her help and refuge. I think our church is seen more often than necessary standing beside the powerful of this world.” Closer to home, Catholics should remember John Paul II’s ignorance of what’s shaping up to be his Church’s spiritual genocide—the priestly sex-abuse scandal. His defenders will mention that what the pope told the 12 American cardinals who visited the Vatican in 2002—“There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young”—was penance enough. That was too little, too late. By then, the pope already knew. He knew as early as 1985, when Tom Doyle, a priest with the Vatican Embassy in Washington, helped author a confidential report alerting American Catholic officials about the pederast storm on the horizon. He knew as early as 1990 that bishops were advising one another to send potentially incriminating documents to the Apostolic Delegate, the papal representative to the Catholic Church in the United States, because the office has diplomatic immunity. He knew in 1993, when he first addressed the American sex-abuse scandal by accusing the media of treating his prelates’ cover-up “as an occasion for sensationalism.” He knew! Last year , he propped up former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law with a cushy job in St. Peter’s Square—the same Law who resigned in 2002 lest the feds make him sing about his role in the rape of children! John Paul II opposed the zero-tolerance policies that American bishops installed in 2002 to ensure that child rapists would never officiate over Mass again! John Paul II never removed scoundrels such as Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony and Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown from their posts despite their active shielding of child-molesting priests from the law. In fact, many of these scoundrels—demons such as Mahony, Law and the entirety of the United States’ delegation of cardinals—will vote soon on John Paul II’s successor, ensuring that their patron’s twisted policies will endure.
In my cubicle, I have a silver medallion of Pope John Paul II—of course I do. But I place it in a specific spot—away from my rosary, away from a Virgin of Guadalupe Christmas display, away from my statue of the Santo Niño de Atocha, away from my baptism photo. I keep the medallion directly above an excerpt from the Book of Gomorrah, the landmark study by Saint Damian in which he warned Pope Leo IX of the sex-abuse scandal in the 11th Century. One passage sticks out in particular: For Truth says, “Whoever scandalizes one of these little ones, it were better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Unless the strength of the Apostolic See intervenes as soon as possible, there is not doubt but that this unbridled wickedness, even though it should wish to be restrained, will be unable to stop on its headlong course. And on this note, Pope John Paul II meets Christ.
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 20:09:38 GMT -5
TheBostonChannel.com
Pope's Death Brightens Spotlight On Cardinal Law
Former Archbishop To Help Choose Next PopePOSTED: 6:08 pm EDT April 4, 2005 UPDATED: 6:41 pm EDT April 4, 2005 BOSTON -- Included in the 117 men who will choose the successor of John Paul II is Cardinal Bernard Law. Amalia Barreda Reports On Cardinal NewsCenter 5's Amalia Barreda reported Monday that the former archbishop of Boston spent his final months in the city giving a series of depositions in the clergy abuse crisis. For those who blame him for much of the scandal, Law's re-emergence in Rome has led to renewed criticism of his role in the Catholic Church. "I think it would be a major mistake to try to clone him because that's not going to happen," Law said. Nearly two and a half years after resigning, Law is suddenly in the spotlight again. After paying his respects to the pope this weekend, he spoke about the man who made him a prince of the church. "Even if people disagreed with him, they respected him," Law said. "It's appalling to me that he's right in front and center, making comments about the pope and his papacy," sex abuse survivor Ann Hagan Webb said. Webb is a psychologist who specializes in counseling priest sex abuse survivors like herself. She said that she is avoiding coverage from the Vatican of the pope's funeral and all that precedes it. She said that the role of Law and many of his colleagues in the clergy sex abuse crisis is not something that can be glossed over by the pomp and circumstance. "It's just a travesty that he protected priests at the expense of children for years and so did many of the cardinals in the United States and around the world," she said. Law is going to be part of the process to choose a new pope. "I think it’s an embarrassment for many of the cardinals. They won't say so publicly I suspect, but it is an embarrassment for the institutional church," Voice of the Faithful spokesman Jim Post said.
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 20:33:32 GMT -5
HoustonChronicle.com -- www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Viewpoints, Outlook April 5, 2005, 10:13PMTime will tell about the enthusiastic condemner
The pope's 'tradition' will ultimately decide his legacy By THOMAS CAHILLWith the news media awash in encomiums to the indisputable greatness of Pope John Paul II, isn't it time to ask to which tradition he belonged? Partisans unfamiliar with Christian history may judge this a strange question. Why, they may answer, he belonged to the Catholic tradition, of course. But there is no single Catholic tradition; there are rather Catholic traditions, which range from the voluntary poverty of St. Francis of Assisi to the boundless greed of the Avignon popes, from the genial tolerance for diversity of Pope Gregory the Great in the sixth century to the egomaniacal self-importance of Pope Pius IX in the 19th century, from the secrecy and plotting of Opus Dei to the openness and humane service of the Community of Sant'Egidio. Over its 2,000-year history, Roman Catholicism has provided a fertile field for an immense variety of papal traditions. Despite his choice of name, John Paul II shared little with his immediate predecessors. John Paul I lasted slightly more than a month, but in that time we were treated to a typical Italian of moderating tendencies, one who had even, before his election, congratulated the parents of the world's first test-tube baby — not a gesture that resonated with the church's fundamentalists, who still insist on holding the line against anything that smacks of tampering with nature, an intellectual construct far removed from what ordinary people mean by that word. Paul VI, though painfully cautious, allowed the appointment of bishops (and especially archbishops and cardinals) who were the opposite of yes men, outspoken champions of the poor and oppressed and truly representative of the parts of the world they came from, like Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who tried so hard at the end of his life to find common ground within a church rent by division.
In contrast, Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston rebuked the dying Bernardin for this effort because, as Law insisted, the church knows the truth and is therefore exempt from anything as undignified as dialogue.
Law, who had to resign after revelations that he had repeatedly allowed priests accused of sexual abuse to remain in the ministry while failing to inform either law enforcement officials or parishioners, must stand as the characteristic representative of John Paul II, protective of the church but often dismissive of the moral requirement to protect and cherish human beings.John Paul II has been almost the polar opposite of John XXIII, who dragged Catholicism to confront 20th-century realities after the regressive policies of Pius IX, who imposed the peculiar doctrine of papal infallibility on the First Vatican Council in 1870, and after the reign of terror inflicted by Pius X on Catholic theologians in the opening decades of the 20th century. Unfortunately, this pope was much closer to the traditions of Pius IX and Pius X than to his namesakes.Instead of mitigating the absurdities of Vatican I's novel declaration of papal infallibility, a declaration that stemmed almost wholly from Pius IX's paranoia about the evils ranged against him in the modern world, John Paul II tried to further it.In seeking to impose conformity of thought, he summoned prominent theologians like Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx and Leonardo Boff to star chamber inquiries and had his grand inquisitor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issue condemnations of their work.But John Paul II's most lasting legacy to Catholicism will come from the episcopal appointments he made. In order to have been named a bishop, a priest must have been seen to be absolutely opposed to masturbation, premarital sex, birth control (including condoms used to prevent the spread of AIDS), abortion, divorce, homosexual relations, married priests, female priests and any hint of Marxism.It is nearly impossible to find men who subscribe wholeheartedly to this entire catalogue of certitudes; as a result the ranks of the episcopate are filled with mindless sycophants and intellectual incompetents. The good priests have been passed over; and not a few, in their growing frustration as the pontificate of John Paul II stretched on, left the priesthood to seek fulfillment elsewhere.The situation is dire. Anyone can walk into a Catholic church on a Sunday and see pews, once filled to bursting, now sparsely populated with gray heads. And there is no other solution for the church but to begin again, as if it were the church of the catacombs, an oddball minority sect in a world of casual cruelty and unbending empire that gathered adherents because it was so unlike the surrounding society. Back then, the church called itself by the Greek word ekklesia, the word the Athenians used for their wide open assembly, the world's first participatory democracy. ( The Apostle Peter, to whom the Vatican awards the title of first pope, was one of many leaders in the primitive church, as far from an absolute monarch as could be, a man whose most salient characteristic was his frequent and humble confession that he was wrong.) In using ekklesia to describe their church, the early Christians meant to emphasize that their society within a society acted not out of political power but only out of the power of love, love for all as equal children of God.But they went much further than the Athenians, for they permitted no restrictions on participation: no citizens and noncitizens, no Greeks and non-Greeks, no patriarchs and submissive females. For, as St. Paul put it repeatedly, "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; for all are one in Christ Jesus."Sadly, John Paul II represented a different tradition, one of aggressive papalism. Whereas John XXIII endeavored simply to show the validity of church teaching rather than to issue condemnations, John Paul II was an enthusiastic condemner.Yes, he will surely be remembered as one of the few great political figures of our age, a man of physical and moral courage more responsible than any other for bringing down the oppressive, antihuman communism of Eastern Europe. But he was not a great religious figure. How could he be? He may, in time to come, be credited with destroying his church. Cahill is the author of "How the Irish Saved Civilization," "Pope John XXIII" and, most recently, "Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter."
This article is: www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3120211
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 20:41:58 GMT -5
www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/11333869.htm....But John Paul's concern for the young was undermined by his failure to address - and more important, to stop - the rape and molestation of children and others at the hands of those charged with carrying out the church's ministry. That failure was further exacerbated by his deputies covering up those horrific crimes, which the pope himself described as a "grave delict" against God. In the United States particularly, the scandal has been widely documented. But it also has been pandemic in Austria, Ireland, Great Britain, Australia and other nations. We fear that it is perhaps even more widespread and devastating - if that is possible - in the developing countries of the world where John Paul spent so much of his time and compassion. The fact that senior U.S. churchmen have led the cover-up of this scandal has deeply shaken the trust of the American laity. Sadly, the still largely recalcitrant and unrepentant leaders of this campaign include some of the very men now gathering in Rome to choose John Paul II's successor: Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Francis George of Chicago, Adam Maida of Detroit, Edward Egan of New York, Theodore McCarrick of Washington and William Keeler of Baltimore.Just how involved in the scandal are they? Right now, McCarrick and Keeler are fighting Maryland legislation that would help safeguard children from molesters. Mahony, Egan and Rigali are waging expensive protracted legal battles to keep evidence of abusive priests and complicit bishops under wraps. These are hardly the prelates who can restore the flagging confidence of the public and parishioners in the church hierarchy.Perhaps most inexcusably, America's cardinals will be joined and lobbied at the conclave by the "poster child" of complicit church leaders: Cardinal Bernard Law, formerly of Boston. The Vatican bureaucrats who installed Law in a place of honor at the center of the church have undercut the pope and rubbed salt into the already deep wounds caused by offending priests and their too-often insensitive supervisors.It was not until 2001 that John Paul made a public condemnation of the sexual abuse of nuns by clergy and another year before he addressed similar crimes against children in what was by then a decades-old but rapidly surfacing controversy. He called American church leaders to the Vatican for an emergency summit, and told them that there is "no place in the priesthood for those who would harm the young." The pope went on to say that abuse is "rightly considered a crime by society; it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God." Yet even with those words, the measures proposed to stem the outrage in America were issued only as "particular law" - church doctrine applying to the U.S. bishops alone, and then only for a limited time. Clearly, this is not the long-term solution to a catastrophe that has caused so much pain worldwide. Church officials can best honor this pope's legacy by applying his sentiments to their own dioceses, and by acting on "zero tolerance," not merely mouthing the words. John Paul II's successor can best honor his legacy by following up strong public statements with tangible actions that will heal the wounded and protect the vulnerable. The survival of the church - especially its children - depends on it.
ABOUT THE WRITER David Clohessy of St. Louis is the national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. He wrote this commentary for the Duluth (Minn.) News Tribune. He can be reached through the group's web site at www.SNAPnetwork.org.
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Post by Moses on Apr 7, 2005 21:24:18 GMT -5
Apr 6, 9:16 AM EDTColo. Governor Vetoes Rape Bill [/size] DENVER (AP) -- Gov. Bill Owens vetoed a bill that would have required hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception, saying it would have forced church-backed institutions to violate their own ethics guidelines. Owens, a Roman Catholic Republican who has campaigned on conservative values, said the measure was well-intentioned but probably unconstitutional and did not provide victims with balanced information needed to make a deeply personal decision. "Without informed consent, a woman could innocently violate her personal, moral and religious beliefs about when life begins," Owens said Tuesday. State Rep. Fran Coleman said she was disappointed. "This was about emergency contraception. Rape victims didn't ask for that procreation," said Coleman. The measure passed 46-19 in the House and 22-13 in the Senate, with a number of Republicans crossing party lines to support it. It did not have enough support for the two-thirds vote needed in each house to override the veto.Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput objected to the bill because it did not require rape victims to be told that some medications stop a fertilized egg from being implanted, which he says amounts to abortion. He said the church does not object to rape victims taking steps to prevent ovulation when there is no risk to a fertilized egg.
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Post by karpomrx on Apr 7, 2005 22:24:44 GMT -5
When I am reminded of the character types that hold responsible positions in this society, I am almost made to weep in despair. How can any person give credence to people that think like this? What twisted logic grips the mind of any who would deny medical attention to a victim of violent attack? God must weep.
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Post by Moses on Apr 8, 2005 10:21:55 GMT -5
9:52am Bush says Pope was a great man. 10:19am Bush calls Pope a ‘champion of freedom.’ 11:23am Bush says "A good and faithful servant of God has been called home." 12:03pm Bush Calls Pope 'An Inspiration to Us All.' 1:15pm Bush: Pope "champion of peace and freedom." 1:45pm Pope 'a champion of human dignity -- Bush. 2:37pm Bush says: 'Pope called for culture of life.' bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2005/04/news_as_spectac.html
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Post by Moses on Apr 10, 2005 7:23:39 GMT -5
www.nytimes.com/2005/04/10/international/worldspecial2/10cardinals.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print&position=....With all but 3 of the 117 cardinal electors selected by John Paul, it is highly unlikely that the new pope will depart from his conservatism on contraception, divorce, women as priests or the range of what the church considers to be "sanctity of life" issues, from stem cell research to abortion and euthanasia. ...One man who fits many of the current criteria is Cardinal Dionigi Tettamanzi, 71, the archbishop of Milan. He reminds many Italian Catholics of an earlier much-beloved pope, John XXIII, with his plump appearance and his warmth. He is a son of the working class, and spoke in support of antiglobalization protesters in 2001 at the meeting of major industrialized nations in Genoa, where he told the thousands of demonstrators, "One African child sick with AIDS counts more than the entire universe." He is also a conservative intellectual, close to Opus Dei, who is said to have helped John Paul write several key encyclicals. He has published a book on bioethics, an expertise that would be crucial for the next pope. Another whose name is often mentioned is Claudio Hummes, the archbishop of São Paulo who speaks five languages and looks much younger than his 70 years. Brazil has the largest number of Catholics of any country, but the church is facing a serious challenge from the Protestant evangelical movement. As a bishop early on, he opposed Brazil's military government and backed striking workers. Since then, he has grown more conservative and once chastised a priest for suggesting that condoms should be used to fight AIDS....the church's ban on artificial contraception was reinforced by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Humanae Vitae. A reporter asked Cardinal Francis George of Chicago in a news conference last week whether the church would consider approving the use of condoms to prevent AIDS in places like Africa.
"Your solution is to exterminate the poor?" he said, referring to the births that contraception would prevent. "The doctrine of the church isn't going to change, and so you work with it as best as you can." Despite the growing consensus that they need a communicator, there is always a chance that other factors will significantly sway the cardinals' choice. They may opt for an older interim figure, someone who would help the church pause for breath in the aftermath of one of history's longest and most eventful papacies. A candidate for that role would be Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who worked closely with John Paul for 24 years as the chief overseer of church theology and is deeply respected for his learning and decisiveness. He is also the dean of the cardinals, effectively their chairman and guiding force, and is one of only three cardinal electors who have ever attended a conclave. But age may hurt. Cardinal Ratzinger turns 78 on Saturday. "This is a very strong personality, of great intelligence, faith and openness," Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski told Reuters. "The problem is his advanced age." Perhaps a young, vigorous man would be attractive, after so many years of the world seeing an increasingly ailing John Paul. The Viennese archbishop, Christoph Schönborn, 60, fits that bill. He is the fourth youngest of the cardinals, widely respected for being learned and articulate. The scion of an aristocratic family with numerous clerical members over the centuries, Cardinal Schönborn is well-thought of for how he handled the sex scandals that shamed his predecessor. But some fault him for showing coldness in handling his staff and for reacting poorly to a dispute with another Austrian bishop. He belongs to the Dominican religious order. Francis Arinze, 72, of Nigeria, who is also heavily involved in relations with Muslims, is a perennial favorite. Cardinal Arinze has been a Vatican official for 20 years, and is head of the department regulating worship and the sacramental practice. He converted to Catholicism at the age of 9. While his spiritual credentials are strong, critics have said he lacks imagination. His language can be strong. A year ago he said that a Roman Catholic politician who supports abortion "is not fit" to receive communion, and he has criticized homosexuality as having "mocked" the family.
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Post by Moses on Apr 10, 2005 13:25:49 GMT -5
Fear of hardliner pope10/04/2005 18:39 - (SA) Vatican City - Public disappointment with the choice of cardinals electing a successor to John Paul II could be great if the next pope is a hardliner, as seems likely because the majority of the college of cardinal electors is conservative, Vatican watchers warn. "All popes must be conservative," Chilean Cardinal Jorge Arturo Medina explained on his arrival for John Paul II's funeral and the conclave that is to elect the next pope. "A pope cannot be a liberal as far as Church doctrine is concerned," he said. John Paul II named 114 of the 117 electors in the college. His ultra-conservative views on celibacy, contraception and homosexuality included a refusal to back the use of condoms which may have helped Aids ravage Africa, but he was extremely innovative in other areas. Reportedly following a request by Joseph Ratzinger, the influential dean of the College of Cardinals, the "princes of the Church" agreed unanimously Saturday not to give interviews to the media ahead of their conclave whose start has been set for April 18. Ratzinger, who will be 78 on Saturday, is the head of the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and celebrated the funeral mass for John Paul II on Friday. With the backing of powerful Italian Cardinal Camillo Ruini, 74, Ratzinger, who is German, has been fighting ideas brought forward by the leader of the Roman Catholic Church's pro-reform wing, Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, the 78-year-old former bishop of Milan. "If their views prevail at the conclave, many of the events of John Paul II's papacy will never be repeated," said Sandro Magister, a respected Italian Vatican watcher. "Camillo Ruini, in a speech made in Lublin, Poland in October 2002, identified a certain number of actions that should never happen again," he said. "Among them are the ecumenical encounters at Assisi (central Italy), the 'mea culpa', the many trips, the huge mass rallies and the many sanctifications and beatifications," he added. Magister noted that John Paul II drew a lot of criticism for calling the ecumenical meetings promoting Christian unity and for his apologies to other faiths, such as Jews and the Greek Orthodox Church. Another Vatican watcher, Giancarlo Zizola, said the pope's fiercest critic was Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, the 76-year-old archbishop of the northern Italian city of Bologna. Biffi has spoken out against the pope's decision to ask for forgiveness for mistakes made by the Roman Catholic Church in the past and to launch inter-religious dialogue in general. Ratzinger and Ruini are often cited as possible "papabili" - men who could be pope - but many Italian Vatican watchers see them more as popemakers. "The hardliners count many Latin American cardinals among their ranks such as Dario Castrillon Hoyos of Colombia, his compatriot Alfonso Lopez Trujillo and Jorge Arturo Medina of Chile," said Zizola. They are being supported by Catholic movements like Opus Dei, Communion and Liberation, which have become more influential during the 26-year papacy of John Paul II. "The coalition between some electors of the Curia (the Vatican government) and the fundamentalist wing may be heterogenous but they do agree on a program of authoritarian restoration," he said. This program wants ecumenical dialogue - between Christian denominations - and inter-religious dialogue, such as talks with Muslims and Jews, to be conditional on a clear reaffirmation that only the Roman Catholic Church holds the truth and is the world's supreme moral authority, said Zizola. Ratzinger couldn't agree more. "The more a religion conforms to the world, the more it becomes superfluous," he said in an interview with the conservative Italian news magazine Panorama six months ago.
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Post by Moses on Apr 10, 2005 18:41:55 GMT -5
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Post by Moses on Apr 11, 2005 9:00:04 GMT -5
U.S. Victims of Abuse Slam Vatican Over Cardinal Law35 minutes ago
By Claudia Parsons ROME (Reuters) - A group of U.S. victims of child abuse by priests said on Monday the Catholic Church was "rubbing salt in an open wound" by allowing the cardinal they hold responsible to say a memorial mass for the Pope. <br> Cardinal Bernard Law was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002 over the abuse scandal. He was blamed for allowing priests known to have sexually abused minors to be moved from parish to parish instead of being sacked. "He is like the poster child for the sex abuse scandal," said Barbara Blaine who came to Rome to represent some 5,600 members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "He appears to be the most complicit bishop in transferring abusive priests from one place to another," she told Reuters in an interview after arriving from Chicago to protest at Monday's Mass presided over by Law. "It is very painful -- his image brings out all this hurt and pain and devastation." "There are thousands of victims that might not have been abused had Law acted appropriately," she said. Blaine, who says she was abused by her parish priest from 1969 to 1974, said for Law to take on such a prominent role in the mourning rites for the Pope was like "rubbing salt in an open wound" for thousands of victims of abuse by priests. "At this extremely significant and painful time for Catholics and victims ... they should not have to be confronting this sex abuse scandal," she said. Even if protocol dictated Law should preside at the mass, he should have recused himself out of sensitivity for the victims, she said. ABUSED AT SCHOOL Barbara Dorris, who was abused by the priest at her school from the age of six and now runs a support group for other victims in St. Louis, looked tense as the dome of St. Peter's Basilica came into view on the drive into Rome. She said it was bad enough that Law had been "rewarded" by the appointment as Archpriest of St. Mary Major in Rome, but to see him preside at the important mass on Monday gave the impression that the Church valued him more than the victims. "We feel it intimidates victims into silence," she said, adding that it had taken years for her to break her silence about the abuse -- she only did so when she was working as a teacher herself and discovered a priest abusing children. She said one woman she spoke to had never told her husband in 40 years of marriage and was still unable to discuss her experience except in the support group. "She just wanted to tell her story once before she died," Dorris said. The two women planned to protest outside St. Peter's on Monday with supporters in the hope of doing something to persuade the Catholic Church to do more to stop abuse which Blaine said she believed was still happening around the world. "The abuse is so devastating to the victims that we never get over it," Blaine said. "Most of our members are haunted by this every day, so the only thing to do is to prevent any more abuse happening." "When the Cardinals are choosing a new pope we want them to recognize and consider the fact that the sex abuse scandal will be part of the new Papacy," she added.
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Post by Moses on Apr 12, 2005 9:06:03 GMT -5
Chicagoan's protest turns into frenzy [/size] April 12, 2005 VATICAN CITY -- As Barbara Blaine stepped out of the driving rain and over the border from Rome into Vatican City on Monday to seek shelter under the Bernini columns of St. Peter's Square, she was greeted by a horde of journalists recklessly wielding cameras and a clap of thunder of biblical proportions. Then, as they say, all hell broke loose. A scrum of more than 50 reporters -- most Italians or other Europeans -- surrounded Blaine, founder of the support group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who had come to the Vatican to protest former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law's celebration of a requiem mass honoring Pope John Paul II on Monday evening. As the crowd surged, and Blaine, a petite Chicago attorney who says she was sexually abused by a parish priest in Ohio when she was in middle school, disappeared beneath menacing camera lenses, Italian police swept in and formed a human chain around her. Shouting and pushing at the crowd of reporters to get back, at least a half-dozen uniformed police officers shuffled Blaine to the curb on the street just outside St. Peter's Square and deposited her back over the border into Rome. "I don't know where that came from," Blaine said a few hours later as she sat having dinner, still soggy from the rain and a little shaken from the experience. "We're afraid to go back. But we're going to do something. We just don't know what." 'So much outrage'Blaine and Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP's national coordinator for outreach, had flown to Rome on Monday morning with the intention of passing out fliers to tourists outside St. Peter's Basilica, where Law, the disgraced former archbishop of Boston whose missteps many blame for launching the clergy sex-abuse scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, was the main celebrant at one of nine requiem masses for John Paul. "There was so much outrage pouring in to the [SNAP] office . . . that we thought we had to speak out," Blaine said. "We believe Cardinal Law should take a position where he is in the background." Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston in December 2002 in the wake of revelations that he had knowingly moved pedophile priests from parish to parish without warning parents, now lives in Rome, where in 2004 John Paul appointed him archpriest of St. Mary Major, one of the city's most prominent basilicas. "We are the sons and daughters of the Catholic family who were raped, sodomized and sexually abused," Blaine said. "We should be able to focus on the Holy Father's death, instead of Cardinal Law's prominence. "He is the equivalent of the poster child for the sex abuse scandal," she said. "When Cardinal Law was asked to say this liturgy . . . he should have recused himself." Blaine, who didn't get a chance to distribute her fliers before police stepped in, said the other American cardinals should have intervened to stop Law from saying the requiem mass. Law, like all of the other 115 cardinals assembled in Rome to elect a new pope during the conclave that begins April 18, is not talking. They are said to have a gentleman's agreement not to talk to media until after the conclave. False reports of arrestBlaine and Dorris attended part of the requiem mass, where Law read his simple homily in Italian and led the service from beneath the magnificent bronze baldacchino over the papal altar. "It was just sad," Blaine said. "What is such a beautiful place and this solemn occasion to honor the memory of the Holy Father, and in the middle of all of that is Cardinal Law." Despite some apparent media reports -- including one that panicked her husband back in Chicago -- Blaine was not arrested during her attempted protest outside the basilica. In fact, she said, the Italian police were very kind. <br>
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Post by Moses on Apr 13, 2005 7:19:02 GMT -5
April 13, 2005
Acclaiming John Paul as a Saint Gains Advocates in High Places
By DANIEL J. WAKIN
ROME, April 12 - The cardinals electing a successor to Pope John Paul II are facing unusual popular pressure to declare him a saint, with some cardinals responding through deft messages, press leaks and internal lobbying. The canonization campaign may even be playing a role in the succession politics. Calls for sainthood began almost immediately after the pope died on April 2 and reached a peak at his funeral on Friday, when mourners in St. Peter's Square held banners saying, "Santo Subito," or "Saint at Once," and chanted, "Santo, Santo." Reports of miraculous cures through his intervention poured in. Several Italian newspapers reported that the Vatican had quietly been collecting messages from people attesting to healings attributed to him. Luigi Accattoli, one of the most respected Vatican reporters, wrote in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera that a petition had already been circulated among the cardinals seeking signatures for a fast-track canonization process for John Paul. The usual process involves years of careful investigation, and it sometimes takes centuries for the final declaration. Several cardinals confirmed that the idea of rapid canonization was discussed the day after the pope's funeral at their daily meeting. If John Paul is canonized, he will be only the fourth pope to be so honored in 900 years. According to some, an early hint of the effort came when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany closed his eulogy at John Paul's funeral. He said, "We can be sure that our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the Father's house." Two Italian cardinals made similar statements in recent homilies. While to some ears the phrase was typical of a Catholic eulogy, Vittorio Messori, an Italian writer who collaborated on the pope's 1994 book "Crossing the Threshold of Hope," said it was evocative of sainthood. "If he is in paradise, he is a saint," Mr. Messori said. Cardinal Francesco Marchesano evoked the idea of miraculous healing. He said that when he had been in the hospital for an operation on his carotid artery and lost his voice, John Paul caressed his throat and said: "The Lord will give back your voice. You will see. I will say a prayer for you.'" Cardinal Camillo Ruini spoke of "the certainty of his new, mysterious and luminous presence." The death of a pope often has prompted calls for canonization, but what is striking now is their volume and rapidity, and the fact that cardinals are stepping forward so quickly. "All the cardinals want to wrap themselves in the mantle of John Paul II," said Christopher M. Bellitto, a history professor at Kean University in Union, N.J. "Putting forth his name for canonization is one part of that." The movement for canonization may be tied to pre-conclave maneuvering. According to this interpretation, it is an effort to build a consensus of like-minded cardinals, or even to position one of John Paul's inner circle as the best successor. The theory is that only someone of great weight, like a Cardinal Ratzinger or Cardinal Ruini, someone close to the pope or his thinking, could follow a man of such spiritual magnitude.Emphasizing canonization is an effort to show that "only continuity is allowed in the succession of John Paul," said Alberto Melloni, a historian of Vatican conclaves. Hans Kung, a prominent Swiss theologian who has been at odds with the Vatican, said a move to push for sainthood was a means of pressing the cardinals to choose a successor in line with the pope's conservative thinking.He was quoted on Monday by Reuters as saying, "A campaign for Pope John Paul's beatification, inspired and engineered by the Vatican, is in full swing, and it will try to smother all internal criticism." Beatification is a major step toward canonization. According to Mr. Accattoli, the Corriere reporter, the cardinals are divided about pushing for sainthood, with some arguing that it would be better to show prudence and let the canonization process run its normal course. During the cardinals' meeting on Saturday, Cardinal Ratzinger, dean of the cardinals, called on Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, who headed the Vatican department in charge of creating saints under John Paul.Cardinal Saraiva Martins noted there was an ancient custom of allowing sanctification by public acclamation. But he said church rules now held that five years must pass before a candidacy can begin. He noted that the next pope could speed up the time frame, as John Paul had done for Mother Teresa. John Paul made more saints, 483, than all of his predecessors put together. Moving to canonize popes is a tricky business, because it gives rise to comparisons among them, casts attention on parts of papal legacies that raised debate - like Pius XII's record regarding the Jews in World War II - and can be interpreted as the seal of approval for their policies. Since about 1100, only three popes have been canonized: the 13th-century Pope Celestine V, the 16th-century Pope Pius V, and Pope Pius X, who died in 1914, according to "Making Saints" by Kenneth L. Woodward. John Paul beatified the 19th-century Pope Pius IX, as well as Pope John XXIII. A group of cardinals, during the Second Vatican Council, which Pope John had set in motion, campaigned to have him acclaimed a saint shortly after his death in 1963 as a way to seal his efforts to modernize the church, but they were turned down by Pope Paul VI.
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