September 24, 2018

VATICAN: Pope Francis Blames The Sex Abuse Scandal On Satan, The "Great Accuser". 😦 American Cardinals Want Vatican Investigation Into Ex-Cardinal Accused Of Groping Teenage Boy.

SHAME ON YOU for protecting the pedophiles! 😠
Vatican News
written by Staff
Tuesday September 11, 2018

At Mass in the Casa Santa Marta on Tuesday, Pope Francis invites bishops to overcome the "Great Accuser", who seeks to create scandal, through prayer, humility, and nearness to God’s people.

In his homily at Mass on Tuesday morning, Pope Francis said it seems the "Great Accuser" is attacking the bishops of the Catholic Church to create scandal.

The Pope invited the bishops to remember three things in these troubled times: their strength lies in being men of prayer; they should have the humility to remember they are chosen by God; and they need to remain close to the people.

He reflected on the day’s Gospel (Lk 6:12-19), in which Jesus spends the night in prayer before choosing the Twelve Apostles, whom the Pope called “the first bishops”.

Men of prayer

Pope Francis said bishops must first of all be men of prayer. Prayer, he said, “is a bishop’s consolation in difficult times,” since they know that “Jesus is praying for me and for all bishops.”

The Pope said this will bring consolation and strength to bishops, who are then called to pray for themselves and the people of God. This, the Holy Father said, is a bishop’s first duty.

Humility of being chosen by God

Next, Pope Francis invited bishops to be humble, because they are chosen by God.

“The bishop who loves Jesus is not trying to climb a ladder, advancing his vocation as if it were a mere task or seeking a better placement or promotion. No. A bishop feels chosen, and has the certainty of being chosen. This drives him to speak with the Lord: ‘You chose me, of little importance, a sinner.’ He is humble, because he feels chosen and feels Jesus’ gaze upon his whole being. This gives him strength.”

Remain close to the people

Lastly, Pope Francis said bishops are called to be close to the people of God, and not shut up in an ivory tower.

“The bishop cannot remain distant from the people; he cannot have attitudes that take him away from them… He doesn’t try to find refuge with the powerful or elite. No. The ‘elites’ criticize bishops, while the people has an attitude of love towards the bishop. This is almost a special unction that confirms the bishop in his vocation.”

'Great Accuser' seeks to scandalize

Finally, Pope Francis said bishops need these three attitudes to face the scandal whipped up by the "Great Accuser".

“In these times, it seems like the 'Great Accuser' has been unchained and is attacking bishops. True, we are all sinners, we bishops. He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people. The 'Great Accuser', as he himself says to God in the first chapter of the Book of Job, 'roams the earth looking for someone to accuse'. A bishop’s strength against the 'Great Accuser' is prayer, that of Jesus and his own, and the humility of being chosen and remaining close to the people of God, without seeking an aristocratic life that removes this unction. Let us pray, today, for our bishops: for me, for those who are here, and for all the bishops throughout the world.”
CBC News, Canada
written by AP
Tuesday September 11, 2018

American cardinals want Vatican investigation into ex-cardinal accused of groping teenage boy

Pope Francis will meet Thursday with a delegation of U.S. cardinals and bishops over the sex abuse and coverup scandal roiling the Catholic Church and his own papacy, the Vatican said Tuesday.

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has said he wants Francis to authorize a full-fledged Vatican investigation into Theodore McCarrick, who was removed as a cardinal in July after a credible accusation he groped a teenager.

DiNardo has also said recent accusations that top Vatican officials — including the Pope — covered up for McCarrick deserve answers.

Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke said DiNardo would meet with Francis on Thursday in the Apostolic Palace, along with Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the Pope's top sex abuse adviser. Also involved are two officials from the U.S. conference, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez and Monsignor Brian Bransfield, according to a Vatican statement.

Francis ordered McCarrick, 88, to a lifetime of penance and prayer in July pending the outcome of a canonical trial into the groping allegation involving a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. After the allegation was publicized in June, it emerged that it was apparently an open secret — including at the Vatican — that McCarrick routinely invited seminarians and young priests into his bed and engaged in sexual misconduct.

The McCarrick scandal took on crisis proportions two weeks ago after the Vatican's former U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, accused two dozen Vatican and U.S. cardinals and bishops of covering up for McCarrick for two decades.

Specifically, Vigano accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from canonical sanctions. The Vatican hasn't responded to the accusations, but presumably the "clarifications" it has promised will come sometime after Francis meets with the top U.S. church leadership this week.

Francis has refused to comment directly about Vigano's claims, but nearly every day over the past two weeks his homily at morning mass has seemed somewhat related to the scandal.

On Tuesday, he drew Satan into the fray, suggesting that the devil was behind Vigano's revelations.

"In these times, it seems like the 'Great Accuser' has been unchained and has it in for bishops," he said. "True, we are all sinners, we bishops. He tries to uncover the sins, so they are visible in order to scandalize the people."

Bishops, he said, should be men of prayer, and should know they were chosen by God and keep close to their flock.

In other eyebrow-raising comments Tuesday, a top aide to both Francis and former pope Benedict said the sex abuse scandal was such a game-changing catastrophe for the church that it amounted to the church's "own 9/11."

Archbishop Georg Gaenswein told a book presentation that he by no means was comparing the scandal to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001.

But he said the years-long scandal, and recent revelations in a Pennsylvania grand jury report, showed just "how many souls have been wounded irrevocably and mortally by priests from the Catholic Church."
Catholic News Service
written by Robert Duncan and Junno Arocho Esteves
Friday September 7, 2018

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A top official from the Vatican Secretariat of State acknowledged allegations made by a New York priest in 2000 concerning Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick, according to a letter obtained by Catholic News Service.

Father Boniface Ramsey, pastor of St. Joseph’s Church Yorkville in New York City, told CNS Sept. 7 that he received the letter dated Oct. 11, 2006, from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, the former Vatican substitute for general affairs, asking for information regarding a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary and was being vetted for a post at a Vatican office. He made the letter available to CNS.

Then-Archbishop Sandri wrote to Father Ramsey, “I ask with particular reference to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo.”


Father Ramsey had been on the faculty of the seminary from 1986 to 1996 and had sent a letter in 2000 to Archbishop Montalvo informing him of complaints he heard from seminarians studying at the seminary, located in South Orange, New Jersey.

In the letter, Father Ramsey told CNS, “I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians and all of that; the whole business that everyone knows about,” Father Ramsey said.

Father Ramsey said he assumed the reason the letter from then-Archbishop Sandri, who is now a cardinal and prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, only mentioned “serious matters involving ” seminarians and not Archbishop McCarrick’s behavior was because accusations against the former cardinal were “too sensitive.”

“My letter November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick.”

While Father Ramsey has said he never received a formal response to the letter he sent in 2000, he told CNS he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.

The 2006 letter not only confirms past remarks made by Father Ramsey, but also elements of a document written by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who served as nuncio to the United States from 2011 to 2016.

In an 11-page statement, published Aug. 26, Archbishop Vigano accused church officials, including Pope Francis, of failing to act on accusations of sexual abuse, as well as abuse of conscience and power by now-Archbishop McCarrick.

Archbishop Vigano stated that the Vatican was informed as early as 2000 — when he was an official at the Secretariat of State — of allegations that Archbishop McCarrick “shared his bed with seminarians.” Archbishop Vigano said the Vatican heard the allegation from the U.S. nuncios at the time: Archbishop Montalvo, who served from 1998 to 2005 and Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served from 2005 to 2011.

In late June, then-Cardinal McCarrick, the 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington, said he would no longer exercise any public ministry “in obedience” to the Vatican after an allegation he abused a teenager 47 years ago in the Archdiocese of New York was found credible. The then-cardinal has said he is innocent.

Since then, several former seminarians have claimed that the then-cardinal would invite groups of them to a beach house and insist individual members of the group share a bed with him.

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 8:42 PM

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)