A call to penance

Why help pedophile priests avoid their punishment? WHY?
Those kids were helpless when they got raped by these pedophiles. Nobody helped kids. Acceptance rules for these priests into service is obviously crooked and easy way for gays and pedophiles to access kids. Yes, I said "GAYS", cause they raped boys also and that is not just pedophile, that is also GAY.

To repent means to turn back or change. Is that really going to happen? Time will judge and the law will its requirements,otherwise.

Ablatio? Or did he mean fellatio?

The Pope inhabits the same moral space that Jean Baptiste in Camus' "The Fall" did: calling EVERYONE to penance as a means of not acknowledging his own particular sins. That's right, we are all sinners so no reason to dwell on MINE in particular.

Wake me when Cardinal Bernard Law is fired from his cushy job at the top of the Vatican hierarchy.

PLEASE DEAL WITH YOUR ABOMINATION AND LEAVE THE MUSLIMS ALONE.

Posted by: gorgui1 | March 20, 2010 4:30 PM
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We are happy to leave the Muslims alone if they would only please leave the rest of us alone. But since we don't see that happening anytime soon, you will have to deal with it.

Schmalz deserves a few measured, thoughtful responses among the vitriol and canned ideological rants.

A couple observations:

The pope's response is overly intellectual, and that intellectual approach is also a distancing mechanism that avoids the demands of leadership - holding people responsible, changing their duties, and plotting the move forward.

Benedict probably has institutional reasons for taking this distant approach - preserving the carefully built structures of the Vatican bureaucracy. However, this whole scandal arises out of too much concern for institutional perogatives. Hence, Benedict demonstrates that he doesn't yet grasp the reasons for, and meaning of, this crisis.

This contributes to the way he restricts this letter to a "pastoral response". It's the response of a patriarch, a father, who doesn't realize that the legitimacy of that role is falling apart. The basis for legitimacy in the future can no longer be the validation of history. Only deep reform can save the Church. The leaders must become true servants, not overlords, of the Body of Christ.

How much of obama's faith based money is going to the catholic church for paying off the lawsuits?

Ablatio? This abuse has been going on for centuries. I understand that the hierarchy of the Church occasionally has contact with God.
Can any theologians tells why, in all this time, God never once told a Pope that there are bad things going on down there, and something MUST be done immediately? Or did no one in the church ever pray for guidance in the matter and God therefore remained silent.

Once again too little too late. The Catholic Church has been covering up these abuses for many years. Everyone within the Church knew. This letter comes out because the problem leaked out first. No wonder so many Catholics are leaving the Church. How can one stay within a system where the laity are to toe the line on the views of Bishops and the Pope when the Bishops and the Pope knew of this abuse all along. How shameful. I wonder what Jesus' view is?

Interesting how the world call the pope on the carpet when there is a Catholic scandal - who is going to have the gonads in the media to stand up to the molsems for their worldwide atrocities??

Anyone?

Posted by: VirginiaConservative | March 20, 2010 2:19 PM

please deal with your abomination and leave islam and the muslims alone.

Interesting how the world call the pope on the carpet when there is a Catholic scandal - who is going to have the gonads in the media to stand up to the molsems for their worldwide atrocities??

Anyone?

PLEASE DEAL WITH YOUR ABOMINATION AND LEAVE THE MUSLIMS ALONE.

On the negative side, it seemed that the pope's pastoral letter had the fingerprints of William Donahue of the Catholic League all over it.

On the positive side, we might go a long way in solving these problems by not giving financial support to organizations without demanding representation and accountability and by not letting our natural desire to belong to a group trump our search for the truth.

Mr. Scmalz,

I wish I could say that your post astonishes me for its willful blindness, hypocrisy and arrogance, but I cannot. The RCC's illegal, immoral use of power, authorized by its twisted ethics has victimized humankind for two thousand years and continues to do so. In the United States, the RCC has effectively made a mocker of the United States Congress. It has done so in Ireland, Bavaria, Germany, Austria, France, Poland, etc., etc., South America, parts of Asia and Africa.

In addition to its worldwide priest pedophile rings, which the Vatican has protected for roughly fifteen hundred years, it legislates, now, in the US, it is trying (and to an extent has succeeded in the effort) to influence US legislation, currently that concerning health care.

If it should, after being unable to blame victims and justice-seekers, deem itself culpable, it indulges itself in a few mea culpas, "forgives itself," moves on, free to replicate its sinful self in future generations.

This is par for the course. When there is no justice, when justice is dispensed with, the sins of the fathers are visited (carried out) upon the sons.

The influence Vatican Nation has exercised in the formation of the current bill, your attempts to influence it further, the cooperation you have recieved from elected officials of the United States Congress is tantamount to Establishment. Quite simply, it is illegal and could be challenged in court.

It is especially troubling in light of the fact that only a few weeks ago, in an Appellate Court Decision, the Vatican was deemed a FOREIGN ENTITY, and, therefore, protected by law suits initiated by American citizens.

At the same time, as it continues as a FOREIGN ENTITY in the United States of America, it lobbies and manipulates our Congress, has special laws and "clauses" amended and introduced, at will, AND IT ENJOYS NONPROFIT status. As one blogger here put it, Mr. Scmalz, the RCC is in violation of the Racketeering Act.

I would imagine that before a case comes to court, it will have the Racketeering Act amended so that it cannot trouble it. However, this is a democracy, in principle, and we hold democratic principles dear. Catholics and others are literally sickened by much of what you have done in this country, with RCC interference in secular matters. A time will come, Mr. Scmalz, a principled prosecutor will appear, investigations will be held.

Even were the RCC representing the most moral institution on Earth, what you are currently doing would be immoral and unacceptable. However, it represents an institution, a FOREIGN NATION, tax exempt in the United States, whose history, bespeaks a perspective far from ethical.

1. Let us begin with the recent Appellate Court Decision that the Vatican is a foreign entity and therefore immune to law suits brought by American citizens.

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Pope Ratzinger is an abomination, a cruel joke on the world at the expense of our children's virtue. He wishes the scandals would all go away but they just keep multiplying like a hutch full of frisky rabbits. What hideous new revelations will you hear of tomorrow, our most reverend esteemed Pope Rat? I fear there is not enough water in all of the Tiber to clean out two thousand years worth of sewage from Your Holiness’s Augean stables.

Interesting how the world call the pope on the carpet when there is a Catholic scandal - who is going to have the gonads in the media to stand up to the molsems for their worldwide atrocities??

Anyone?

POSTED BY: VIRGINIACONSERVATIVE | MARCH 20, 2010 2:19 PM

Uh, Afghanistan, Iraq?

This is your typical reactionary defense, trying to claim that insufficient attention to the atrocities of others gives insufficient permission to pay attention to the atrocities of your tribe, your nation, your religion ... your foolishness.

Do you suppose if we attached a file to this opinion, a caveat file, listing all the evil done in the name of all the other religions, that we could then pay attention to the evil done in the name of your religion?

I doubt it. Nobody is falling for it VirginiaConservative. It appears every pederast in christianity has taken work in your church. But don't worry, all they have to do is ask forgiveness.

eport Offensive Comment

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This decision represented a refusal to allow Serbian Orthodox, Jews, and Roma to sue Vatican Bank. Vatican Bank has held for decades the money of the appellants (and, now, their heirs) which was deposited there by 200 Franciscan Nazi Priests. These priests ran and operated concentration camps, personally, cutting living people to ribbons and watching them bleed to death. They impaled them and watched them drown. They stole what their victims had and deposited it in Vatican Bank, which had been open by Pius XII for the express purpose of pocketing Nazi loot.

And, yet, Vatican Bank, refuses to settle with the victims. Quite moral.

1a. And when, Mr. Schmalz, can we expect to see the release of your Holocaust era archives? They are more than sixty years old, and, yet, the Vatican claims they are not yet properly filed.

2. Vatican Bank is currently under investigation in Italy for LAUNDERING 200,000,000 MAFIA dollars (again). This would be the Italian Mafia that murders elected officials who try to stem the flow of organized crime, which is overtaking Italy. The Vatican claims that the investigation is the clandestine doings of the Christian Orthodox, who are jealous of the authority of the RCC. No other comment on the 200,000,000, except to say that as a FOREIGN NATION they cannot be investigated by the Italian Justice Department.

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Continues:

One wonders in how many other nations, the Vatican is claiming both the privileges of a
Foreign Nation and nonprofit status, while at the same time legislating. Thus far, the United States of America is the only nation I have identified that allows the racketeering of which the RCC is guilty.

3. The RCC has had within it pedophiles, worldwide, whom it has shielded, and it continues to shield them. It was not until the death of the charismatic John Cardinal O'Connor that a New York prosecutor demanded the Church turn over its child molesters. Then Cardinal Egan refused, but the New York prosecutor was not made of the same moral polyester as the United States Congress. He demanded the rapists of children. The RCC claimed America was persecuting it and that the problem was only occurring there.

In fact, it has been occurring worldwide for more than a thousand years and the Church knew it all along. Official Papal documents are available on the web.

A document from Pope Benedict on the handling of priest pedophiles has been introduced into evidence of obstruction of justice both in the United States and Europe.

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CONTINUES:

Pope Benedict brought William Cardinal Levada to Rome, promoting him to Prefect of the CDF. He is now, in effect, the No. 2 man.

William Cardinal Levada bankrupted the Portland Archdiocese by protecting pedophile priests, then went on to San Francisco, where he did the same and worse.

He protected what was, up until a few years ago, the largest pedophile priest ring in America, the Salesians, numbering more than 20 men who had been molesting children for decades. Levada lied under oath, obstructed justice, walked in on a molestation scene, and shut the door. He did all he could to destroy the career of the single whistle-blower priest, an effort at which Levada failed, for which the Archdiocese was sued, and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Levada managed to "save" pedophiles, protecting them from trial so that they, like countless other pedophiles, formerly priests, are cruising the streets of the United States.

Now, Levada, as Prefect of the CDF, is in charge of priest pedophile cases worldwide. It will be interesting to see how he manages the revelations of priest child rape emanating from Germany and Bavaria in the last few days.

William Cardinal Levada should be extradited, brought to trial to face obstruction of justice charges, at the very least. Like the Congress, like other jurisdictions, San Francisco has some explaining to do.
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Had I world enough and time, I could go on posting on these and related matters for hours. However, it is enough for me to conclude, for now, with this: The Vatican is, in the United States, a FOREIGN NATION, enjoying foreign nation privileges, while at the same time claiming and receiving nonprofit status.

Although no American ever elected Bishops to represent them in Congress, they effectively influence Congressmen and Senators regarding legislation, bringing about circumstances tantamount to Establishment. The health care fiasco is only the most recent example. Were they representing the most ethical of institutions, a fit moral leader, their interference with government would be illegal and unacceptable. However, the Vatican has shown itself to be neither ethical nor moral.

The excerpt pasted seems to be a word-for-word translation from a German newspaper. The one heartening element is the congregations's rebellion against the Prodigal Son business.

The Vatican Nation has for too long substituted forgiveness for justice, allowing it to pass on its abundant sins from one papal regime to the next, the result fifteen hundred years of worldwide pedophilia, antisemitism, moral corruption of every sort.

The RCC commits crimes against humanity, forgives itself, and commits more crimes. Two thousand years.
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Germany's Catholic sex abuse scandal reaches Pope Benedict

Bad Tölz, Bavaria

A CATHOLIC MASS ISN'T normally a debating society, but sometimes enough is simply enough. At Sunday mass at the parish church in the Bavarian town of Bad Tölz, a pastor’s unspeakable past finally caught up with him. It was revealed last Friday that sixty-two year-old Pastor Peter H., who had been providing pastoral care at the church for the past two years, had been tried and convicted of sexual abuse in 1986. Not only had this conviction been kept secret, but the priest’s superior at one time – Joseph Ratzinger, the former Archbishop of Munich who is today better known as Pope Benedict XVI – had knowingly moved this known pedophile from parish to parish. He was finally sent to Bad Tölz in 2008 under the condition that he engage in no “children’s, youth, or altar boy work.” However, he did end up conducting two children’s services at the church and also took part in youth retreats.

As far as anyone knows, Peter H. did “nothing, absolutely nothing” wrong during his previous twenty-one year tenure in the town of Garching, nor is anything known about any inappropriate activities in Bad Tölz. Even so, Peter H.'s colleague, Pastor Rupert Frania, told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “I would like to have known about this earlier.”

At yesterday’s mass, Pastor Frania substituted for Peter H. and began a homily regarding his friend’s case. But as soon as he cited the example of the Prodigal Son and the need for forgiveness, the congregation rebelled.

http://open.salon.com/blog/lost_in_berlin/2010/03/15/germanys_catholic_sex_abuse_scandal_reaches_pope_benedict

A call to penance is important news for members of the Catholic Church, but even more important news to the general public relates to current world events as in social studies that can be related to the word of God taught by the Catholic Church in the Holy Bible. Consideration of the following:

Earthquakes at locations in Haiti, Chile and Turkey occurred on both sides of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The exact time, place and magnitude of an earthquake is difficult to predict when the earth’s crust vibrates in abrupt ruptures and rebound of rocks.

A history of earthquakes goes back to biblical times. In the new covenant of God written in the gospel of Luke 21:11 it says, “And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.”

An earthquake occurred at ninth hour while Jesus was nailed to the cross on Calvary. Jesus yield up the ghost and “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”

“Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, truly this was the Son of God.”

St. John the Divine saw a great earthquake. “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo , there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree castes her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.”

For those who believe in Christ, a time is coming when an earthquake will shake the surface of the earth and stars traveling billions of miles will reduce in size and enter the earth atmosphere.

Here we go again. Obscuring the fundamental evils of abuse and suffering with theological obfuscation. "The redemptive power of suffering" is celebrated by those who have never undergone that type of suffering.

This column is an example of why millions of people find the church irrelevant. It has been taken over -- almost from the beginning -- by those who advise those who suffer, to suffer in silence in their environment of redemption.

Bennedict, himself, is responsible for much of the coverup throughout the world, while an Archbishop in Germany and during his tenure in the Vatican prior to becoming pope. He will certainly be judged one of the most ineffectual pontiffs in church history. He is driving Catholics away from the church in droves, the result of his attempts to obviate the accomplishments of the Vatican Council, called by Pope John, a predecessor.

Interesting how the world call the pope on the carpet when there is a Catholic scandal - who is going to have the gonads in the media to stand up to the molsems for their worldwide atrocities??

Anyone?

The pope should put a sock in it.

him and his ilk were responsible for a lot of the cover up and they took no responsibility and put the onus on lower level functionary's

Typical passing the buck crap from the catholic Church.

reprehensible reprobates the lot of them.

smaltz would be a good name for the contents of this article as well as the author.