Tag Archives: #CatholicPriesthood

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The slow growth of the Catholic Church

Stations of the Cross, St Elizabeth’s Church, Lent 2024.

Our own parish, St Elizabeth’s, is too small to draw any conclusions from seeing new members, but we currently have two new attendees taking OCIA, Order of Christian Initiation for Adults, classes, and a third young man showed up last Sunday and is interested. For a parish with only 24 families, this is a very big deal, but statistically invalid as far as any big picture is concerned.

But our parish isn’t the only one seeing new members:

Young people are converting to Catholicism en masse — driven by pandemic, internet, ‘lax’ alternatives

By Rikki Schlott | Thursday, April 17, 2025 | 11:00 AM EDT

Sydney Johnston grew up in a nondenominational Christian household — but now the Upper West Side millennial is a devout Catholic.

“There’s just something so beautiful and transcendent about the rituals and the ancient history in the Catholic Mass that’s been preserved,” Johnston, 30, told The Post. “The church really communicates a degree of reverence that I didn’t find in the more liberal, laissez-faire approach of nondenominational churches.”

Confirmed in December 2024 at the Church of Notre Dame in Morningside Heights, Johnston is one of a growing number of young people turning to the Catholic Church from other denominations, religions and even no faith at all.

According to the National Catholic Register, some dioceses are reporting year-over-year increases of 30% to 70% in new converts. The Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, for instance, experienced a 72% jump in converts just from 2023 to 2024.

There’s much more at the original, and the New York Post, our nation’s second oldest continuously published daily newspaper, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, is not hidden behind a paywall, so you can follow the link freely.

Yes, I had heard, anecdotally, of a surge in Catholicism, which some have attributed to the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the accession of Pope Leo XIV, an American from Chicago, but the Post article predates both of those events. But it was the following article which really caught my attention:

More than one in three Catholic ordinations are former Anglican clergy, says new report

More than one third of priestly ordinations in the Catholic Church in England and Wales from 1992 to 2024 were former Anglican clergy, according to a report published today.

Ruth Gledhill | Thursday, November 20, 2025

Around 700 former clergy and religious of the Church of England, Church in Wales or Scottish Episcopal Church have been received into the Catholic Church since 1992, including 16 former Anglican bishops and two “continuing” Anglican bishops. From 1992 to 2025, five Anglican permanent deacons and 486 Anglican priests were ordained in the Catholic Church.

The report shows that 29 per cent of diocesan priestly ordinations from 1992 to 2024 in England and Wales were former Anglican clergy, while 35 per cent of combined diocesan and Ordinariate priestly ordinations from 1992 to 2024 in England and Wales were former Anglican clergy.

Convert Clergy in the Catholic Church in Britain: The role of the St Barnabas Society by Stephen Bullivant, Fernanda Mee and Janet Mellor is published by the St Barnabas Society and the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion, Ethics and Society at St Mary’s University, Twickenham.

Hyperlink not in the original, but added by me. The original is a 24 page long .pdf file, and is available without charge.

It reveals that by comparison, just 9 per cent of diocesan priestly ordinations from 2015 to 2024 in England and Wales were former Anglican clergy and 19 per cent of combined diocesan and Ordinariate priestly ordinations from 2015 to 2024 in England and Wales were former Anglican clergy.

The Church of England General Synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992, and the first women were priested in 1994

In the foreword, Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols, acknowledges that the movement of clergy from the Church of England into full communion with the Catholic Church in recent times is a story of many parts and says that until now, those parts have not been drawn together.

In July of 1980, His Holiness Pope St John Paul II issued the Pastoral Provision, allowing Anglican/Episcopal priests who convert to Catholicism to be ordained as Catholic priests, even if they are married. The Anglican/Episcopal female priests can convert to Catholicism, but cannot be ordained as Catholic priests.

The Church of England has been falling and failing for a long time now. The Catholic Herald reported, last April, that, driven by younger churchgoers, Catholics were on a pace to outnumber Anglicans in England, for the first time since King Henry VIII forced the Reformation on the island nation. Somewhere in Heaven, St Thomas More is smiling.

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“The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left.” — Ecclesiastes 10:2

In the modern world, abortion has become something of a secular sacrament, down to which all politicians must make obeisance. If they do not, then they are clearly haters of women and an obvious supporter of the evil, reich-wing Donald Trump. The Roman Catholic Church is one of the few bulwarks against pre-natal infanticide in the West, though the Church’s actual action against it seems sparse.

Irish politician refused communion over abortion vote

BBC | Monday, July 15, 2024

The refusal of the Eucharist to a public representative in the Republic of Ireland has been “unambiguously condemned” by the Association of Catholic Priests.

It follows reports that Fine Gael TD and Minister of State Colm Burke was refused Holy Communion at a funeral Mass on Friday.

That politicians would have condemned the priest’s actions is unsurprising; that the Association of Catholic Priests would do so ought to be shocking. Continue reading →

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The Miami Herald reports on the Traditional Latin Lass If the Tridentine Mass is bringing in newer, younger Catholics, shouldn't we be celebrating that?

There are several Protestant churches which advertised themselves as King James Only, arguing that “the KJV needs no further improvements because it is the greatest English translation of the Bible which was ever published, and they also believe that all other English translations of the Bible which were published after the KJV was published are corrupt.” They have their reasons, which I will not argue here, and which you can read if you follow the link.

But, regardless of their arguments, one thing is certain: the Elizabethan English used in the King James Version is lofty in a way that modern English simply is not, and I have to wonder: does the grandeur of the language itself inspire some English-speaking people?

I will admit it: I didn’t expect to find a story like this in the Miami Herald, a McClatchy newspaper. 1,038 words, on the Tridentine, or Traditional Latin Mass?

Latin Mass not just for older Catholics — what’s driving Miami’s newer, younger members?

By Lauren Costantino[1]This report was created with philanthropic support from Christian, Muslim and Jewish funders in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all work. | Monday, August 28, 2023 | 5:00 AM EDT

It’s the kind of Catholic Mass your grandparents might remember: The liturgy is spoken in Latin, the choir sings Gregorian chants and women wear chapel veils, or “mantillas.” But, this Traditional Latin Mass isn’t full of elderly parishioners.

At Our Lady of Belen Chapel in West Miami, roughly 350 people — young and old — show up weekly for services, an old-style Catholic Mass that had been celebrated for centuries before the Second Vatican Council reformed the Catholic Church in the 1960s. One look around the picturesque Belen chapel and it’s clear that this Mass, though grounded in tradition and conducted mostly in Latin, is not just for older Catholics. Amid the sacred chanting and echoing organs, babies fuss and parents distract their toddlers with toys and coloring books.

There is no designated childcare room, but parents of crying babies are never shamed, said Eleonora Cacchione, a mother of four and Latin Mass regular. Cacchione is a lifelong Catholic, but says she did not fully understand what was happening during Mass until she started attending Traditional Latin Mass.

Attendance at Mass has fallen since the panicdemic — and yes, I spelled it that way deliberately, because that’s how I see the reaction to it — and has not returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. People who were used to getting out of bed on Sunday mornings found that sleeping in isn’t all that bad. Attending Mass is a habit, just as sleeping in can be a habit, and we have lost parishioners due to the forcible closing of churches.

“People wearing their Sunday best, seeing the priest facing the altar rather than the congregation, the solemnity and reverence of the liturgy — including the way people receive Jesus in the Eucharist — reminds one that something special, something supernatural and beyond human explanation is taking place,” Cacchione said in a text message.

Traditional Latin Mass, also called the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, or the Tridentine Mass, has been celebrated in the Archdiocese of Miami for the past 40 years, beginning under former Archbishop Edward McCarthy. In recent years, Miami’s community has steadily grown, relocating to five different chapels in the past 10 years to accommodate the growth.

This is the most powerful paragraph of all: a secular newspaper, reporting what some of us already knew, that the Tridentine Mass is attracting more and more people to attend Mass. And really, isn’t that something that any Catholic, lay or priest, bishop or pope, should want, more Catholics in the pews?

But, the most recent move to the Belen chapel — which is aligned with the Jesuits, and not an Archdiocese of Miami church — was made after Pope Francis restricted where groups can celebrate Latin Mass. He also required priests who wanted to celebrate the Mass to get permission from their bishops, and for bishops to get approval from the Vatican. The pope was concerned the Church was going backward, rather than looking forward.

Or, perhaps, His Holiness the Pope was concerned that too many people were taking seriously what Jesus said, in Matthew 5:17-20, as he has been allowing what would previously have been seen as prohibited.

Miami’s Latin Mass community has more than doubled in the past five years — up from an average of 112 congregants in 2017 to 320 in 2023 — according to records taken by Frank Andollo, who’s been going to the services for 10 years. People drive from as far north as Palm Beach County and as far south as the Florida Keys to make it to Latin Mass at Belen on Sundays.

Why the growth?

“It’s bound to attract people because I believe they are attracted to authenticity,” said Jose Ballon, the choir director. “They don’t want something watered down or compromised.”

Ballon, 28, was referring to the traditions that are honored during Latin Mass, compared to the new order of Mass, or Novus ordo, the the religious service most Catholics are familiar with today.

As our regular readers know — both of them! — I am significantly hearing impaired. A Tridentine Mass, with the priest ad orientem, with his back to the people, would be extremely difficult for me. My pew is in the front row, directly in front of the ambo, and I can still miss things. I can just imagine the difficulties I would have with the priest having his back to me.

There’s a lot more at the original, and it’s not controversial at all. Lauren Costantino, the author, is basically describing the feelings of the worshipers she interviewed, and almost everything is positive.

The Tridentine Mass does not take away from the Novus ordo; Catholics who have both available to them — for me, the closest one is in Georgetown, about 70 miles away — will choose to go to one or the other, or, sadly, choose neither at all, and sleep in on a Sunday morning.

And that last is a huge problem: too many Catholics, following the ‘break’ for the panicdemic, have chosen to just stay in bed. If a more available Tridentine Mass was to bring some of them back, how would that be anything but a good thing?

My parish is an old parish; while there are a couple of families with kids, most of us are around retirement age, and eventually we will be going to our eternal rewards. If the Tridentine Mass is bringing in new Catholics, new parishioners, younger parishioners, that is something we should be touting, honoring, and celebrating.

References

References
↑1 This report was created with philanthropic support from Christian, Muslim and Jewish funders in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald retains editorial control of all work.
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Whenever there is a truth you cannot tell, that is a truth you must tell!

We have previously noted that the Most Rev Salvatore Cordileone has stated that the Archdiocese of San Francisco would probably have to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Well, the time has come. From The New York Times:

Archdiocese of San Francisco Becomes the Latest to File for Bankruptcy

About a dozen dioceses and archdioceses in the United States are currently in bankruptcy proceedings as a result of multiple lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children.

by Ruth Graham | Monday, August 21, 2023

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, photo from Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco, known for its outspoken conservative leadership, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone announced on Monday. The filing is intended to protect the archdiocese from what Archbishop Cordileone described as more than 500 civil lawsuits filed against it under a state law passed in 2019 that extended the statute of limitations for civil claims in child sexual abuse cases.

“We believe the bankruptcy process is the best way to provide a compassionate and equitable solution for survivors of abuse while ensuring that we continue the vital ministries to the faithful and to the communities that rely on our services and charity,” Archbishop Cordileone said in a letter addressed to Catholics in San Francisco.

Archbishop Cordileone signaled the bankruptcy earlier this month, warning publicly that the filing was “very likely.”

The article author, Ruth Graham, “is a Dallas-based national correspondent covering religion, faith and values for The New York Times. She graduated from Wheaton College and previously worked as a writer and reporter at Slate.” Telling us that she used to write for Slate is telling us that she’s a liberal, but what else would you expect from the Times? While she was very good at telling readers that several other diocese and archdiocese have been forced to file for bankruptcy over the cover ups of sexual abuse claims, she managed to write 547 words, and never mention what everybody already knows, that this is a crisis of having homosexual priests. Continue reading →

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Chickenhawks in the Church

Pedophilia is defined as a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children, while hebephilia is that attraction to children in the early stages of puberty, approximately ages 11 to 14, and ephebophilia is the attraction to teenagers in the later stages of puberty, approximately 15 to 19.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia agrees to $3.5 million settlement in priest sexual assault lawsuit

The lawsuit alleged that Pastor John Close raped a boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006.

by Nick Vadala | Wednesday, August 9, 2023

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that one of its priests sexually assaulted a 14-year-old boy in Delaware County nearly two decades ago.

Filed in 2020, the lawsuit alleges that Pastor John Close raped the boy at St. Katherine’s of Siena in Wayne in 2006. The plaintiff, whose name was withheld in court filings, was attending a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine program there, and Close was the head of the parish.

During a class, the boy became upset, fearing eternal damnation. He was sent to Close’s office, the pastor took his confession, and then raped him, according to the lawsuit. Afterward, the lawsuit says, Close told the boy that he was absolved of his sins, but he would be eternally damned if he told anyone about the assault.

While the age of the victim at the time of the assault was not given, he is 31 years old today, and the rape was 17 years ago. That means the victim was 13-to-15 years old at the time. Was that hebephilia, or was it ephebophilia? You know what? It doesn’t really matter, because urban slang gives us a far better definition: a chickenhawk, older males who prefer younger boys as sex partners.

Close, who was ordained in 1969, worked at several parishes and Catholic schools in the region throughout his 42 years in the ministry, including Christ the King parish, Cardinal O’Hara High School, Archbishop Wood High School, and the Cathedral of Basilica Saints Peter and Paul. He was placed on administrative leave in 2011 in connection with the reinvestigation of another alleged case and retired the following year. He died in 2018. . . . .

Spokesperson Kenneth A. Gavin said in a statement that the archdiocese “acknowledges settlement in this matter and the resolution it brings.” He added that the organization had no knowledge of the allegations against Close until the plaintiff’s lawyers reported them in July 2019, after the pastor’s death.

“In accordance with policy, the archdiocese reported the allegation to law enforcement,” the archdiocese said.

Is that true? Not according to the plaintiff!

The lawsuit argued that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was notified of a pattern of behavior from Close that put children in danger as early as 1976. That year, a pastor at Blessed John Neumann parish in Bryn Mawr (now known as St. John Neumann parish) reported that Close had teenage boys in his room at the rectory at odd hours, including overnight. As a result, Close was transferred to another parish, and “the archdiocese did not warn that next parish of this past behavior,” according to court documents.

Another alleged victim came forward several times starting in the late 1990s, reporting that Close had sexually abused him in 1969 when he was an altar boy at Christ the King parish in Philadelphia. The Archdiocesan Review Board investigated but could not substantiate the allegation, and it was dismissed, court documents say.

In 2011, following the release of a second scathing grand jury report that accused the church hierarchy of harboring more than two dozen priests suspected of abuse, a third alleged victim of Close came forward. That person said Close sexually assaulted him while he was a student at Archbishop Wood High School in Warminster in the early 1990s, when Close was the principal. The Archdiocesan Review Board again found the accusations could not be substantiated.

According to court documents, the archdiocese learned of at least two additional allegations. A woman in 2011 reported that a friend had told her that Close “messed around” with him at Cardinal O’Hara High School in Springfield in the 1970s. The review board found this to be unsubstantiated. And in 2014, a boy alleged that Close sexually abused him at Christ the King in the 1970s, but archdiocesan investigators were unable to make contact with the boy, court documents said.

We know of over $80 million in Church settlements, and there are other cases in which settlements were reached, but the amounts were not disclosed, and the vast majority of it is due to the Church sheltering chickenhawks.

Homosexuality has been a huge problem within the Catholic priesthood, and that problem has spilled out in the form of predator priests. while it is wholly politically incorrect to say, the sexual abuse of minors in the Church has been a problem of homosexuality: the vast majority of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has been against boys rather than girls. The John Jay Report noted that, of the abuse cases it studied, between 1950 and 2002, stated:

The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims were male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims were males between the ages of 11 and 14.

Despite attempts by the politically correct, you cannot explain that huge disparity by saying that boys were simply more available to priests years ago. This isn’t a matter of random selection, but of chickenhawk priests deliberately choosing which victims to groom and then assault.

How many parishioners have we lost over this? How many previously devout, Mass-attending Catholics have left the Church over the thoroughly disgusting cases of bishops — some of them predators as well — simply moving the abusers to another parish, without informing the new parish that the priest had ‘problems’? How many parishes have we had to close because there were no longer enough parishioners to keep them open? How many priests could have been moved into positions in which there was almost no contact with minors? And how many could and should have been referred to law enforcement, but were not?

This is what happens when you sweep things under the rug: as you keep doing that, the lump of material under the rug becomes more noticeable, and the debris under the rug became so large that the Church started tripping over it.

It isn’t just the Catholic Church, of course. We reported on Wednesday morning how a 49-year-old Henry Clay High School English teacher and Lutheran Church ‘youth volunteer’ was arrested for sexual offenses with children, and noted over a year ago how a Philadelphia high school teacher had groomed and started sexually abusing a teenaged girl, and others in the school knew about it and did nothing. But if it isn’t just the Catholic Church, the Church has definitely gained a negative reputation for having let it happen, and is often the first ‘suspect’ in people’s minds when they turn to the subject.

Pope Benedict XVI, in 2005, had the subject addressed, and the Congregation for Catholic Education released an instruction stating that homosexual men should not be admitted to seminaries to study for the priesthood. Naturally, the left went bonkers, with one former priest asking Why Isn’t Celibacy Enough? The answer, of course, is that celibacy would be enough if the chickenhawk priests actually remained celibate! The sexual abuse scandals which have rocked the Church occurred because too many priest could not remain faithful to their vows of celibacy.

What Pope Benedict recognized, that the oh-so-politically-correct left couldn’t stand, is that homosexuality among priests was, while not the sole contributor to the sexual abuse scandals, certainly the largest part. What about 81% of the victims were boys, and the two most abused age groups were, in order, 11-to-14-year-old boys, followed by 15-to-17-year-old boys can’t they understand?

Pope Benedict was right: admitting those with “homosexual tendencies” to the priesthood is a recipe for disaster, and had already been a disaster.

There is only one real solution, and that is to admit heterosexual married men to the priesthood. Not only will they not be preying on young boys, but they will have a sanctified outlet for their sexual drives, and can have a normal family life. We already have married priests, both in the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, but a few hundred married former Anglican priests who converted to Catholicism, and it hasn’t somehow been a disaster for the Church.

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It doesn’t matter how smart a criminal is, eventually he will do something boneheadedly stupid

Can we tell the truth here? Most criminals get caught because they are just plain stupid.

There can’t be more than 14 people in the country who haven’t heard about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which he took to a computer repair shop, and simply abandoned there. Mr Biden is a cocaine addict, so it’s entirely possible that he just forgot about leaving it there, but it eventually became public knowledge that it was left there, and that the contents were made public.

So, if you were a homosexual male who not only drugged and raped random men, but put the evidence on your laptop, would you send the hard drive out for repair?

Former Louisiana Catholic priest pleads guilty to drugging and molesting 17 men, sentenced to prison

Stephen Sauer was sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes such as sexual battery, rape and video voyeurism

By Greg Wehner | Fox News | Sunday, July 9, 2023 | 9:52 PM EDT

Stephen Sauer, photo by Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office and is a public record.

A former Louisiana priest pleaded guilty to drugging and molesting 17 men he picked up in the French Quarter and was sentenced on Friday to 25 years in prison.Stephen Sauer, 61, of Metairie admitted that he targeted men who looked lost or intoxicated. He would then drug the men as he offered them help, sometimes putting drugs in their drinks at bars.

Other times, the former Catholic priest used an eyedropper to feed sleep-inducing substances to men who passed out from alcohol, according to a press release from Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul D. Connick, Jr.’s office.

Investigators with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office learned that Sauer shared the images on a website, and sometimes traded images with others using email.

The DA’s office said many of the victims were from out of state, separated from their friends, or lost when Sauer approached them.

There’s more at the original. And then there’s this, from The Washington Post:

Soccer coach’s lost phone contained videos of him raping boys, police say

By Annabelle Timsit | Monday, July 10, 2023 | 8:43 AM EDT

A soccer coach in Tennessee has been arrested after police said they found hundreds of videos and images of him appearing to rape unconscious boys on a phone he left behind at a restaurant.

Police in Franklin, Tenn., said in a Sunday statement that Camilo Hurtado Campos, 63, recruited boys onto his soccer team and then sexually abused them. They said Campos drugged and raped at least 10 boys as young as 9 years old and recorded footage ofhis crimes.

He is being held in custody on charges of raping a child and sexually exploiting a minor, police said. In Tennessee, rape of a child is a Class A felony that carries a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Sexual exploitation of a minor is a Class B felony when the suspect possesses more than 100 images or materials that show a minor engaged in sexual activity. . . . .

Police said employees at a local restaurant found a customer’s phone and went through it to try to reach the owner so they could return it. After stumbling upon “unconscionable videos and pictures of children,” they called the police, the department said.

Detectives found “hundreds of disturbing videos and pictures” on the phone, the department said. “In many of them, Campos recorded himself raping unconscious boys between approximately 9 and 17 years old,” its statement said.

There’s more at the original.

So, Mr Sauer sent his computer hard drive to someone else, to someone he knew would look through it, while Mr Campos kept images on his cell phone, and then got careless and just left it around. An obvious question would be: why would Mr Campos want to carry those images around portably?

Both of the accused are in their early sixties, which raises another obvious question: for how long had they actually been doing this stuff before they were caught? Do men guys suddenly wake up in their late fifties/early sixties and say, ‘I think I’ll take a walk on the wild side’ and ‘Where can I get me some rape drugs?’ Mr Sauer was formerly a Catholic priest, who had served as pastor of Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church in New Orleans from 2008 to 2012. He was a Jesuit, who left the order at his own request in 2020, and Jesuits are not stupid, but well-educated men. All priests are well-educated, as seminary is more than just prayer and contemplation, but an intellectually rigorous collegiate education.

Yet he got caught because he somehow felt compelled to do something just boneheadedly stupid.

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There’s no statute of limitations on stupidity

My old Bible, using an Israeli 20 shekel note as a bookmark.

Those who know me know that I am not just Catholic in name only, but a Mass every Sunday Catholic, and occasionally attend weekday Mass as well. I have article tags for the Catholic Church and Catholic Priesthood. And the last thing I want to see are more sexual abuse cases among the priesthood revealed.

Philly archdiocese accused of covering up sex abuse complaints against priest who allegedly found a new victim in Nashville

“If there was ever a case of reckless disregard for the safety of the public and parishioners,” said lawyers representing a woman now suing church officials over an alleged cover-up, “it’s this one.”

by Jeremy Roebuck | Thursday, April 20, 2023

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is facing new accusations that it covered up sexual misconduct, this time involving a former priest who allegedly forced himself on multiple women and told them the unwanted encounters were “special trials” ordained by God.

In court filings this week, a 27-year-old woman said church officials’ failure to disclose previous complaints against the Rev. Kevin Barry McGoldrick enabled abuse she endured after he was transferred from Philadelphia to Nashville in 2013.

Even after the Philadelphia archdiocese had substantiated her claims that McGoldrick had plied her with bourbon and then sexually assaulted her while he was serving as a college chaplain in Tennessee, she said, church officials here still refused to acknowledge they’d received reports years earlier of his involvement in similar misconduct.

The woman, now living in Virginia and identified in court filings only as Jane Doe, made those accusations in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that seeks hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages from church officials and McGoldrick himself in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

There’s more at the original, but the important date is that Fr McGoldrick was transferred from Philadelphia to the Diocese of Nashville in 2013. Msgr. William J. Lynn, once a secretary for Cardinal Anthony Bevilaqua, the Archbishop of Philadelphia, was convicted in June of 2012 for his role in transferring priests accused of sexual misconduct to other parishes, and though that conviction was twice overturned, the Monsignor was behind bars in 2013.

Cardinal Justin Rigali, the Archbishop of Philadelphia from 2003 to 2011, had his resignation upon reaching 75 accepted by Pope Benedict XVI, but, as The New York Times noted, his resignation was tainted by the priestly abuse scandal. The Times had also noted that the District Attorney’s office had “been investigating the archdiocese aggressively since 2002“.

So, how is it that, in 2013, with the previous Archbishop having his resignation accepted under an ethical cloud, Msgr Lynn behind bars for his role in identifying ‘problem’ priests, priests Edward Avery and Charles Engelhardt in prison for the sexual abuse of minors, as was Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, then under Archbishop Charles Chaput, allegedly knew of Fr McGoldrick’s reported sexual abuses transferred him to Nashville?

Lawyers for the accuser say former Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput failed to disclose earlier investigations into McGoldrick and signed off on his transfer to Nashville in 2013. That move came two years after Pope Benedict XVI had tapped Chaput to take over the Philadelphia archdiocese and oversee reform efforts after a series of damning grand jury investigations highlighted its failures in handling clergy sex abuse complaints.

Let me be clear here: there have been no criminal charges or convictions in this case: “Jane Doe” has filed a lawsuit, something which is subject to a much lower standard of proof, the “preponderance of the evidence,” and that lawsuit has not gone to trial. At the moment, Archbishop Chaput and Fr McGoldrick are neither legally guilty nor adjudicated as responsible for any wrongdoing. I’d like to believe that Miss “Doe” is making a fraudulent claim, which is certainly a possibility. Archbishop Chaput, having been appointed to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in large part for his previous strong handling of such cases while Archbishop of Denver. It would seem improbable that he would have approved that transfer of a known sexual abuser.

However, if Miss “Doe’s” claims are valid, it might be a slightly different case. The article states that she is 27 years old now, which means she would have been 17 or 18 at the time Fr McGoldrick was transferred, and she might have been legally an adult at the time she claims she was abused by the priest.

But my wanting the claim to be false does not preclude the possibility that it could be true. And while I want it to be false, there are a lot of people out there who will be convinced that the accusations are true, because it has happened so often in the past.

If the accusation is true, it means that Archbishop Chaput and his subordinates in the Archdiocese learned absolutely nothing from not only what had happened in the past, but happened in the recent past. And our bishops have to know, and understand, this: there is exactly zero tolerance for this stuff among the public, and cover-ups just don’t work. With so many people hostile to the Church, and looking for wrongdoing, and with possible victims out there, this stuff will eventually be exposed.

There has to be zero tolerance in the Church for this, and everybody needs to know it. Actually, every priest and bishop in the Church does know it; they are all highly educated men, and they just aren’t stupid. But not being stupid overall does not mean that they can’t do stupid things, and trying to cover up for this stuff, regardless of how much they may like and respect their friends and colleagues in the priesthood, is just plain stupid.

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Secular liberalism has infected religion, and liberal religion has infected secular politics

And here I thought that Catholic bishops and priests were supposed to be guided by the Bible in which they have professed belief!

On same-gender blessings specifically, (Bishop Helmut) Dieser (of Aachen, Germany) challenged the Vatican’s ban on them, saying priests and other pastoral ministers should be guided by their consciences when deciding on whether to bless couples.

Diocese Promotes Valentine’s Day Blessings with Photo of Queer Couple Kissing

Continue reading →

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Is Our Bishop Catholic?

Whenever I read that His Excellency, The Most Reverend John Stowe, O.F.M. Conv., Bishop of Lexington, is in the news, I cringe, because I know it’s not for something good. From the Catholic News Agency:

Bishop Stowe ‘not in favor’ of Eucharistic document, but predicts it will pass

By Joe Bukuras | November 12, 2021 | 19:05 EST

Boston: An outspoken critic of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ draft document on the Eucharist predicts it will be adopted at their fall assembly next week, though he intends to vote against it.

“I’m afraid it is,” Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv., of Lexington, Ky., said during a media briefing Nov. 11 when asked if he thought the document, “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church,” is going to be adopted.

“I think it will [pass] because it’s blander than what was proposed at first, and it’s got something that I think was trying to appease everybody,” Stowe predicted, “and I think a lot of bishops would have a hard time voting against it because there’s not something so objectionable contained in it.”

Stowe’s comments came Nov. 11 during a livestreamed forum about the fall assembly sponsored by Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter. The assembly begins Monday with a closed-door meeting at which the bishops are expected to have a private preliminary discussion about the Eucharistic document, prior to discussing and voting on it in public later in the week.

There’s a lot more at the original, but it basically informs the reader that the document does not contain any explicit language which states that abortion supporting politicians like Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi should be denied communion, but addresses worthily receiving the eucharist.

In response to Stowe’s comments, Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila of Denver told CNA that the document on the Eucharist is in accordance with Pope Francis’ teaching.

“Bishop Stowe presents the discussion surrounding Eucharistic coherence as being motivated by a desire to return to a pre-Vatican II Church and to ignore Pope Francis’ teachings,” Aquila said.

“On the contrary, I believe that directly addressing the issue of worthily receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is completely in line with what the Holy Father has called for and is directly linked with encouraging a deeper belief in and reverence for our Lord in the Eucharist,” he said.

“Some bishops seem insistent on portraying this effort to teach clearly on worthy reception of Jesus in the Eucharist as divisive. By framing the discussion this way, they are in fact increasing division by failing to address the scandal given to the faithful by those public figures who insist on saying they are devout Catholics in communion with the Body of Christ, when they are blatantly advancing laws that allow the taking of innocent life and the serious distortion of human sexuality,” Aquila said.

From St Paul’s website; note the ‘rainbow’ stole being worn by a clergyman. Bishop John Stowe is at the far right of the photo. Click to enlarge.

It’s that second part that bothers His Excellency the Bishop. The Diocese of Lexington does not have a lot of Catholic politicians advocating abortion, but it hosts, with the Bishop’s full support, a parish which openly supports homosexuality. He has openly supported homosexuality and transgenderism among parishioners, and if abortion is not a big topic in the Bluegrass State, a parish which welcomes open homosexuals in the same city as the Cathedral parish is pretty hard to ignore.

Photo from St Paul’s Catholic Church website. Click to enlarge.

Let’s be plain here: in stating that one should only attempt to receive the Host validly, all active and non-repentant homosexuals are necessarily excluded. Of course His Excellence the Bishop is going to be opposed to it!

Our Bishop just does not want to seem to be Catholic!

Then, on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page on Wednesday, was this bit of joy:

Philly priest sexually abused a teen at Cardinal Dougherty High and on a Shore trip decades ago, lawsuit says

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been sued by a man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest in 1981.

by Mensah H Dean | Wednesday, November 17, 2021

A Philadelphia priest who was on the faculty at Cardinal Dougherty High School in the 1980s sexually abused a teen there and also took the boy on a trip to Margate, where he served him alcohol and assaulted him, according to a lawsuit filed in Atlantic County Superior Court.

The Rev. Peter Foley sexually assaulted the boy, then 16, on a trip to the Shore in 1981 and also at the school, where they worked together on student council, the suit says.

Foley, 83, reached by phone Wednesday at the church-run retirement facility in Upper Darby where he lives, said he had never abused the teen — or anyone else — although he acknowledged he had given him alcohol.

“The allegations are false,” he said. “I did give the kid alcohol, but that’s as far as it went. He was 17 or 18.”

There’s more at the original.

I will admit to having a low tolerance for such stories, because a claim forty years old can hardly be defended against. Mt impression is that the petitioner is just seeking a f(ornicating) payday. But the story is at least credible, because, as always seems to be the case, the alleged victim is male. Three other related stories appeared:

And, what do you know, the only other story which specified an individual accuser also specified a male ‘victim.’

Bishop Stowe is going to bat to defend homosexuality, when homosexual activity is explicitly forbidden in the Bible he purports to believe. More, homosexuality has been a huge problem within the Catholic priesthood, and that problem has spilled out in the form of predator priests. while it is wholly politically incorrect to say, the sexual abuse of minors in the Church has been a problem of homosexuality: the vast majority of sexual abuse by Catholic priests has been against boys rather than girls. The John Jay Report noted that, of the abuse cases it studied, between 1950 and 2002, stated:

The largest group of alleged victims (50.9%) was between the ages of 11 and 14, 27.3% were 15-17, 16% were 8-10 and nearly 6% were under age 7. Overall, 81% of victims were male and 19% female. Male victims tended to be older than female victims. Over 40% of all victims were males between the ages of 11 and 14.

The biggest problem with the Catholic priesthood has been homosexuality, and the Bishop of Lexington, by opposing this move by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is supporting allowing that problem to continue.