Month: October 2018

On Chile, Pope Francis is way past the tip of the iceberg now

By reputation and wide exposure of his talents, Francis is not supposed to ignore the Chilean iceberg. But he did.

Why?

ROME – It’s a universally acknowledged reality of the sea that it’s never the tip of the iceberg that sinks a ship, but what lies under the water unseen. Yet, to the trained eye, the visible white mass usually is enough to warn of the dangers ahead and to change course.

In the case of Chile’s clerical sexual abuse scandals, Pope Francis first brushed against the tip of the iceberg in 2015, when he decided to transfer a Chilean bishop named Juan Barros, accused of having covered up abuse, to a southern diocese.

Yet Francis repeatedly ignored the alarms that came loud and clear. Victims of the pedophile priest Fernando Karadima, for whom Barros allegedly covered up, spoke with anyone who would listen, including members of the pope’s own Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The media, both in Chile and in Rome, kept the case in the spotlight. Chilean politicians sent a letter to the pope asking him to change course, and even some bishops spoke up against the nomination.

But Francis kept going, full steam ahead.

Alarmingly, it’s how a bad-guy protector acts, the kind of church leader whom all decry.

via Crux

LeBron James Has Turned the NBA Into the ZZZ

He doesn’t exactly put people to sleep, but . . . 

LeBron James’s debut with the Los Angeles Lakers had all the makings of a fantastic spectacle—a must-see television extravaganza that marked the beginning of a new era for maybe the greatest player of all time. There was no way that a fan like Colin Hebert was going to miss it.

And then he found himself sound asleep by halftime.

. . . it’s location, location, location, as any retailer knows. . If he’d bring his show to Chicago, in the center of the nation, he’d fewer to no people asleep..

via WSJ

The pope and the abusers: Francis’ achilles heel

It’s a problem that’s never been high on his agenda.

“He’s been ambivalent, muddled on sex abuse. It’s not been at the top of his priority list, ever,” said Paul Vallely, a British journalist and author of Pope Francis: The Struggle for the Soul of Catholicism, a biography.

Consider Chile.

Nowhere has the pope tripped more than in Chile, which once had one of the highest percentages of Catholics in Latin America. Allegations there involve 167 Catholic officials and 178 victims so far. Prosecutors recently raided church buildings, seized documents and arrested a prominent priest, putting the abuse scandal front and center in the pope’s native region.

“The future of the church is in play here,” said Juan Pablo Hermosilla, a Santiago lawyer who represents sex-abuse victims. “What is happening in Chile is very important for the region, and what happens in Latin America is going to be very important for the church.”

Indeed, “Chile is for the first time no longer a majority-Catholic nation.”

It’s not his fault, say some.

Defenders of Pope Francis say criticism of him is unfair because most of the cases now coming to light happened long ago. Some say the abuse scandal has been exploited by people who oppose the pope’s calls for expansive immigration policies, his warnings about economic inequality and global warming as well as his leniency on divorce.

But he has a checkered history.

Since 2001, church law has required bishops to inform the Vatican about any report of sex abuse of a minor “which has at least a semblance of truth.” As archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 to 2013, [however] the future pope referred just two cases to the Vatican, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The Chile scene:

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, a top papal adviser with a strong record on combating sex abuse in the U.S., publicly rebuked the pope for causing pain to abuse victims by dismissing their claims. The pope apologized but repeated the charge of slander on his flight back to Rome

He has a history of fudging or forgetting in these matters:

The pope also said the Chilean accusers had never approached him with their abuse complaints. Two weeks later, it was revealed that Cardinal O’Malley had given the pope a detailed letter from one victim more than two years earlier.

The Marists, who also have a Chicago base, made a big splash, more a swamp, in Chile.

The criminal investigation in Chile has rocked the nation’s chapter of the Marists, a Catholic religious order that runs 12 schools there. Victims accuse church officials at some of the schools of preying on boys over decades.

“A system of impunity”: A phrase to remember.

“There was a system of impunity that allowed this to happen,” said Emiliano Arias, a prosecutor who led a raid on church offices in four cities in September. “I’m certain there are more cases.”

The ancient-history rebuttal won’t wash:

Eneas Espinoza said he was abused in the 1970s at the Alonso de Ercilla Institute, a Marist-run school in downtown Santiago. Prosecutor Raúl Guzmán has identified 26 suspects and 40 victims in cases dating from 1968 to 2016.

Ugly stuff:

Mr. Espinoza, 45 years old, recalled his school as hell. A Marist brother from Spain would take him out of class and sexually abuse him, Mr. Espinoza said. Afterward, the brother would instruct the 6-year-old boy to brush his teeth.

As an adult, Mr. Espinoza said, he associated brushing with abuse and avoided it, eventually losing most of his teeth.

A-OK today?

A representative for Chile’s branch of the Marist order said the schools now have policies to prevent abuse and were “absolutely safe” for children.

The system is abolished? Good for them if that is so. Like at the Vatican? Prognosis was not good as regards to the new pope. Considering for his record (again) . . .

When victims of abuse went public in Argentina, he refused to meet them. In 2006, as head of the Argentine bishops conference, he denounced what he called a media campaign against the Rev. Julio Grassi, founder of a well-known orphanage who was accused of abusing children under his care. Father Grassi was eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison, a verdict upheld last year by Argentina’s highest court.

Blind spot there? Meanwhile, in Rome, something had to be done:

In March 2014, the pope established an advisory panel on child protection, at the urging of Cardinal O’Malley of Boston. The panel included two prominent abuse victims-turned-advocates, which raised hopes of greater influence from laypeople. The panel proposed a special tribunal for trying bishops accused of covering up or neglecting abuse by priests.

The pope accepted the recommendation and the Vatican announced [his] decision in 2015.

It didn’t happen.

The tribunal wasn’t set up. Instead, the pope amended church law the following year to specify that bishops’ negligence in abuse cases was grounds for dismissal.

With foreseeable results.

The pope’s change of mind was a disappointment for Marie Collins, a well-known victim of clerical sex abuse who served on the advisory panel. She resigned last year, complaining of Vatican inaction, and was joined by Peter Saunders, the other panel member who had been an abuse victim.

Pattern here, where bishops, including in this the bishop of Rome, prove hard to work with and frustrating to lay people. The aftermath of this instance? Pope says he and one of the lay people met and . . .

The pope told reporters he had spoken with Ms. Collins and heard her concerns. Ms. Collins said they had no such conversation. (emphasis added)

And her vote of no confidence:

“He has done nothing really to give confidence back to people that the church has a grip on this issue,” Ms. Collins said. “He’s made these statements about zero tolerance and then not operated zero tolerance.”

It’s a pattern, yes.

via: Pope Francis’ Handling of Sex-Abuse Cases Fractures a Catholic Stronghold-
WSJ

 

Pope Francis at canonization of new saints: ‘Jesus is radical’

I am reminded of interviewing community organizer Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals in the ’70’s when he called Jesus a community organizer.

He counted off the points of resemblance, which I duly noted and reported. (There’s a video on the matter which compares Alinsky and Jesus. It demonstrates how unlike each was to the other.)

Alinsky had many priest friends, including pastors in various Chicago neighborhoods beginning with the Back of the Yards in the mid-’30s.

With the blessing of Cardinal Mundelein, needless to say. And of Mundelein’s successors –in other neighborhoods for decades to come.

The “radical” reference is something of a bromide by now, albeit defensible in view of Jesus’ assigned and chosen role as upsetter of one covenant and replacing it with another.

At the same time, such terms are hugely attractive to proclaimers of revolution and, for that matter, radicalism. So it becomes a tricky business, this laying on the Savior terms that mean so many things that are  not always mutually compatible.

Context helps, of course, and yet when Francis uses one of those terms, he would be wise to get specific, I think, as would anyone else.

via Pope Francis at canonization of new saints Paul VI, Oscar Romero: ‘Jesus is radical’

Accepting climate change is real and then doing nothing about it is Trump’s most damaging mistake yet. Oh?

Issue not being climate change, right? But what we can do about it.

“It will change,” Trump told 60 Minutes, without saying how.

No, main thing being it’s an ebb and flow thing, with long history of change dating long prior to industrialization.

So it’s a distraction. And howlers use it as one to get us not thinking about magnificent Trumpian achievements in U.S. economy. Tsk, tsk.

via The Independent

Wash DC Dominican House of Studies defies Halloween . . .

. . . recreating All-Hallow’s (Saints) Eve’ning, (from which Hallows Even and finally Halloween. Not a defiance exactly, but quite an alternative commemoration.

The House of Studies celebrates a Vigil of All Saints on October 31st of each year. One of the community’s more popular events, the vigil celebrates our friendship the saints in glory.

The liturgy includes the chanting of psalms, readings from the lives of the saints, preaching from one of the friars, and a candlelight procession around the priory cloister. Arrive early to ensure a seat in the chapel. Click here for recent media coverage of the vigil.

Hanging out with the saints, night before their big day, collectively speaking.

via Annual Events – Priory of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies

C. Ford out of the batter’s box: Impeach the Big K. out of the question.

Heard lovingly once, now maybe not so much.

She came forward, and she was heard.  And now, she’s done.

I’m good with that [says Legal Insurrection blogger], but I suspect we’ll be hearing very soon that we can’t accept Ford’s decision.  After all, everyone has to believe and support the “survivor” . . . until they say or do something rational, like give up on a lost battle.

Time, as the George Soros people said post-Clinton. to move on.

via Ford calls it quits on Kavanaugh: Wants no prosecution, no investigation, no impeachment

Cupich says bishops must cede authority, allow lay oversight of accusations

Forget the national conference as mover and shaker of reform, he told National Catholic Reporter.

In discussing the need for individual Catholic prelates to cede authority to allow for the creation of a new national investigative body, Cupich acknowledged that the national bishops’ conference does not have the power to institute such a body on its own.

“The bishops’ conference can’t do it,” he said. “It has to either come from Rome or [the] individual bishop.”

This is crazy. He talks as  Pope Francis hadn’t squelched the national conference when their leaders came and asked for a national investigation. Instead, he Ignores it.

He also ignores his being the head of an archdiocese for which he can establish an archdiocesan investigation himself, giving an example to his fellow bishops. What’s he waiting for?

via National Catholic Reporter