What gives with this Jenkins?

SOUTH BEND, Indiana, May 4, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In what may be his first public statement on the situation of 88 pro-life protesters arrested on campus last May, University of Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins has suggested that the protesters deserve to continue facing up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine because they were unruly and led by individuals who “threatened peace and order.”

They tore up the place?

The protesters, known as the “Notre Dame 88” (ND88) were arrested for trespassing on Notre Dame’s campus as they peacefully prayed or otherwise symbolized their disagreement with the university for honoring President Obama with the commencement address and an honorary law degree May 17.

The U.S. president was there that day, so protesting was especially objectionable?

Witnesses state that the pro-lifers were arrested while pro-Obama protesters were allowed to roam free – which the ND88’s defense attorney says indicates the pro-lifers were selectively punished simply because of their message.

Witnesses?

Jenkins released his recent statement at the same the South Bend Tribune published an article following up on an investigation by the Sycamore Trust, a Notre Dame alumni watchdog group, which discovered that previous protesters trespassing on Notre Dame’s campus were treated much more leniently. The Tribune article largely confirmed the Sycamore Trust report, saying that “there have been variations in how some protesters were handled at the university.”

And so on.

Once again, what gives with this Jenkins?

The two faces of Roger Mahony.  One:

Cardinal Roger Mahony blasted Arizona’s proposed crackdown on illegal immigration, calling it “the country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited and useless anti-immigrant law.”

“American people are fair-minded and respectful. I can’t imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation,” Mahony wrote on his blog.

The other (lest we forget):

Faced with allegations that parish priests had sexually abused minors, the Los Angeles Archdiocese under Cardinal Roger M. Mahony for many years withheld information from police and allowed clerics facing prosecution to flee to foreign countries, internal records and interviews show.

On the other hand:

At the same time, Mahony has been more aggressive than many U.S. bishops in dismissing members of the clergy. According to newly obtained information, the cardinal quietly removed 17 priests from ministry during the last decade who had either admitted or had been credibly accused of molesting minors.

In recent months, as the Roman Catholic Church has struggled to contain the clergy sex abuse scandal, Mahony has taken a stance as an outspoken reformer on a mission to oust all sex offenders from the priesthood.

On yet another hand (or back to the first):

But an examination of sexual abuse cases during his tenure in Los Angeles since 1985 shows that the archdiocese also worked to keep a growing problem from the eyes of the public and the hands of the law. The Times examination found.

Five parish priests fled the country and one disappeared after learning of complaints that they had sexually abused underage victims. Two of the clergymen left after a top aide to Mahony informed them of allegations and a third was told to join the priesthood in the Philippines. Of the six, two are fugitives.

Police complained in two cases that church officials had hampered criminal investigations by refusing to cooperate. In one inquiry, Long Beach police say, they were turned away from archdiocese headquarters when they asked for help. “The door was shut in our face,” said Long Beach Det. Randi Castillo, a 26-year veteran who led an investigation in the mid-1990s of a popular pastor who allegedly had molested at least 10 altar boys. “This was absolutely something I had never encountered in all my years in law enforcement.”

Hands, faces, whatever.  Two of them for this several-sided man.

Comment yesterday, Margaret, about Colorado man’s experience at Loyola Academy in ‘80s:

Sorry, that doesn’t ring true to me at all. He . . . should have confided in his own confessor or another priest about the situation and asked for advice (assuming that there was some normal priest available).

Etc.  Followed by comment, Daniel T:

Margaret–interesting thought. However, it’s very clear that you didn’t spend any time at the Academy during those years and are not in the mindset of a young man attending Loyola in the late 80s.. Unfortunately, you have to be there to know it.

What of the ‘60s?

Wilton Skiffington — Chicago Tribune – Thursday, November 20, 2003:

A former student at Loyola Academy in Wilmette filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Jesuit religious order, which runs the school, accusing a teacher of molesting him in 1962.

Lou Franchi, who said Rev. Wilton Skiffington repeatedly abused him when Franchi was an upperclassman at Loyola, is the third former student to file suit since August over alleged abuse at Loyola. The incidents allegedly took place at least 30 years ago.  . . . .

Franchi said that while the abuse was taking place, his parents found an explicit letter from Skiffington on their son’s dresser. Franchi said he has no recollection of the letter but was told it referred to “my beautiful body.” He has incomplete memories of the abuse, he said.

His parents turned the letter over to school officials, and Skiffington was immediately transferred to a parish in San Diego, Franchi said.  . . . .

Donald McGuire — Chicago Tribune, February 24, 2006:

A jury found Rev. Donald McGuire, a well-known Chicago Jesuit, guilty late Thursday of molesting two teenage Loyola Academy students in Wisconsin in the 1960s.  . . . . 

During closing arguments Thursday, defense attorney Gerald Boyle tried to paint the two accusers as opportunists who were trying to cash in on a civil lawsuit filed in Illinois against the Jesuits.

“They want money,” Boyle said repeatedly.  . . . .

Skiffington was besotted with his adolescent, as was Archbishop Weakland with his somewhat older loved one.

The reasons are many, but one is that these fellows are starved for love, which goes sexual at the drop of a hint.  Mind over matter has its uses, we can’t just go with the flow.  But warmth of relationship is something most (almost all? all?) people need, though not always genital.  You just have to find it in the right places.  You have to look for it in the right places.  Go looking for it in the wrong places, you cause trouble.

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While we’re at it, yesterday’s Chi Trib story quoting the Colorado man had “he said,” but not to whom he said it.  Not to the Trib, we presume.  So to the Jesuits whom he called up about it?  Which Jesuit or which office?  And who told the Trib?  I object strongly to this careless rendering.

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Oops.  Re-examined the piece and found this at the end:

The man contacted the school Tuesday.

After receiving a phone call from a former student, the school notified the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and the Office of Victim Advocacy at the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus and also referred the former student to the society’s Office of Victim Advocacy, according to a statement.

Still, whose statement?  Worth saying, I think.

RC officialdom’s tilt to the left is a matter of long-standing precedent, let the (sad) record show.  Catholic periodicals responding to Depression  problems

were generally sympathetic to the social-welfare legislation of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. John A. Ryan, Raymond McGowan, and William Montavon were frequently supportive, and Bishop William O’Brien went so far as to declare that “when the greatest depression in our history threatened our country and seemed about to submerge it, Almighty God raised up Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the apostle of the New
Deal.”

Only the then-dormant or even non-existent abortion issue prevents our current bishops from likewise bloviating, one fears.

Thus Thomas E. Blantz in The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Jul., 1986), p. 516, reviewing The Response in American Catholic Periodicals to the Crises of the Great Depression, 1930-1935, by Lawrence B. DeSaulniers.

With bishops like O’Brien — a Chicago auxiliary, wouldn’t you know it, and later an archbishop and director of the Chicago-based Catholic Church (home-mission) Extension Society — who needed Steve Early?

Time, I say, to distinguish between the U.S. Catholic Conference, not to mention “the church,” as this AFP story does not:

WASHINGTON — The US Catholic church on Tuesday condemned Arizona’s “draconian” new immigration law, saying it would alienate immigrant communities across the United States.

“This new law, although limited to the State of Arizona, could have impact throughout the nation in terms of how members of our immigrant communities are both perceived and treated,” Bishop John Wester said in a statement issued on behalf of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Time was when “the church” was the pope and the bishops, neither of which has pontificated on the Arizona law, to use a familiar verb.  Then time was or is when it is the people of God — not sure: we used to talk that way a lot when Vatican 2 was news.

In neither case did we mean the DC bureaucracy run by staffers and a bishop director and a bishops’ committee.  AFP probably doesn’t know any better and/or doesn’t give a care about such inside-baseball information.  But who among the bishops is trying to educated it?  (That’s Agence France Presse, by the way.)

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Later, from a faithful reader:

Jim — I’m not the only Catholic among my friends who is about to “leave the USCCB” but stay in the church. The USCCB does NOT speak for me — in fact it speaks what I consider the language of the enemies of freedom of religion in this country.  I am tired of being treated like a dumb, lowly tax payer by TWO national entities.  I’m glad you are taking up this issue.