Peggy Noonan trashes the Vatican

[kwassa]

I'm no fan of Noonan, but she has a great piece in the WSJ about "How to Save the Catholic Church" and nails the corruption that places the offenders in charge of the reform!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304510004575186451300061536.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter once called Cardinal Law "the poster boy" of the American scandal. He has also became the poster boy for the church's problems in handling the scandal. And that has to do with its old-boy network, with the continued dominance of those who grew up in the old way.

In December 2002, Cardinal Law left Boston just hours before state troopers arrived with subpoenas seeking his grand jury testimony in what the state's attorney general, Thomas Reilly, called a massive coverup of child abuse. The cardinal made his way to Rome, where he resigned, and where he stayed with Archbishop James Harvey, a close friend and, as head of the pontifical household, the most powerful American in the Vatican. Within a year Archbishop Harvey, too, was implicated in the scandal: The Dallas Morning News reported the Vatican had promoted a priest through its diplomatic corps even though it had received persistent, high-level warnings that he had sexually abused a young girl. The warnings had gone to Archbishop Harvey.

Cardinal Law received one of the best sinecures in Rome, as head of the Basilica of Saint Maria Maggiore and a member of the Vatican office tasked with appointing new bishops and correcting misconduct.

These stories are common in the church. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, a former Vatican secretary of state and now dean of the College of Cardinals, was a primary protector of the now disgraced Father Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, described by a heroic uncoverer of the scandals, Jason Berry, in the National Catholic Reporter, as "a morphine addict who sexually abused at least twenty . . . seminarians."

I know this from having seen it: Many—not all, but many—of the men who staff the highest levels of the Vatican have been part of the very scandal they are now charged with repairing. They are defensive and they are angry, and they will not turn the church around on their own.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Irish Central: MoDo and Noonan Tell Catholic Church the Truth They Need to Hear

http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/maureen-dowd-and-peggy-noonan-tell-catholic-church-the-truth-they-need-to-hear-90902644.html

When the history of this awful period for the Catholic Church is written it will be revealed that it was two Irish Catholic women who wrote the unvarnished truth on what had happened and spoke truth to power.

...

Both Noonan and Dowd, both raised Catholics brush aside all the protestations of anti-Catholic bias made by the Vatican among others and see it for what it is--an attempt to divert people away from the awful truth of the cancer that has eaten away at the moral fibre of the church.

In her column in the Wall Street journal last Friday Noonan writes..." hundreds of priests and bishops thought they could do anything, any amount of damage to the church, and it would be fine. "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." That is Mathew 16:18, of course, Christ's great promise to his church. Catholics in the pews have been repeating it a lot lately as they—we—absorb the latest round of scandal stories. "The old church will survive." But we see more clearly than church It is damage that will last at least a generation. It is an actual catastrophe, a rolling catastrophe.."

...

Likewise Maureen Dowd has cut to the heart of the matter. Speaking of the current pope's reluctance when a Cardinal to banish a known pedophile in Oakland, California from the church she wrote;

"As in so many other cases, the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal. Chillingly, outrageously, the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the “good of the universal church” before granting the priest’s own request to give up the collar — even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished."

Both women make clear in recent columns their deep historical and personal connections to the church. Neither minces words when it comes to dissecting the current crisis however.

[Warpy]

3. Why do you think the church has always been such a bastion

of good ole boy misogyny? Women have long been known to tell uncomfortable truths that men in power don't want to hear. Ever.

You can bet that the Vatican isn't listening to them now.

When are Catholics going to get wise and discard the Vatican?

[Captain Hilts]

4. Most religions are male hierarchies. Catholicism w/o the Vatican is Anglicanism. nt

[kwassa]

5. except that there are female priests and bishops in the US version of the Anglican church.

The Presiding Bishop of the the entire US Episcopal Church is a woman.



There are other Anglican churches, however, where this is not the case.

[Kolesar]

7. She looks cute in that garb

But she also looks like she is costumed to be in a play. She would be a great date for Halloween.

[kwassa]

9. Episcopals like to dress up.

but that was a special outfit just for her investiture.

here is another one:

[Kolesar]

10. Nautical-ropework, very nice

I like the glossy sheen in the fabrics she wears.

[Warpy]

8. There is no basis for the penis requirement for priesthood

except making the early church more palatable to the Romans.

[Kolesar]

6. But you are immoral if you don't have faith in God

I have been studying the Agnostic Reader. It's a tough read in nineteenth century prose.

[gratuitous]

2. Gasp! Peggy Noonan, you bad girl

Who are you to question the decisions and practices of Christ's Vicars on Earth?! How dare you? The Holy, Roman, Catholic Church isn't some democracy, where the adherents have a say in the conduct of the Church. The men that God has placed in charge are to be obeyed, not questioned. They receive their guidance directly from God Himself, and good, non-cafeteria Catholics know, understand and accept this.

Get thee to a confessional, Peggy! Before this venial sin morphs into a mortal sin, damning your soul for all eternity.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

11. Boy, Peggington's going to be shocked when she sobers up Monday and realizes what she wrote.

Then she and her staff will have a hearty laugh about it.