Cardinal Theodore McCarrick Resigns

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Cordelil said:
What was he doing on the College of Cardinals if his mind is supposedly shot?
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If he’s 88, he was a Cardinal-Emeritus. He lost his privileges to vote in the next Papal election, so it became a mostly honorary title.
 
“The road to Hell is paved with the bones of priests and monks, and the skulls of bishops are the lamp posts that light the path.” – attributed to St. John Chrysostom

D
 
He “groomed” an entire generation of clergy; his sins will redound for yet awhile. I think this still is just the tip of the iceberg of the abuser/gay mafia in the clergy. It ain’t over yet; more certainly to come.
 
on_the_hill said:
But how can a man not remember whether they occurred? That’s just nuts. He’s either lying or mentally ill.
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Don’t underestimate the degree to which a person who has manipulated/abused/harassed hundreds of people could fail to remember details about individual cases.
 
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What do you mean by “we”? Why are “we” only as good as our worst member instead of being as great as our best member?
 
A chain is only as good as its weakest link. Any strain or pressure applied breaks that link first.

In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the rest."

Said by Thomas Reid in his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, 1786

We can apply this to our Christian situation as humanity being the Body of the Church .
A chain breaks, the Body becomes weaker and needs strengthening,

And the devil is well aware of this
 
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Thank you for your explanation. I didn’t know what you meant before!
 
Cordelil said:
What was he doing on the College of Cardinals if his mind is supposedly shot? Agree, a lawyer must have orchestrated this canard.
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Cardinals, like judges, are appointed for life. Some of them will be very old. You will note that those over 80, which this guy has been for quite some time, are not permitted to vote on a new Pope.

Having memory problems at an elderly age doesn’t mean your mind “is shot”. I have seen elderly people, including judges, in their 80s who definitely had memory issues but had developed ingenious coping strategies to deal with them, or relied heavily on their family members, caregivers, and staff. And like I said, there is a tendency for the elderly, perhaps for all of us, to conveniently forget things we just don’t want to remember, maybe because they are not pleasant things.

From a legal standpoint, good luck getting a defendant that old to “remember” anything he doesn’t to remember. You’ll be lucky if you even get a chance to depose anybody that old without him suddenly developing a health problem or dying on you. (In US criminal law, he also has the right to remain silent if he’s accused of a crime.) If the case ever made it to court, there could even be health restrictions or the guy coming in on a gurney like John Demjanjuk.
 
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The floodgates of clergy sexual scandals from the third world Catholic Churches are beginning to open and the torrent may be horrendous. However, since their press may not be up to snuff that could put a damper on the situation. When these things were occurring in the U.S. on a daily level I always wondered this can’t be limited to the U.S. and Western Europe. I know a woman from Barbados and the first time she went to a Catholic Church and spoke with a priest he wanted to have sex with her. Not a ringing endorsement for evangelization.
 
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Cardinal Farrell says he has no inkling of the abuses, in this video he states:
 
Cardinal Farrell has an odd pattern of working for serial sexual harassers/rapists and somehow knowing nothing.

He’s either lying or he has all the perception of a blind person with a concussion. Either way, he should resign.
 
Though I have been reading about whatever you want to call it (for now I will say the Catholic Church abuse scandal) for a long time, I was not a member of this forum until a few years ago. I know a rule here is to not disparage the clergy, but I am heartened to see that the Forums have allowed discussion of this abuse scandal without quickly closing the threads. The Forums have influence and to start to deal with it the members must be free to speak our minds. Otherwise we as a group who are seen all over the world lose credibility just as the Church leadership has lost credibility through mishandling of these situations, like it or not.

The moderators of course still need to keep things within certain bounds, but wise allowance of criticism is absolutely essential at this critical time.
 
With all these scandals as of late, i remember an episode of Law and Order SVU where there has been a spate of sexual assaults on girls in the area. Turns out it was the well respected community leader who taught martial arts as self defense to children and teens to protect themselves from sex offenders who was the rapist himself.
 
I didn’t read the article and will admit it…is it Mr. McCarrick…
 
womanatwell said:
I know a rule here is to not disparage the clergy, but I am heartened to see that the Forums have allowed discussion of this abuse scandal without quickly closing the threads.
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Discussing stories reported in the reputable public media does not amount to “disparaging the clergy”.

Repeating rumor, innuendo, gossip, etc that isn’t reliably sourced is what the rules prevent. Also, clergy-bashing for the usual interpersonal or silly reasons, like someone posts calling their priest all kinds of names because he didn’t return their phone call, or they don’t like that he wore sneakers to say Mass.
 
The magnitude of it is just too big to dismiss. I spent most of my life in Los Angeles and the last massive payout the diocese there was $560,000,000. The victims involved are gigantic since some of the priests were serial abusers. If one peruses the abusive Catholic clergy and religious in the U.S. on these website lists they seem to go on forever since so many were involved. This is and remains a gargantuan scandal coupled with lack of enforcement and leadership.
 
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Right. Denouncing an individual cleric does not equate to disparaging the clergy generally.
 
I’m not minimizing the importance of bringing this to light and the costs of dealing with the resulting suits and settlements, as well as the impact on the public image of the Church from the cover-ups.

But at the same time, I’m more interested in bad behavior that might be going on right now in the Church and how it is right now being addressed. I have seen one priest in the last few years who was engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior with minors on the internet and collecting pedo porn, taken away by the cops, removed from his parish (with attached school) etc and it seemed to happen pretty quickly as he was not there for more than a year or so. He got 20 years in prison for the recent crimes.

Once the allegations go back more than 15 years, it seems to be from a different era and many of the superiors from that era have passed away or gone to the old-age home, so it’s hard to find people to point fingers at. A lot of this stuff happened under the reign of Pope JPII who is now not only deceased, but a saint, so we can’t really point fingers at him.
 
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