Clerics live it up in Vatican for Law’s 80th

[ringil]

You do mean Law, I guess.

Well, I guess some think that way. But I have seen enough of how diocesan bureaucracies can harbor dissidents who will hide things from bishops and stab them in the back. Because they are who they are, they always find ready cooperatives in the largely anti-Catholic media.

But the reality is that you have no more idea of what Law did or didn’t do than I know what communications go between the White House and the dissident “Catholic” organizations that support him.

The one thing that seems evident, though, is that he did not immediately challenge the then-current psych notion that pedophiles can be 'cured". The psych world has changed its mind since then about that. In my mind, churchmen should never have bought into what the psych world was telling them about anything. Not then, not now, not tomorrow. But they sure did, and it became “institutionalized” in Boston as elsewhere.

I can’t blame them for wanting to “salvage” priests. But the psych world was telling them they could do the job, which was false.

Dodge and weave, dodge and weave. . . …

One of the most liberal Bishops in the US during the 80’s (Sullivan) didn’t cover up and move abusive priests. He got rid of them.

You are throwing out typical protect the Church at all costs- distract, distract, distract.

It was the homosexuals.
It was the 60’s.
It was a lack of orthodoxy.
The Bishop couldn’t know everything going on in his diocese.
It was modern Psychology.
We aren’t praying for our Priests enough.
The Devil is doing this.

Heck, you brought up the freakin’ White House! Dissidents? What?

Dodge and weave, dodge and weave. . . .

The Holy Father isn’t making excuses. He seems weighted down by shame. Why are so many Catholics throwing up, to be quite honest, bull-hockey. It’s offensive in the extreme.

Praise God for the humble and contrite leaders of our Church who are working to address this shameful chapter.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cardinal Law’s management style was to pass on issues to his staff and never follow up to see if they got the job done.

So, when he heard of abuse cases, he merely passed the buck to his associates. Passing the buck got him in trouble when he wrote a glowing letter to the Bishop of San Bernardino, recommending the pedophile priest, Fr Shanley. Getting rid of the problem by sending it away was his style, rather than fixing it.

The other issue is Cardinal Law lived like a king. He took for his private summer residence, a mansion on Cape Cod which was donated years before by a wealthy family and was used for youth retreats. He also had a plush inner city mansion for his residency.

When Cardinal Sean O’Malley took over, the first thing he did is sell off the mansions, and moved his residency to a rented apartment in South Boston. He also, began the job by riding the “T”(public transportation) to work. However, is popularity ended up becoming a problem for the commuters, so he began driving himself in a modest Ford.

Jim

I’m sure the mansions, etc, were at the disposal of the diocese long before Law. He sure didn’t live that way when he was here. Prior eras and donors had very different ideas about what was appropriate for a bishop in the context of their dioceses than is the case now. Once, they were considered the “peers” of the great lay leaders and due great respect. It was also believed that their association with the rich and powerful required material surroundings similar to theirs.

Since bishops are afforded little public respect now by the “powers that be” and the laity alike, I guess we now expect bishops to live like Strict Baptist preachers in rural Scotland. Therefore, I suppose one could fault him for not realizing that and selling off the assets and living in simpler digs like O’Malley did. But that’s what Boston had. Here, he lived with what this diocese had.

To me, this is akin to the arguments one sometimes hears that the Vatican should sell off the art, precious vessels and documents, etc, that it has collected over the millenia.

Personally, I see little merit in either thing.