God Bless The Catholic Priest

[Fatima_Angel]

I know the title here might cause some controversy, but please allow me to explain first.

With this priest abuse scandal that surrounds the Catholic Church and never seems to go away, it really got me thinking about a few things.

And one thing that I feel that I’m thinking very clearly on, is that there are many good, humble and holy priests out there that have been caught up in this whole mess whether they wanted to be or not.

While my heart definitely goes out to all of the victims in this seemingly never ending scandal, it equally goes out to all of the priests who’ve had nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Many priests have chosen a life of poverty and holiness and are there to serve God, the Catholic Church and the general public, but they still have to deal with the questions, accusations, doubts, negativity, dirty looks in public, etc.

And I think that really angers and saddens me the most out of this whole mess.

Thoughts???

 

[AllSeasons]

We have to realize that the overwhelming majority of priests are good, holy men. That said, every priest needs our prayers. Since they are the leaders of their flock in their own parishes, diocese, etc., the devil will try to attack them first, as the devil will try to destroy the Church from within and from without. Unfortunately, priests are human, too, and as such, are not immune from sin. It is extremely sad about what happened with sex abuse scandal, but hopefully the Church will be able to put that episode behind it, with time and prayer, so that more healing can occur. We, as the faithful, should always be on guard against the devil, because that is what he does. Luckily, God has supplied us with many weapons against him, like the rosary, and we should use them without reservation.

 

[Fatima_Angel]

The only reason I started this thread in the first place, was that more allegations in Chicago have recently surfaced and it doesn’t look good.

There was a priest who was involved in several sexual abuse cases and was actually hidden by higher ups in the church and not reported upon and dealt with, so he was able to go out and do it again.

And now many here including some Catholics, are calling for local leaders heads.

I also know that this is a touchy subject with many Catholics, but I feel like if this isn’t discussed and dealt with, we are taking the mentality of a stubborn child throwing a temper tantrum while they plug their ears and go lah-lah-lah, I can’t hear you.

And if we don’t openly discuss this, are we any better than the higher ups out there who are hiding these bad priests and enabling them to do the same things over again?

My heart really does go out to all of the priests that have nothing to do with this whatsoever though.

They definitely need us to have their backs now more than ever, and could at least use a hug, handshake or words of encouragement from most of us.

 

[DoGodsBidding]

God Bless the Priests, Deacons, and Religious for doing the work of the Lord and continuing His ministry. We are all called to do the same in our own way.

DGB

 

[ringil]

What I find especially sad is that priest probably can’t even hug kids anymore or they choose not to out of appearances.

The vast majority of priests had nothing to do with the terrible abuse crisis but all of them have born the brunt.

 

[manualman]

What makes me both sad and mad about the whole thing is that the world at large learned NOTHING from it. They sniff and tisk (see UN panel recently) as if child sexual abuse were some peculiar catholic priest problem when the REAL lesson is that this sickness is happening EVERYWHERE! Seemingly nice neighbors, coaches, teachers, tutors, you name it. Predators seek positions of contact with kids and authority over them and exploit those positions to get the opportunities they desire.

But the public has been determined to largely ignore the wider issue and treat each occurrence as a weird, perverted outlier. Except when it’s a priest, of course, then it’s evidence of an overall corrupt institution. The evidence is not hard to find. The real story of the priest abuse crisis is that we have a culture-wide child abuse crisis that happens to include priests because they hold a role in contact and authority over kids and until recently had pretty slack oversight.

As our cultural values continue to slide, this problem will be harder to ignore in the larger scheme of things. Or perhaps the culture will instead choose to normalize it NAMBLA - style. Perish the thought, but who can predict the times anymore? We went from a world where sodomy was illegal many places to a world where refusing to endorse it is illegal (recent wedding photographer case) in less than two generations. Anything is possible. Including reform!

 

[zab]

Amen. God bless the Catholic Priest.

A Prayer for Priests by John Joseph Cardinal Carberry, Archbishop of St. Louis, USA

O Jesus, our great High Priest, hear my humble prayers on behalf of your priests.
Give them a deep faith, a bright and firm hope, and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life.
In their loneliness, comfort them.
In their sorrows, strengthen them.
In their frustrations, point out to them that it is through suffering that the soul is purified and show them that they are needed by the Church;
they are needed by souls;
they are needed for the work of redemption.
O lovely Mother Mary, Mother of Priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have recieved to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much.

**Be their comfort; **
**be their joy; **
**be their strength; **
and especially help them to live and defend the ideals of consecrated celibacy.