Fr. Z CALLS FOR “SPECIAL PROSECUTOR”!

Enough of this!

It’s time for Pope Francis to appoint an “Indagator Particularis… Special Prosecutor”.

He will have to be a “Burke’s Law” kind of guy, who will find out who knew what and when.

A “Burke’s Law” kind of guy.

Who could it be?

We could call it “Burke’s Law”.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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31 Comments

  1. TNCath says:

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way to protect the Faith is to dismantle the present structure of the Church, beginning with most of her cardinals and bishops. I don’t know how that could be done save a direct intervention of the Holy Spirit. Let’s face it: the Church as we have known it is pretty much over as far as credibility and moral authority is concerned because our hierarchy has pretty much thrown all that out the window by betraying God and the people they serve to protect their own thin, lily-livered, wimpy skins. At this point, they deserve whatever they get, and God have mercy on their souls for the deception, duplicity, and defilement they have imposed on the Bride of Christ.

  2. Elizabeth D says:

    You do have a friend in the particular office of the CDF that deals with clergy who may have committed certain crimes. And he is there because that office is swamped with its backlog of cases. If MacCarrick has to get in line behind all the other cases from around the world there may be no way he can have a trial in this life. A priest who met Cardinal Burke in Rome last month told me he seems not too busy! Actually this is too good an idea to be a joke! I wonder if even Pope Francis could see it. I am afraid if I laugh about it, they won’t consider it for real!

  3. TNCath says:

    Add Cardinal O’Malley, Cardinal Cupich, and Cardinal Maradiaga to my list as well.

  4. JabbaPapa says:

    Cardinal Pell did this sort of work after the true extent of the priestly child abuse scandal had emerged in Australia, and he organised Church tribunals leading to the laicising of dozens of these ghastly men.

    And see how the world “thanks” him for this, as some men who were intimately involved in those groups centred around that “gay” clergy try to have him convicted of the very thing that he so fiercely opposed and repressed.

  5. Joy65 says:

    by TNCath
    “the Church as we have known it is pretty much over as far as credibility and moral authority is concerned”

    Well I beg to differ. I HAVE FAITH and I KNOW that God does not allow a negative to happen without it resulting in a positive. I KNOW & TRUST that The Holy Spirit is STILL IN CHARGE in the Vatican, in the spiritual lives of all of our Clergy-Consecrated Religious and in our One Holy Catholic Church. Of all of the MANY MANY Catholic clergy & Consecrated Religious around the world yes there are those who have fallen and done despicable things. There are those who have used and abused others for their own gain. There are those who have given in to satan’s lies. But stop and think of the COUNTLESS Catholic Clergy and Consecrated Religious throughout the World who each day do Our Lord’s will and don’t step one toe over the line, preach the TRUTH and live it each and every day and bring more and more souls to God by their example and their tremendous love of the Lord. Think of those who selflessly do what others don’t do—give up everything for God and His Church. Too many Catholic Clergy and Consecrated Religious are giving themselves every moment of every day for Our Lord and His Church to be diminished by the few who are not. Yes it hurts me to hear of even one abuse scandal involving clergy. Yes it is a problem for our Church. Yes it isn’t going away but if I have to dwell on anything I choose to dwell on what is going RIGHT in our Church, the good that is being done in accordance with God’s will, the new converts coming into our Church as well as the fallen away Catholics coming back. I am not in denial about the scandals but if I have to look in any direction I’d much prefer to focus my time on God, what He’s calling ME to do and praying for those who are DOING HIS WILL in our Church, instead of focusing on the liar of lies and what he’s accomplished. God is in charge and HE WILL TAKE CARE OF ALL OF THIS IN HIS WAY! If anything comes of this it should be that EVERY SINGLE CATHOLIC PRAYS UNCEASINGLY for their One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church and all who serve in Her as Priests and Consecrated Religious and all who belong to Her.

  6. TNCath says:

    Joy65, I agree with you 100%. What I am referring to is the corruption in the Church that has scandalized the people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, as a result of these atrocities. There are indeed many, many good priests and religious out there. There also great bishops, although seemingly fewer in number. That said, it’s going to take a very long time for the Church to recover from this, and yes, prayer acts of self-denial, and reception if the Sacraments will ultimately save us.

  7. ThePapalCount says:

    Sadly, the good work being done by countless good and holy clerics and consecrated religious has been hi-jacked by the few who are being exposed now and earlier by this seemingly never ending parade of predators and sexual perpetrators.
    The few have grievously weakened the moral authority of the Church and brought the entire Church into disrepute.
    The Holy Spirit is always present in the Church….but He can only function to the degree we, through our free-will, allow him to. Sadly, those “few” or “many” who exercise leadership roles and those in influence in the Church seem to be deaf to the Spirit or at worst don’t believe. The leadership of our Church is in crisis from the top down. It will take heroic steps from the laity and from those who are” good and holy leaders” to bring about change. It will I fear take generations for the Church to recover. But, our Faith is in Jesus not men. But, what men are these?

  8. LarryW2LJ says:

    In the end, God’s got this. As worrisome as this predicament is (and it IS worrisome):

    The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’

    He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

    He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.

    Let them grow together until harvest;* then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.

  9. HvonBlumenthal says:

    Much as I admire Cardinal Burke, he is to closely associated to those who are considered enemies of theHoly Father.

    There are other options of Cardinals who take their roles very seriously without being aligned to any opposition movement. Cardinal Sarah comes to mind

  10. arga says:

    And his brief is short and sweet: How many Uncles are there?

  11. irishromancatholic says:

    Spectacular idea Father! The exact opposite behavior of what we have been accustomed to from high ranking clerics. Let’s not forget Cardinal Cupich’s recent award that he gave to Cardinal McCarrick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhxxa8lhbpM

  12. Nan says:

    He seems very tired, though. I was at Mass at Our Lady of Guadelupe a couple of weeks ago.

    Last year when he was home in Aug, he went to Guam for the trial there, out and back in short order, so it’s possible he’d be the guy.

  13. Nan says:

    The reason for Burke is that he’s a canonist.

  14. tominrichmond says:

    I’d certainly be interested in knowing if our new bishop in Richmond, Barry Knestout, knew about McCarrick’s degeneracy. The bishop was McCarrick’s secretary for a time, and a diocesan official. Seems impossible that he would not have known what was going on.

  15. Joy65 says:

    LarryW2LJ says:
    “In the end, God’s got this. As worrisome as this predicament is (and it IS worrisome):
    The slaves of the householder came to him and said, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’
    He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ His slaves said to him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
    He replied, ‘No, if you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them.
    Let them grow together until harvest;* then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.”

    EXCELLENT response Larry! Perfectly stated.

  16. teomatteo says:

    Appointing Burke would go a long way in restoring my confidence in this pope. We can only pray.

  17. rbbadger says:

    Cardinal Burke would be an excellent choice for this role. The Holy Father has praised his legal abilities before. He recently served as Promoter of Justice (the Promotor Iustitiae or prosecutor) in the case of Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron, OFMCap or Agaña, Guam. Archbishop Apuron was convicted, but he has appealed. He does have experience in prosecuting bishops. Not many canonists do.

  18. richiedel says:

    Ah…A Burke’s Law kind of guy. Yes. Well, you see, that means he’s going to be driving around a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud II. ;-)

  19. GregB says:

    When it comes to the weeds and the wheat, if you take it to extremes you get some of the abuses of the internal forum that are being currently promoted in the D&R and alternative lifestyles debates. When I listen to the progressive wing of the Church, it would seem that even weeding the garden of my own soul is not to be encouraged. Based on their world view how can I tell when I might wrongfully uproot a “virtuous” sin? It would seem that the Purgative Way of Contemplative Prayer is off the agenda. I guess that I have to leave the log in my own eye undisturbed.
    *
    We are in the fix we’re in because the Church gave the offenders too much uncritical 70 times 7 forgiveness, and similar uncritical seemingly unlimited mercy.

  20. iPadre says:

    Yes! We need to get this behind us. It’s a great source of suffering and anger for all. It’s also causing a lot of division and bitterness.

  21. robtbrown says:

    LarryW2LJ says:

    In the end, God’s got this.

    How does that sound to those who have been victims of these sickos?

  22. robtbrown says:

    Is there any truth to the rumor that Sgt Schultz will be named a doctor of the Church?

    [Doctor Ignorans?]

  23. iPadre: It’s a great source of suffering and anger for all. It’s also causing a lot of division and bitterness.

    It will get worse, I fear. Wait until false accusations are used in an attempt to remove priests and bishops whom people – left or right – don’t like.

  24. LarryW2LJ says:

    robtbrown says”

    “How does that sound to those who have been victims of these sickos?”

    Not comforting at all. But true, nonetheless. It’s the only consolation that I can personally take; because I am quite doubtful that the hierarchy is going to do anything meaningful. Oh, they’ll talk a good game; but will they actually do something; or will it all be window dressing? And by meaningful, it appears that to me, that this whole scandal, were the lights really brightly turned on, might involve laicizing a lot more than the 1-2% that we all heard were responsible for these heinous crimes. It would now appear that not only were there sins of commission; but it would appear there was a lot of sinning by omission (which is just as bad, if not worse, because these people became enablers) – maybe even more than we ever expected.

    Hey, but who am I to judge?

  25. Blaise says:

    Isn’t that a role that Mgr Scicluna performed very effectively until Pope Francis promoted him and didn’t replace him?

  26. SanSan says:

    God has a plan…..PAX to all

  27. Benedict Joseph says:

    There is no need to bother Cardinal Burke. In all honesty have not the past fifty-six years provided sufficient trial? Let’s just proceed to the sentencing, but first we must convene the defendants, living and the dead.

    [Ummm… ]

  28. JesusFreak84 says:

    Burke and Sarah as a duo; it’d be a thing to behold, methinks, and having Sarah closely associated might help with dealing with people who either don’t trust Burke or don’t trust Americans or whatever.

  29. robtbrown says:

    iPadre says:

    Yes! We need to get this behind us. It’s a great source of suffering and anger for all. It’s also causing a lot of division and bitterness.

    Counting on getting this behind us is why the present mess exists–people knew this was happening but preferred the false peace of the status quo to getting the filth out of the Church (cf, BXVI).

    I was overjoyed when the news about McCarrick began to break. I’ve known for over 35 years this crud was in the Church, but only an individual story would trickle out now and then–seldom about a big wig.

    I can only hope that McCarrick is the first of many.

  30. This is late in a long line of posts, many derogatory of the Holy Father. [?]

    We should remember that the Holy Father last year appointed Cardinal Burke the president of the ecclesiastical tribunal that tried the archbishop of Guam for sex crimes (and found him guilty). This is was probably the highest profile trial of a high ecclesiastic on these matters to date. The Holy Father then reappointed him to the Apostolic Signatura, the highest juridical body in the curia.

    It seems that the Holy Father’s opinion of Cardinal Burke in matters canonical is hardly negative, whatever their differences on policy and style. It is not impossible that Fr. Z. might get his wish.

  31. hwriggles4 says:

    Burke would be good for this.

    There are some good letters written by Bishop Olsen (Fort Worth) and Bishop Scharfenberger (Albany) that have been posted. Archbishop Lori seemed perturbed as well. Recently there were some more findings in Pennsylvania (my guess is Altoona Johnstown primarily) going back many years. Five priests in my own diocese since 2002 left over allegations, and three of the five were homosexual.

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