Hell’s Bible is at it again.
In a 4000 word article HB‘s Cumaen Sybil moos against Pope Benedict.
A sample.
But the future pope, it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction. More than any top Vatican official other than John Paul, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the scandal from metastasizing in country after country, growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own papacy.
It is the usual thing.
No matter how much Card. Ratzinger did, it wasn’t enough.
The same goes today.
No matter how much or what Pope Benedict does, it can never be good enough for the editors of HB.
What is so slimy about this article is that it ends with simple inuendo, because that is all they really have.
Where Benedict lies on this spectrum, even after nearly three decades of handling abuse cases, is still an open question.
Wellllll, yes… it is an open question. But it requires an open mind to drill into it.
There is no question that in the issue of the clerical abuse of children, some Catholic clergy fell down hideously. Is this news?
But HB has its sights set on Pope Benedict. They will do anything to claw at him.
UPDATE:
The key purposeful error in the NYTimes new attack on Pope Benedict
Loading ...
One of the bishops whose quotations is used to attack the Pope is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, an auxiliary bishop emeritus
However his view do not appear to be “mainstream”. One wonders if the sex abuse scandal is just another means to beat the Pope unfairly
See:
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson speaks his (own) mind at
http://cumecclesia.blogspot.com/2007/08/bishop-geoffrey-robinson-speaks-his-own.html
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson (his website ?) at
http://bishopgeoffrobinson.org/
It’s a pity their crossword puzzles are so good.
In simile modo, I heard a part of a five-minute NPR newscast yesterday that reported His Holiness’s creation of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization as confirmation of his personal failure, despite extensive travel, in bringing Europe’s faithless back to the church.
“Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, an outspoken auxiliary bishop emeritus from Sydney, Australia, who attended the secret meeting in 2000, said that despite numerous warnings, top Vatican officials, including Benedict, took far longer to wake up to the abuse problems than many local bishops did.”
One of the bishops whose quotations are used to attack the Pope is Bishop Geoffrey Robinson an auxiliary bishop emeritus
However his views in general do not appear to be “mainstream”. One wonders for some if the sex abuse scandal is just another means to beat the Pope unfairly and unjustly. They are totally at variance with the Pope and the Church on other issues.
See:
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson speaks his (own) mind at
http://cumecclesia.blogspot.com/2007/08/bishop-geoffrey-robinson-speaks-his-own.html
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson (his website ?) at
http://bishopgeoffrobinson.org/
Not recommended for faithful Catholics with coronary issues: NPR’s “Religion” podcast.
If I am not mistaken, H.E., Bishop Robinson published a book in the past two years (titled, methinks, Confronting Sex and Power in the Catholic Church) within which he (shock!) argues for female ordination, regularization of the homosexual life-style, etc. Something tells me his may not be the most objective opinion of the Holy Father…
But the future (President), it is now clear, was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility, denial, legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction. More than any top (White House) official other than (insert any Dem here) , it was (ibid.) who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the (economic disaster) from metastasizing in country after country, growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own (monstrous ego and the US’s financial solvency).
Where (and while the President)lies (continually)on (a) spectrum (this massive), even after nearly three decades of (seamy handlers) abus
(-ing common decency and ((spinning on))the public trust), is still an open question…(and rewritten metaphor collapses, along with the phony Greek columns.)
oops, uh ((spitting on)) Doh!
Don’t worry. The New York Times will get their just desserts soon enough.
And when the NYT opens up their own personnel records, then they’ll have the moral credibility to form opinions that criticize others. That’s all they do today, “opine”; they stopped being objective long ago.
Seriously, another brand new article about the 1980s? This is the the guy who hangs around the high school and shows up at football games in 2010 wearing his varsity jacket from 25 years ago: used to be relevant; now it’s just sad.
Laurie, still coveting a Pulitzer? Dig into sexual abuse coverups in the public school system or in municipal recreation programs.
Very sad that a once great newspaper has become nothing more than an agenda driven, hate filled, fish wrapper.
The NYT, like all other newspapers is struggling to maintain subscriptions and readership, and most importantly, income.
Last January 20 they announced that “Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access.”
As income declines, it will become less and less the “newspaper of record” for the country. Right now it is rapidly becoming the “newspaper of liberal opinion.”
You can buy a book of the crossword puzzles separately, without having to buy the paper!
So, we’re supposed to believe that the Vatican hierarchy did not know that the 1922 canon laws were operative though the laws were changed in 1983? They were bumbling keystone cops when they weren’t being heartless evil male hierarchy? And of course shame on a theologian for focusing on abstract trivial matters such as liberation theology or Marian apparitions.
What a load of malarky. Shameful. People who don’t know better or don’t want to know will believe.
We haven’t seen anything yet. The persecutions will get worse.
At this point, even liberals are rolling their eyes at the article thinking “here we go again”.
I read this yesterday – and was curious what Fr. Z’s take on this lastest – and perhaps most egregious yet – hit job from Hell’s Bible might be.
1. I’m glad others have already caught the issues with Bishop Robinson.
2. More to the point – this is why the “Bishop Robinson narrative” on the sex scandal – in the U.S. you could call it the “Rembert Weakland narrative” – is so maddening. “Why did the Vatican end up so far behind the bishops out on the front line, who with all their faults, did change — they did develop,” he said. “Why was the Vatican so many years behind?” Stuff and nonsense, your excellency – who was it who did nothing about Fr. Lawrence Murphy for decades? Who was it who transferred Fr. Geoghan around? It was not Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. It was bishops like you – just as it was bishops like you who helped form and protect these men in the priesthood, who kept vital information from Rome and from civil authorities. It was *bishops like you* who created this sex scandal.
There are over four thousand bishops overseeing over a million priests worldwide. And yet all the blame gets shunted onto curial offices with dozens of actual staff members – who have many other responsibilities aside.
But I think we all know why the Vatican is the focal point for the Robinsons and Weaklands and the NYT. Only in this way can they construct their narrative that it is really Church doctrine and Church structure that is to blame – rather than the feckless clericalism of regiments of effectively modernist bishops.
Joseph Ratzinger probably was slow to realize the full gravity of the situation (in no small part because western bishops were not providing accurate information about what was going on). But once he did, he acted more energetically than anyone else in the Church. And that’s another reason why stories like this one are so frustrating.
Athelstan:
I read the entire article and the gist of it is that the Vatican was too slow to deal effectively with this issue, or worse, that the Vatican was obstructing it somehow. Repeatedly the article refers to “canon lawyers” who are not named (as far as I can tell) who affirmed this. And the point of it is that there is a need for better “norms”.
So I am asking myself: why this emphasis on creating better norms? Do we not know that it is wrong to commit a crime? Do we not know that crimes are punishable? Where’s the news here (other than how sad it is that this happens)? Was there ever a time that any bishop was hindered from dealing effectively with anyone committing a crime under his watch? Also, if someone commits a crime how does that become the sin of his superior?
Another thing that comes to mind: there seems to be little concern for finding the accused innocent until proven guilty. Isn’t that a very sacred concept with us? I’m sure a lot of people would like to get some priests into trouble and they wouldn’t stop from falsely accusing them. Don’t they deserve the same due process as everyone else?
There’s nowhere to comment upon “Cumean Sybil” in the NYT blog (Ha, perfect, FrZ!:<)!)…she’s the “magisterium”, yeah?
No one to confront or question her absolutely dreadfully reported “puke”(with all the errors cited)…who cares about accuracy today? This is “F” reporting (I don’t mean the obscene kind but okay, maybe, but really in the grade kind)…I’d flunk her if she was my student…I can’t believe what actually gets printed and paid for in these times…absolute trash…get it right! And cite Bishop Robinson to make your point, Ms. Goodstein…bad idea…(I at first thought he was the openly gay-partnered-Episcopalian bishop from this country until I read on…not a good one to quote for many reasons there).
This is not only trash according to the Church; who the hell educated L. Goodstein? That’s what I want to know? And why is she receiving a salary for this absolute tripe?
Well, Papa Ratzinger did completely fail to confront the fact that as prefect of the CDF, his duty was to ensure that someone over in the Pontifical Institutes invented a time machine, so that CDFs secret agents and Albino Assassins could go back to ancient Mesopotamia to make sure that this ‘filth’ wasn’t going on in Abraham’s camp, and then work their way up to the Greeks, and make sure pederasty and any kind of molestation or rape was entirely eradicated from Western civilization. That he failed to do so is proof that he’s a misogynistic, child-abuse-enabling, power-hungry clerical equivalent of old May’r Daley and Idi Amin rolled together. Good thing we have lawyers to save us from this monster!
Isn’t this like suing the Kodokan for issuing Sensei Jones of St Louis a 7th Degree black belt, because little Johnny got an arm broken in Judo class, due to a[n alleged] failure on Jones’ part to enforce US Judo, Inc rules that said little Johnny wasn’t old enough to have arm-bars practiced on him?
The one thing I’d ask is, how many such problems have come to light in the diocese of Rome? And if there were some known, shouldn’t the bishop of Rome have inferred that there might be similar numbers elsewhere, and asked bishops to report on what they were doing about it?
That said, I’d love it if some INVESTIGATIVE journalist actually investigated whether the Vatican ever claimed or attempted to have the level of command and control of the GOVERNANCE, as opposed to the orthodoxy, of individual dioceses, that people seem to expect, based on corporate and military comparisons. ‘Cause I have a funny feeling they never did, and didn’t have the staff anyway. I bet Headquarters, USMC has a bigger staff than the Vatican, and they only have 202 000 people to worry about.