@RobertSRoyal on the Vatican Sexual Abuse Summit #PBC2019

Robert Royal of The Catholic Thing went to Rome for the Vatican “summit” on abuse. He has an excellent summary piece today, which I warmly recommend.

Three things in particular stood out for me in his piece.

First, try this on…

But like many Catholic prelates, including the Holy Father, [Card. Gracias] also leaned too heavily, in my judgment, on inequities of power – the clericalism gambit – which I believe betrays a wish to make the abuse crisis into more about social justice than personal sin.

It strikes me that so many movers and shakers in the Church, both ordained and in chanceries and plum posts and lay in academia, have become so mesmerized by “social justice” that they have nearly completely forgotten about personal sin. These same types, libs, are inclined to talk about sinful structures that have to be changed, etc.

No. Fail. If a structure lends itself to evil actions, it was built on the foundation of personal sins. People sin, not structures.

You will also find interesting Royal’s comments on the chatter about structures.

Next, speaking of structures, Royal recounts Card. Cupich’s caution that changing structures isn’t enough. Royal adds,

“True enough, but even changing structures, for many of us, would be a good – a real – start. Let it be noted, in fairness, even if it does not lead to any effective action, that Cupich ended with no fewer than twelve suggestions about how to hold a bishop accountable. These included structural and procedural changes that he elsewhere played down.”

This leads to the observation that, as it seems, Cupich’s talk was inherently incoherent.

Lastly, Royal gives a summary of questions asked by journalists during the presser on Friday. They are, in fact, more to the point of The Present Crisis than what the agenda of the “summit” set out to discuss.

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19 Comments

  1. LMTK says:

    If that communist woman claims she helped 1100 Communist seminarians corrupt the Church from within, why can’t we have their names and get them OUT?

  2. LMTK says:

    Isn’t “social justice” an invention of socialism to corrupt the Church? Why can’t we eliminate those groups and unite them into pro-life groups, where real issues are addressed?

  3. Spinmamma says:

    I have watched a little of the proceedings on EWTN. There was heart wrenching testimony from an abuse victim (the one who later played the violin so beautifully). As the camera panned to a few of the cardinals’ faces, and the pope’s, I wondered in my heart how many of them had either abused or covered up abuse of such victims. Did his words and anguish pierce their hearts? And then I thought how sad it is that we have come to a place where such thoughts as mine are even the least bit legitimate. As is so often the case these days, my heart aches.

  4. OssaSola says:

    I keep worrying about the Art.

    Shouldn’t someone start moving all those fabulous works of art out of Rome before God lets the fire rain down?

  5. Eoin OBolguidhir says:

    Prof. John Rist’s assessment of Francis as following thought that was relativistic and Hegelian, with all the worst implications being meant, I think, was spot-on. Then as now his toad-licker Cupich offered pablum and distraction rather than truth, fidelity, or the evidence of that Justice on which Mercy depends for her very being.

    Was it Rist or Hunwicke who described their maneuvering as “paradigm shiftiness.”

  6. Kathleen10 says:

    I find their words and speeches annoying to the max. It is like nails on a chalkboard to hear about “feminine genius” and how “women ARE the Church”. Spare us that nonsense, please. Women don’t need flattery, don’t need positions of power in the church, don’t need influence, or to be placated, women need the faith, the real, authentic, unadulterated Catholic faith. We also need our clergy to be men, 100% heterosexual men. We’ve seen what happens when we have men who are not 100% heterosexual, and it hasn’t worked. Our Catholic faith gets dismantled and our boys and young men corrupted and sodomized. We’ve seen too many grown men who have lost their faith, committed suicide, or suffered all their lives over what had been done to them when they were young innocents.
    No more. Absolutely, positively, no more.
    To hear a Mass of Reparation from men who have not the slightest regret about their actions nor the slightest intention of making real change is like throwing gasoline on a fire. How stupid do these men think we are.
    I had no confidence the bishops were going to accomplish anything at the meeting they had when the pope stopped them from doing anything, but he did. Hold off until February, he said. Then the week before this dog and pony he lowers the bar, not much can come of it, he now says.
    Then what comes out of it, that “women ARE the church”. That is NOT going to cut it.
    Make real change, about homosexuality in the priesthood. Don’t insult us with this other drivel.
    We want and demand the real faith, we want and demand you take concrete steps to stop homosexuals from treating the church like it’s their own personal Studio 54.

  7. Lurker 59 says:

    There is a mess within Moral Theology that tends to get overlooked as liturgical and doctrinal issues tend to dominate the discussion for the more orthodox. It is vastly important to understand that those who push for “social justice” do not start from the premise that sound liturgy and sound doctrine produces sound action. It is the inverse — establishing “social justice” will produce the correct interpretation of scripture/tradition and worship of God.

    The abuse crisis is both about personal sin and corporate sin ONLY when we start from the premises of Revelation. If we start from the premises of “social justice”, we look at the situation in terms of lack of equality and lack of encounter. Wrong (sin) lies in institutional structures and the various social contracts that promote inequality and prevent authentic encounter of persons.

    I am sure that those who support the normaliztion of homosexual relationships (ex. Fr. Martin) would agree that there are such species of homosexual relationships that are abusive and deviant. The elephant in the room is that you cannot get such supporters to agree upon what is and what is not an abusive relationship, if direct violence is not involved, as “healthy” and “normal” revolves around subjective ideas of encounter and consent. Keep in mind that those who have historically argued for “normalcy” argue for relationships that are not only analogous to hetro relationships but have found “normalcy” to be necessarily involved with disparity between class/social standing and especially age. Read your Plato.

    This guarantees that, even though this Abuse Summit might be stacked with those that support homosexual relationship, nothing will come of it. That the irony in this — those that are promoting homosexual relationships as a matter of social justice are promoting a type of relationship that finds “normalcy” in unequal and socially unjust relationships.

  8. Amerikaner says:

    As I watched and read info on the abuse meeting the last three days, I keep thinking of how the last time McCarrick spoke adamently how this would never happen again. And now we know what a liar he was. How many of those at the meeting are secretly active homosexuals who break their vows of chastity (or heterosexual ones too) or who abused or still abuse minors. Who may be the liars of today? As Fr Z said, this is a crisis of the loss of the understanding of sin and its consequences. And a crisis of the lack of saints.

  9. Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda says:

    People are only ever punished for personal sin.

    Hell is reserved for the enactment of punishment for personal sin.

    There is no Hell for “White Guilt” or “systemic racism” or “Male Privelage” or “Americanism” or even “Original Sin”. God is just and we are only given up to punishment for our own personal sins.

    A “sex abuse” summit that fails to acknowledge the homosexual passions/sins of the abusers is a farce an doomed to fail from the start.

    Any layman who thinks this summit is serious is a zombie. I dont care what your political position is…..the complete inability to acknowledge the fact that 80+% of victims, all ages considered, were victims of male on male rape, aka homosexual rape, is simply absurd. The glaring lack of transparency on this point invalidates the whole summit. It reveals the complete inability of Francis and his selected cronies (Cupich, Ferrel, Tobin, Maradiaga, etc………). It is a grotesque waste of my tithing for the queers to congregate at Coccopolemrio’s villa for a fun weekend.

    Makes me sick.

    Sorry for the ticked off rant.

  10. hilltop says:

    Next time the pope tells the US bishops to hold off, they should assert their authority to act in the “spirit” of “collegiality” and of the “spirit” of the “national churches” and in the “spirit” of “hagan lio” (or whatever).
    Next time the archbishop of Chicago tries to interrupt a Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal DiNardo should tell him to sit down and shut up. Maybe get coffee for everyone.

  11. bigtex says:

    HOMOSEXUAL PRIESTS & BISHOPS. It’s like the JEWISH QUESTION, and until it’s addressed nothing will change. Don’t unnecessarily complicate matters. Interesting how many of the Nazi officers were sodomites, which Hitler used to control them. Sexual liberation as a means of political control. This is exactly how the communists have seized control of the Church.

  12. MB says:

    …get coffee for everyone… good one hilltop!

    I realize that they suggest it to try to placate lay people, but I hate the implication that lay people need to be more involved in the administration of the Church. We lay people have our hands full earning our living, and raising children – that’s our job. We are required under pain of sin to financially support the clergy so that they can be free to attend to matters of the Church – that’s their job. It’s akin to the shepherd turning to the sheep he’s been abusing, and saying, “Well sheep, now you are responsible for solving the problem of my corruption. Let me know when you come up with something.”

    And, will someone please, please point out that in order to be pleasing to God, sexual acts must be open to life. Sex between two men (or two women) can never ever result in life, therefore it is always sinful. Furthermore, homosexuality is always violent (at least in the philosophical sense) because it involves using body parts for purposes are than those for which they were intended by God. Consent is not the issue here.

  13. Imrahil says:

    Interesting how many of the Nazi officers were sodomites, which Hitler used to control them.

    Who, for example?

    That is, who that was not either shot, or made a run for it not to be shot, in 1934 when Röhm, who indeed was gay and more or less openly so, was killed and male-on-male* homosexuality became unpopular with the Nazis.

    (Hitler is reported to have said, then – as an additional propaganda piece, but not giving it as the chief reason for killing him – that he was astonished to find Röhm gay. Jokers added “how much more astonished will he be when he even finds out that Göring is fat!”)

    [* It is possible, though I hear only rumours, that a somewhat Lesbian spirit survived in the BDM.]

  14. William says:

    Can it not be both abuse of power and personal moral decay?

    Of course, from my chair, it seems that those who have that relevant personal moral decay also tend to be the ones who are abusing their power.

    I’m sure my own personal bias plays a role in that perspective, but I doubt that I’m wholly off there.

  15. Semper Gumby says:

    bigtex: Define “Jewish Question.” Then, describe how you would “address” it.

  16. ALL: Think twice before opening this rabbit hole about the “Jewish Question”. Seriously. I’d prefer that this stay on topic.

  17. The Masked Chicken says:

    Dear Atra Dicenda, Rubra Agenda,

    While I share your outrage, when you wrote:

    “There is no Hell for “White Guilt” or “systemic racism” or “Male Privelage” or “Americanism” or even “Original Sin”. God is just and we are only given up to punishment for our own personal sins.”

    you lumped together too many things. Original Sin is a real sin (not a made up one, like most of the other ones on your list), even if it isn’t a personal sin. The exact status of one who dies in Original Sin (e.g., babies) is somewhat murky. They have no personal sin, but Original Sin, unless removed by some form of baptism does have an effect on the life of grace and may be enough to deprive one of these from Heaven. We don’t know, but commend their souls to God’s mercy (See CCC on this issue).

    Original Sin carries a different moral sense than “White Privilege.” I just wanted to clarify for any reader who might not know about the status of Original Sin.

    The Chicken

  18. The Cobbler says:

    Re. white guilt and original sin: There is a certain parallel though, in a heretical way. If you believe freedom is the basis of good (e.g. “women’s liberation”, “fight the power”, “stick it to the man”, yada yada), you end up having to see bias/inequality as the basis of evil – and so the “isms” take the place of original sin: we are all supposedly guilty of them, it can only be absolved through participation in the deprecating rituals incorrectly* named “virtue signalling” by their critics, etc.

    Now the one big difference is that the liberal paradigm is gnostic: rather than seeing humanity as created good, fallen, redeemed, and then individually open to choosing the fall or the redemption, the “social justice”** folks believe that history is a progression from more bias to less (history was, according to these people, always “bigoted” against women/color/deviancy/whatever-else; and no one sees that this would imply “bigotry” is natural and equality unnatural) in which individuals either are gifted with the saving knowledge or they aren’t (cf. how “bigots” are not rationally argued against but simply verbally beaten, condemned, “othered” by the same people who nominally claim that “othering” is wrong, but all in the name of being more rational/scientific/open-minded, i.e. I can’t give you the secret knowledge but my having it is what makes me good instead of evil like you).

    * Incorrectly, because it is the opposite of virtue: virtue is good actions leading to becoming a better person, this is the disregard of good and evil in individual actions based on judgementally assessing an entire person as good or evil based on whether they are a member of the social tribe; it’s easier to see once you realize most accusations of judgementalism are projection: “that’s judgemental to say because according to my ethical methodology it would imply I’m a bad person!”

    ** Another malapropism, as it is neither social nor is it justice.

  19. The Masked Chicken says:

    Hey, Cobbler,

    I’ve been hoping to run into you. First, a comment about Original Sin vs. Social Justice. The Original Sin of Social Justice is not to have empathy for victims – any victims, because, by definition, a victim must have been sinned against, had evil done to them. The Social Justice Original Sin can be removed by baptism into the Group. Of course, there are several problems with this, in that social sin becomes a matter of will imposed on the clan, not a matter of reason, explaining the absence of good that should be present. Indeed, can there be a concept of universal good if society determines what is good?

    This is nothing more than modernism, reheated. The sense of the crowd must be God’s will. Well, it was a crowd that shouted to crucify Jesus.

    This is Chardin’s notion of mankind approaching the Omega Point, becoming evermore enlightened. Is society more evolved, however, because it recognizes transgenderism? This is like trying to do math by feelings. I feel this answer is right, so, it must be.

    The thing about Gnosticism is that it only flourishes in affleunt cultures. A good barbarian invasion tends to focus the senses on the here and now, the practical. Proper morality is a practical morality.

    In any case, Cobbler, I was toying with the idea of setting up a blog to deal with the intersection of science and math with theology. I thought you might be interested. My first post would be, “Moral Theology for Time Travelers.” Of course, I would, also, have to talk about quantum tunneling and walking through locked doors in the Upper Room. You had mentioned being interested in this sort of thing, a long time ago. There are a lot of connections between science/math and theology, but search as you will, the only connection made has been with Cantor’s notion of infinity. Let me know if this sounds like a fun blog.

    The Chicken

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