 |
| Double click image for larger view |
8 November 2010. Catholic League of Australia.
If you ever wanted proof that the media does not give a fair go to the Pope and the Catholic Church then here it is.
Yesterday, the Pope arrived in Barcelona to open the new Cathedral of the Holy Family. As he was driving to the Cathedral around 100 to 200 hundred gay people staged a ‘kiss in’. This is compared to the 250,000 pilgrims who were there supporting the Pope. The protesters only represented 0.08% of the crowd.
Who do you think the media decided to focus on? These are the headlines of a few major Australian and international news services.
Mercator Net, Michael Cook | Friday, 9 April 2010
A United Nations jurist wants to put Benedict XVI in the dock for condoning sex-abuse. The real question is, how many others should be there with him?
A prominent Australian-British human rights lawyer and United Nations jurist has suggested that the Pope be put on trial for crimes against humanity. I think that this is a brilliant idea.
Geoffrey Robertson outlined his scheme in The Guardian and a number of Australian newspapers. Although he feels strongly that the Vatican is fraudulently representing itself as an independent country, the Pope should be brought to account for systematic abuse of human rights during his pontificate. Since 2002, he points out, heads of state are no longer immune from prosecution before the International Criminal Court. For instance, a warrant has been issued for the arrest of the president of the Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In Pope Benedict’s case, Robertson argues that this includes sexual abuse of minors:
Continue reading at MercatorNet: Should the Pope be tried for crimes against humanity?
If you are interested in reading more, please check out MercatorNet's focus blog on the sexual abuse crisis -- Just B16
"10. It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law."And of course the pope never said that he wished IVF children had never been born. What the Church teaches is that most artificial reproductive methods injure the dignity of the person conceived. Once conceived every human being has a right to be protected.
The Catholic League responses to another slur against the Pope.
William A. Donohue, Ph.D. Catholic League – 1st October 2010
The CNN documentary, "What the Pope Knew," which aired September 25, deserves a response.
The program begins with music and graphics that set the tone: those who think Pope Benedict XVI has been adept at combating priestly sexual abuse must realize that there is "a darker, more complicated story." Dark, yes, but from CNN's perch, the story is not all that complicated: the pope is guilty of "foot-dragging and, perhaps, obstruction."
We learn from CNN host Gary Tuchman that "For decades, before he became pope, Joseph Ratzinger was a high-ranking Vatican official who, more than anyone else beside Pope John Paul, could have taken decisive action to stem the sexual abuse crisis." Similarly, author David Gibson says the pope "always took the stalling tactic."
It is simply not true that Ratzinger was in charge of this issue "for decades." In fact, he wasn't given the authority to police the sexual abuse problem until 2001. What is truly astonishing is that Tuchman concedes as much later in the program. After he notes that "By 2001, the sexual abuse crisis was beginning to engulf the Catholic Church," he says, "The pope gave Cardinal Ratzinger and the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) the power to cut through the bureaucracy and handle all sexual abuse cases directly."
In other words, Tuchman was incorrect the first time when he said that "for decades" Ratzinger "could have taken decisive action." He couldn't have been in charge "for decades" if he wasn't given police powers until 2001 (he became pope in 2005).
Nowhere in the program is there any evidence that the pope was guilty of obstruction of justice. This is a serious charge—the most serious made in the course of the documentary. Yet to throw this out, without ever producing evidence to substantiate it, is malicious. It won't cut it to say that he was "perhaps" guilty of obstruction. CNN intentionally planted this seed and never explicitly addressed the subject of obstruction of justice again.
Continue reading at Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights
By Phil Lawler | September 16, 2010 – CatholicCulture.org
Pope Benedict has a disconcerting way of hitting nails directly on the head. It's disconcerting, I say, because I struggle and strain to make a point, never satisfying myself that I've made it clearly, and then along comes the Holy Father, and he pounds home the same point in a simple, clear, remark.
For example, in writing The Faithful Departed I tried to explain that when Church leaders seek after public affirmation, they lose focus on the faith, and eventually lose public affirmation as well. To be honest, I've always had trouble summarizing that argument quickly; I have trouble boiling down the message of the book into a single paragraph.
Then today, as he met with the journalists who are accompanying him on his trip to Great Britain, the Pope made the point deftly, clearly-- and quite unexpectedly, I think-- in response to one journalist's question. The question was how the Church could be more attractive to the public. Notice how the Pope, in the very first phrase of his reply (which I emphasize below), steers the conversation off its predictable course to make a more important point:
“I would say that a Church that seeks to be particularly attractive is already on the wrong path, because the Church does not work for her own ends, she does not work to increase numbers and thus power. The Church is at the service of another: she serves, not for herself, not to be a strong body, rather she serves to make the proclamation of Jesus Christ accessible, the great truths and great forces of love, reconciling love that appeared in this figure and that always comes from the presence of Jesus Christ.”
I spent many months, and 264 pages, trying to get at that point. Pope Benedict nailed it down in one stroke with an extemporaneous comment. Disconcerting. But beautiful!
From Catholic Culture : On The News : another stunning clear insight from the Pope
By Greg Erlandson – Our Sunday Visitor
We’ve received several emails and letters from readers, pleading, essentially, “Enough!” of our coverage of the clerical sex abuse crisis. One said she was “weary of the continuing barrage of information on the sexual scandal in the Church. I know that it has happened; I know that the Holy Father is doing everything in his power to respond to it. I just do not think that we need to hear so much about it.”
Even as the co-author of a recent book on Pope Benedict XVI and the crisis, I find myself wanting to agree. We are all tired of this topic. It is a bad news story that won’t go away. Many of us have been dealing with news of the scandals since 1985 — a quarter of a century.
THE Vatican should be treated as a kind of ''rogue state'' by the rest of the world until it stops using statehood - and the ancient rules of the canon law - to protect paedophile priests.
So says Geoffrey Robertson, QC, the veteran human rights lawyer and United Nations judge, arguing that the Catholic Church is the only religion permitted under international law to claim the privileges of statehood and its leaders immunity from civil or criminal action.
Where to begin? [in addressing the nuttiness of Robertson's claims] (a) the Vatican does not deal with abusive priests, local dioceses or congregations do; (b) Where these have failed to act against abusive priests, it has not been because they have resorted to canon law instead of civil law, but because they failed to resort to either canon OR civil law; (c) the cases which have been referred to the Vatican (since 2001) have been referred precisely in order to ensure appropriate action IS taken; (d) confidentiality is imposed in canonical legal processes in those cases where -- as in solicitation in the confessional -- these are canonical crimes, not civil ones; (e) the canonical process (eg laicisation) only takes place after any civil action (prosecution, trial, sentencing) has taken place; (f) it wasn't the Vatican which back in the 1980s moved priests accused of abuse to other parishes, it was bishops. And so on.
If only Pope Benedict were an ordinary citizen, he could rightly sue Robertson for his wholly untrue and grossly defamatory claim that clerical abuse was allowed to take place because "Joseph Ratzinger, both as head of the CDF and as Pope, has insisted for the past 30 years that all such cases be dealt with in secrecy under canon law." That is a monstrous lie -- and, given Cardinal Ratzingers record in this area, simply laughable.
August 2010, Telegraph.
His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, declined his request to spend his last years as the archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives and as a librarian of the Vatican Library, according to the incumbent librarian and archivist Cardinal Raffaele Farina.
Speaking in Inside the Vatican magazine, Cardinal Farina recalled when he was appointed prefect of the Vatican Library in May 1997 he had a brief meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger in which he was asked his own opinion of the future pope joining the team.
At the time the future Pope Benedict was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Pope’s doctrinal enforcer.
But he found his job “burdensome” and wanted to retire to academic study of ancient documents for the rest of his life.
He asked the Pope if he could step down from his role when he turned 70 on April 16, 1997, a move which would have permanently removed him from Vatican politics and from the eyes of the world.
Continue reading - Pope Benedict wanted to be a librarian - Telegraph
Vatican City, Jun 27, 2010 / 10:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).
Before reciting the Angelus prayer from the window of his apartment in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, Pope Benedict XVI spoke today about "radical" responses to divine vocations. Referring to Sunday's readings he took up the theme of Christ's call to us and "its demands."
As the Pope looked out over the crowd gathered to join him for the weekly prayer on Sunday at noon, he saw a smattering of Polish flags waving, especially well represented now that the country's children have just begun their summer vacation and brightly colored parasols were used to shelter many of the pilgrims from the intense Mediterranean sun.
Referring to the day's Gospel reading from Luke in which Jesus asks those on the road to Jerusalem to cut their family ties and follow him, the Holy Father explained that the demands Jesus makes of Christians might seem "too tough."
"But," he went on, "in reality they express the newness and the absolute priority of the Kingdom of God that makes itself present in the very Person of Jesus Christ."
He said that, upon further analysis, "it's about that radicalism that is due to the Love of God, to which Jesus himself is the first to obey
Continue reading at CNA - Pope reflects on beauty of radical acceptance of God's call
Because of all the inaccuracies in the recent coverage of the Catholic Church in the New York Times and other publications, appearing in news articles, editorials, and op-eds, I was tempted to try my best to offer corrections to the multitude of errors. However, I soon realized that this would probably be a full time job.Continue reading at the website of the Archdiocese of New York.
It is a source of consternation as to why, instead of complimenting the Vatican and a reformer like Pope Benedict XVI, for codifying procedures long advocated by critics, such outfits would instead choose to intrude on a matter of internal doctrine, namely the ordination of women.
But, correcting the paper is not what really matters. What is important is the well-being of God’s people, especially of His little ones.
The bottom line is that the Holy Father, the Vatican, and the Church universal regards with the utmost seriousness the heinous and sinful crime of child abuse and is committed to doing everything it can to ensure that justice is served and that such abuse never happens again.
If critics want to say, “It’s about time,” fair enough. But for critics to continue their obsessive criticism of Benedict XVI, claiming that he just “doesn’t get it,” is simply out of bounds.
Recently, CNN fired Octavia Nasr for praising Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah on her Twitter account. Following his death, Nasr wrote that she was “sad” to hear of his passing and said that he was “One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.” While commenting on this story on AOL News, contributor Paul Wachter asked whether CNN should be consistent and fire anyone who praises Pope Benedict XVI “who covered up the clerical rape of young boys and whose anti-contraception proselytization has contributed to the deaths of millions from AIDS?”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on this today:
The fact that Paul Wachter would compare Pope Benedict XVI to the anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist Fadlallah is despicable. But his ignorance makes his commentary truly astounding. Despite the ceaseless efforts of those in the media—in particular the New York Times—there is absolutely no evidence that the pope has covered up any instances of priestly sexual abuse.
Wachter is also wrong in saying that the pope has contributed to millions of deaths for denouncing the indiscriminate distribution of condoms. In fact, as Harvard professor Edward C. Green has said, “Many countries that have not seen declines in HIV have seen increases in condom use, but in every country worldwide in which HIV has declined there have been increases in levels of faithfulness and usually abstinence as well.”
It’s so nice to learn that Wachter praises Fadlallah for being pro-woman. Inconveniently for him, his hero is also pro-terrorist.
A lawsuit against the Vatican was filed yesterday in Louisville by attorney William McMurry seeking to depose Pope Benedict XVI. McMurry contends that officials of the Catholic Church in Rome, including the pope, knew about cases of priestly sexual abuse and then covered them up.
Responding is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:
It is a staple of anti-Catholic thinking that every priest on the face of the globe takes his marching orders from the pope, and that every instance of priestly wrongdoing is known to the Holy Father and his inner circle. The fact is that the Catholic Church is among the most decentralized entities in the world, and it is positively preposterous to think that the pope sits around orchestrating coverups in places ranging from Louisville to London. McMurry knows this as well, but having creamed over $10 million for himself (out of a $25.7 million pot) from a settlement with the Archdiocese of Louisville in 2003, he can afford to be motivated more by ideology than greed at this point.
"I have yet to meet a Catholic, expert or otherwise," McMurry says, "who does not believe that the Holy See has the absolute right to control the day-to-day activities of a bishop's work." Yet when even parents cannot possibly control the day-to-day activities of their children, only someone who is hopelessly naïve—or malicious—would contend that the pope is tweeting the bishops all day long.
McMurry has three clients: one says he "thinks" the local bishop knew of his alleged abuse; another maintains that he was molested over three decades ago; and the third contends that a priest touched him through his pants pocket in 1928. If this is McMurry's best shot, then he is bound to fail. Besides, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act makes it difficult to prosecute a head of state.
This lawsuit, then, is not driven by a noble pursuit of justice. It is driven by hate. As such, it deserves a quick death.From the Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights
By Diogenes at Catholic Culture | June 11, 2010
Addressing the sex abuse crisis for the first time from the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI begged forgiveness on Friday…
That's the opening line of a New York Times report on the Pope's homily during the closing Mass of the Year for Priests. Did your jaw drop as you read it?
Addressing the sex abuse crisis for the first time…
What? What?!! How many times in the last several weeks has the Holy Father addressed this topic? How could the Times-- which has micro-analyzed every papal statement-- convey the notion that the June 11 remarks were his first? USA Today, reacting to the same remarks, accurately conveyed the idea that we've heard the apologies before-- many times-- with the headline query:
Will Pope Benedict's apologies for abuse crisis ever be enough?
National Review Online, June 4 2010.
It’s not easy to understand the decision of Time’s editors to run the magazine’s current (June 7) cover story, with its cheesy title, “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.” The lengthy essay inside breaks no news; it recycles several lame charges against Benedict XVI that have been flatly denied or effectively rebutted; and it indulges an adolescent literary style (e.g., “mealymouthed declarations buttressed by arcane religious philosophy”) that makes one yearn and pine for the days of Henry Luce.
The lengthy story is also poorly sourced, relying (as many such exercises do) on alleged “Vatican insiders” and giving analytic pride of place to the Italian Church historian Alberto Melloni.
Rome, Italy, Jun 8, 2010 / 06:48 pm (CNA/EWTN News).
An Italian Vatican expert is saying that Bishop Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia and President of the Turkish Bishops’ Conference, canceled his trip to Cyprus because he feared that his driver –who later confessed to killing the bishop- might attempt an attack on Pope Benedict XVI during his stay on the island.
Analyst Fr. Fillippo di Giacomo, who writes for publications such as L’Unitá and La Stampa, revealed that “hours before Padovese was killed, the Turkish Government called him to say that his driver, who they themselves had put in his service four years before, had gotten out of hand. That is to say, he had embraced the fundamentalist cause.”
