{"id":310,"date":"2010-03-31T20:10:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T02:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/?p=310"},"modified":"2010-04-01T06:23:30","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T12:23:30","slug":"the-curses-of-the-oppressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/the-curses-of-the-oppressed-310.htm","title":{"rendered":"The Curses of the Oppressed"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Cardinal Schonb\u00f6rn and Wir sind Kirche, the lay reform group in Austria last night held a penitential service in St Stephen\u2019s Cathedral in Vienna. (from Die Presse<\/a>, Der Standard<\/a>, and n-tv<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n

3000 entered a cathedral darkened except for the candles of the victims around the altar. Cardinal Schonb\u00f6rn entered clad all in black, except for his red cardinal\u2019s cap. He sat under a crucifix of the tortured Son of God, and all his body language spoke of humility, sorrow, and acknowledgment of guilt.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Cursing Psalms were read:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI will pour forth my anger, my scorn, my hate before you. I wish upon him poison and gall, he shall be blind, starving, and lonely. God, do you not see my helplessness?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Heavy drum roll.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sch\u00f6nborn says nothing for this is the time for the victims to speak: One cried out<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cNight after night the memories come back, like howling dogs. I cannot cope with them.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Another accused his tormentor: \u201cFrom him nothing shall remain, his name extinguished. Strike it out of the Book of Life.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drum roll.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It continued:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The student in a girls\u2019 boarding school, who with head shaved bald and in a straight jacket lay in her own excrement, who at the point of a cane held by a nun had to clean herself up.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The far-too-premature boy, who through the love of his parents developed so well that he could study theology \u2013 and after sexual abuse by a priest mentally fell back to a four-year-old level.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The pedophile pastor, who despite the pleas of a mother of one of his victims was after a year\u2019s pause sent into other parishes.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Drum roll.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Schonb\u00f6rn at last spoke<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe acknowledge that we would not recognize the truth, that we have covered up and given false witness.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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<\/p>\n

I have often wondered why abusers and bishops did not fear the curses of victims. God hears the cry of the oppressed and vindicates them His wrath will fall upon those who tormented children and on those who stood by and let the children be tormented. Their names will be blotted out of the book of life \u2013 don\u2019t they fear that? Perhaps they do not fear God\u2019s wrath because they do not believe He exists \u2013 maybe that is what Benedict meant when he said a lack of faith was the source of the abuse and the enabling of the abuse. How many abusers, how many bishops are at heart atheists? How else to explain what they did?<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cardinal Schonb\u00f6rn and Wir sind Kirche, the lay reform group in Austria last night held a penitential service in St Stephen\u2019s Cathedral in Vienna. (from Die Presse, Der Standard, and n-tv). 3000 entered a cathedral darkened except for the candles of the victims around the altar. Cardinal Schonb\u00f6rn entered clad all in black, except for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,6,3,133],"tags":[366,139,365],"class_list":["post-310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-austria","category-catholic-church","category-clergy-sex-abuse","category-guilt","tag-penance","tag-schoenborn","tag-vienna","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}