The Lack of Anger against Evil

in anger, clergy sex abuse scandal, Moral Theology, sexual abuse 4 Comments Tags: , ,

As I noted in my book, Catholic bishops uniformly failed to get angry when they heard that a priest had defiled a child, often in the church itself. I examined this failure at length in my book Sacrilege, especially on pp. 465-471. 

The bishops have failed to heed the warning of St. John Chrysostom: “He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.” 

Dan Leger of the Chronicle Herald is also deeply troubled by Mancini’s response to the allegations about Bishop Lahey and child pornography.

But why wasn’t he angry? Why didn’t he rage at the idea that Lahey might have been another priestly exploiter of children? Why didn’t he pound his fist on the table and demand hard justice for every offender hiding in the folds of the Church’s holy vestments?

Every right-thinking Catholic should be furious at what’s happened to the institution that guides and nourishes their faith. And not just because they, not the Vatican or the institutional Church, are being asked to pay for the sins of the fathers.

Beyond who pays for the abuse settlements, a lot of people have cause to be angry at what’s happened to the Church over the past 50 years, and not only the Catholics. While all this was going on, people of many faiths and no faith at all were being hectored by priests, bishops and popes about morality and ethics.

Catholic authorities have constantly railed against abortion rights, against same-sex marriage, birth control, stem cell research and fertility treatments. They cite the word of God as their authority. By definition, anyone who disagrees with them is not only wrong, but immoral and a sinner.

Yet there is strong evidence, including at least one massive U.S. study commissioned by the Church itself, that those same clerical authorities were aware of abuse allegations against priests and clerics. Rather than cleaning up the mess, they covered it up.

That meant many offenders were moved around and protected by senior Church authorities, often to repeat their abuses in other parishes. That the Church evidently knew that and did so little to stop it suggests hypocrisy on a global scale.

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The Failure to Repent

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Bishop Lahey, formerly bishop of Antigonish, will have his day in court. On the face of it, he is guilty of importation and possession of child pornography. Nor is his behavior that of an innocent man who has been framed. 

Archbishop Mancini of Halifax, in whose province Antigonish lies, was surprised and shocked by the news. He responded with letter to the Catholics of Nova Scotia. In it he says 

Like you, my heart is broken, my mind is confused, my body hurts and I have moved in and out of a variety of feelings especially shame and frustration, fear and disappointment, along with a sense of vulnerability, and a tremendous poverty of spirit. 

He adds 

At this time when so many hearts have been broken, we need to know again or for the first time, the healing grace of God’s love. Such healing grace can only come from all of us sharing together our faith and convictions that, in spite of sin in all its forms, mercy is stronger than anger, forgiveness is more powerful than rejection and reconciliation is more transformative of spiritual devastation into new life possibilities.

But Mancini leaves out the word that comes before forgiveness and reconciliation: repentance. Lahey has shown no repentance, nor have the officials of the Church who failed to root out abuse. I know Mancini, and I know how he handled allegations of abuse in a Catholic institution in Montréal, an institution I was supporting financially. When told about suspicions about a priest, he said “Not again,” the priest was sent to Rome and then reassigned to a parish. I think Mancini should reflect on how he may have enabled abuse and whether he needs to repent.

 

 

Repentance, full confession of sins and desire to make amendment, has been lacking, both on the  part of the criminals and of the bishops who enabled them.

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The Heart of Man is Desperately Wicked

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, sexual abuse 3 Comments Tags:

We shall see whether Canadian police have any record that confirms that in 1989 Earle told them about Lahey’s possession of child pornography. At that time, the possession of child pornography was not a crime in Canada, and the police may therefore not have made any record, even if Earle in fact told them.

 

Lahey’s testimony in the Burton case is however a matter of record, and it should have raised suspicions. Why would anyone give a character reference to a confessed child molester? Why would anyone claim that boy flourished during the time of the abuse?

 

An even deeper mystery is how a man otherwise apparently humane and a good Christian would have use child pornography. Even the victims of child abuse in his diocese said that Lahey treated them fairly, generously, and humanely.

 

Men who have been very wicked in their sexual behavior have done much good both in society and the Church: Polanski – child rapist but a great director; Maciel – a seducer of boys and women, but a builder of schools for the neglected Mexican poor; Bruce Ritter – who liked blond boys in his bed but who helped thousands of black and Latino throw-away children through Covenant House, and so on.

 

I have no easy answer to this mystery. Society is built upon trust, and we assume that people who do many good things are in fact good people and can be trusted. The mystery is even deeper in the Church. If any ordinary sinner tried to found a religious order, he would get nowhere. But Maciel attracted thousands of followers.

 

But total cynicism about human nature, inside and outside the Church, is also not a proper response. Ordinary people and ordinary Christians have to develop a great spirit of discernment so that they can distinguish between those who are truly doing the Lord’s work from those who are disguising themselves as angels of light.

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Lahey Testified Against Child Abuse Victim

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal 3 Comments Tags: , ,

The Christian Brothers of Ireland ran the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. Some of the brothers physically and sexually abused children. The boys complained to police and social services, and both authorities covered up as much as they could for the Church. On a radio call-in talk how, Shane Earle broke the story of the abuse.

 

The Royal Commission discovered what the Brothers had done to the boys: “forced mutual fellatio, buggery, forced mutual masturbation, fondling of the students’ genital, ‘inappropriate’ kissing, and insertion of fingers into rectum.” (Sacrilege, p. 73)

 

Some of the abuse was so horrendous it could not be covered up, and in November 1982 Brother David Burton was tried for sexual abuse of a victim, W.N. Burton admitted having sex with this boy at least fifty times. 

The defense then called the first of two character witnesses for Brother Burton – Raymond Lahey, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of St. John’s. The future Roman Catholic bishop praised Brother Burton as an indefatigable worker in the cause of children entrusted to him, a man who “had a tremendous talent for handling children who were tremendously disadvantaged.” The Vicar General was less enthusiastic about Burton’s victim, W.N.

 

“I think anyone who even visited there [Mount Cashel] for a short time would take note of him. He was a child who constant demanded attention. He constantly demanded attention of someone and in particular of the accused. He would go to any lengths to gain attention. He was very aggressive in that…. He would demand attention by even interrupting conversation, shouting, pulling at people’s arms or punching them in the arm. I even saw him bounce a ball against a wall consistently to gain attention….”

 

Lahey didn’t come right out and say that W.N. had instigated the relationship with Brother Burton, but the implication of his testimony is clear; the fifteen-year-old was a problem child who relentlessly pursued the accused to satisfy his insatiable craving for affection – however that might be defined. When asked by counsel for the defence if he had noticed any change in W.N. over the past year, Lahey testified that he had. “I think that he matured over that year, very definitely, I think you could see a [visible] progress. He gained, I think, a self-esteem and self-confidence which he didn’t seem to have at the beginning of my period of visiting there. He gained a certain amount of academic confidence too. He was a very slow learner academically, but he showed a very marked improvement in that respect.”

 

Sexual abuse apparently agreed with W.N. The year in which the Vicar General noted such an improvement in the young boy was the same period of time in which he was being sexually molested by Brother Burton.

 

The pattern of the Vicar General’s testimony – eulogizing Brother Burton and casting W.N. in a bad light – was repeated in the evidence given by the next defence witness, Brother Henry Bucher. 

(from Unholy Orders: Tragedy at Mount Cashel (Viking, 1990) by Michael Harris, pp. 237-238)

 

Lahey and Burton are spouting classic pederastic propaganda: that the adolescent boy wants sex,  that his sexual relationship with a mature man helps the boy mature sexually and emotionally, that pederasty is an authentic form of love and is highly educational.

 

Not everyone who uses child pornography goes on to have sex with children,, but all child abusers began with child pornography. Whether Lahey confined his sexual interests to pornography is not know, but his testimony in the Burton case shows what he thought of man-boy love.

 

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Bishop Lahey’s History of Child Porn Known to Police

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, Vatican 13 Comments Tags: , , ,

I have a section in my book (Sacrilege, pp. 71-80) on the abuse of boys at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Newfoundland. The boys had complained to the police for years, but the police and the newspapers covered up for the Church. Shane Earle finally was able to go public and there was a public investigation. According to the Canadian Broadcasting Company, Earle had told the police about Father Raymond Lahey:

Twenty years ago, Earle and his brother Shane Earle testified at Newfoundland and Labrador’s Hughes inquiry into the Mount Cashel orphanage, where they suffered abuse as children.

Shane Earle says he told police back then that Lahey befriended him when Lahey was a priest in Mount Pearl, but the friendship ended when Earle and another boy found pornographic videos and photos in Lahey’s home.

Billy and Shane Earle said the news that Lahey is facing child pornography charges now has turned their minds back to that horrible time and that they’ve been talking and reliving their experiences with Lahey.

In an email sent to his brother Billy, Shane Earle says he told police 20 years ago the pornography he saw at Lahey’s home was child pornography.

“During the investigation in 1989 I did reveal to police that during a visit to Father Raymond Lahey’s house in Mount Pearl, I found catalogues of child pornography addressed to Ray Lahey. The pictures were of teen boys sexually aroused,” wrote Shane Earle, in an email that Billy Earle showed to CBC News.

Possession of child pornography only became a crime in the 1990s.

Shane Earle’s allegations to a St. John’s newspaper in the 1980s launched the investigation into what happened at Mount Cashel.

The police failed; the Vatican failed. 

The police covered up for the Church and respected the Church’s lust for secrecy. Everything is a secret at the Vatican: what did the Pope have for lunch? – It’s a pontifical secret.  

Perhaps it is best that the Vatican appoint bishops; but the Vatican should do a thorough and public investigation of the men it is considering as the successors of the apostles.

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The Secretiveness of the Vatican

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Vatican 4 Comments Tags: ,

Statement by the President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop V. James Weisgerber

 

01 October 2009

 

“I have learned from media reports of the charges brought against Most Reverend Raymond Lahey, former Bishop of Antigonish, Nova Scotia.  While shocked and saddened by the accusations, as President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, I am not in a position to comment on them. At the same time, I share with all Canadians, and particularly my Catholic brothers and sisters, a profound understanding of the importance of such serious charges being fully and carefully investigated by the appropriate legal authorities.” 

 

Notice that Weisgerber says that he learned of the charges from the media, not from the Vatican. Pope Benedict must have been informed by Lahey of what happened, because the pope accepted the resignation immediately. But Benedict did not inform the Canadian bishops of what was happening, but let them hear of if from the media. I detect a certain failing of collegiality here.

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The Repentance of Polanski

in Responsibility, sexual abuse No Comments Tags: ,

Michael Deacon unearthed Polanski comments about the crime he committed: 

Polanski told Martin Amis: 

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But… f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

When the controversy dies down, the Swiss will probably let him go quietly. And Polanski will make the circle of fashionable dinner parties in Europe, and probably get invited to the Élysée. He and his hosts will exchange reminiscences of the pleasures they had with young teenagers, and lament how barbaric and vengeful Americans are. Perhaps Bishop Lahey can be invited to say grace.

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An Episcopal Fugitive from Justice

in Canada, clergy sex abuse scandal, clericalism, law enforcement, Responsibility, Vatican 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

The merde has hit the fan in the Canadian Church: 

An arrest warrant has been issued for a former Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia charged with possession and importation of child pornography. The Chronicle Hearld reports:

The Ottawa Police Service Internet child exploitation unit charged Raymond Lahey, 69, on Sept. 25, 10 days after he was pulled over at Macdonald-Cartier International Airport in Ottawa by Canada Border Services Agency officers.

Mr. Lahey, who recently helped broker a landmark $15-million settlement to a class-action sexual abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Antigonish, was returning from the U.S. on Sept. 15 through the Ottawa airport when border officials pulled him aside for a secondary examination, according to a news release from Ottawa police.

Border services officers found images on his laptop computer “that were of concern”, according to the release.

Officials seized his computer and other media devices. Mr. Lahey was released “pending further investigation”, the release said. 

When I have crossed the border into Canada, security officers sometimes turn on my computer to verify it is a computer and not a bomb. They did more than that to Lahey. I doubt he had child pornography as his screen saver. The Canadian police must have suspected him of downloading child pornography. They didn’t want to get a warrant to seize his computer, because they would alert him to erase the evidence. They must have noticed Immigration to watch for Lahey when he crossed back into Canada and to turn on his computer. When they searched his computer, they must have known which files to look for. 

It gets worse. The Chronicle Herald spoke to Archbishop Mancini of Halifax:

Bishop Lahey resigned last weekend as bishop of the Antigonish diocese. The archbishop said Pope Benedict would had to have known the circumstances surrounding the resignation, as Bishop Lahey would have been required to cite his reasons for leaving his post.

“The Pope would have to know what the grave cause is,” Archbishop Mancini said in an interview with CTV. “And I have to assume, since he responded and accepted Bishop Lahey’s resignation, that the Pope knew the gravity of the matter.”

But the archbishop said he didn’t know the bishop was in trouble with the law when he received word of his resignation, and he doesn’t think anyone in the bishop’s diocese knew either. They only heard he was leaving for personal reasons.

“That is the only thing we knew . . . on Saturday, when the message was put out.”

This is the timeline: 

On September 15 Lahey was stopped at the Canadian border where officials discovered that he had child pornography on his computer. They let him go pending investigation. 

On September 25 Lahey was charged with importation and possession of child pornography. 

On September 26 Pope Benedict, having been informed of what happened, accepted Lahey’s resignation. 

On September 30 Canadian police issued a warrant for the arrest of Lahey. 

But the Pope did not contact any of his fellow bishops in Canada or any diocesan officials in Antigonish to warn them what was coming. They learned it on the news or when reporters called for comments. This is a grave failure of collegiality. 

What will Lahey do? Surrender and face trial, humiliation, and imprisonment? What kind of secret life has he led, and what will come out? Flee the country and take refuge in the Vatican? That would be catastrophic for the already-damaged reputation of the Church. Or like the officer who has been discovered to be treasonous, will he take a pistol into a room and end the disgrace?

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Polanski and the Beautiful People

in clergy sex abuse scandal, guilt, law enforcement, Responsibility, sexual abuse, Vatican 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

If I may quote from my 1998 book Sacrilege: Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church:

Both literary critics for whom transgressive is a word of praise and whose hero is the Marquis de Sade, and psychologists who desire an ever-expanding field of sexual; liberation put forward the idea that sex with boys is the next area to escape from repression. The media horror at the exposure of the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests has not been entirely convincing. Both advertisements and entertainment sexualize teenagers, and critics continue to praise Roman Polanski, who cannot enter the United States because of an outstanding charge of child molestation against him, but who received the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 2002. (pp. 339-40)

In fact it was not a charge, but a conviction. He pleaded guilty.

The reaction to his recent arrest has been instructive. Clearly the Beautiful People think that they are above the law, and are astonished that it is being applied to Polanski. These BCBG Europeans think that the arrest is another demonstration of Bush-era American redneck prudery. The Dutch have long complained about how the FBI has encouraged the Dutch police to enforce laws against child pornography.

For many decades the idea that punishment is the propose of punishment has been rejected. The law imprisons criminals to keep them from committing further crimes or to rehabilitate them, but not to punish them. The idea that punishment is demanded by justice of increasingly foreign to the chattering classes, especially in Europe. American prison sentences are draconian by European standards, and some American states still execute the worst criminals. Europeans find this barbaric – and Europeans staff the Vatican, which I think in part explains the ho-hum attitude the Vatican has taken to the sexual abuse of children.

The reaction of the little people in Europe has been different. The blogs and letters to the editor  have strongly come out against Polanski and in favor of his arrest, which demonstrates that not even the rich are above the law. But the European rich think they are above the law, that the law is for the little people, not for them. This attitude is a relic of the Ancien Regime which still persists in European class attitudes.

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When a Kiss is Not Just a Kiss

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In my wanderings around the West, I encountered a flash point of Gay-Mormon relations.

In the center of Salt Lake City is Temple Square, which is adjacent to the Latter Day Saints Temple. It was a public square until ten years ago, when it was sold to the LDS who maintain and control it. As it borders and links major LDS buildings, the sale seems to have been reasonable, The Mormons maintain the square to perfection. It has one of the finest displays of downtown gardens I have ever seen. It is a romantic spot.

And not just for heterosexuals, some of whom have been known on occasion to have more than one wife. The LDS are extremely family oriented – marriages last for eternity. I suspect that is their main attraction to converts – their theology is goofy in the extreme, and not even liberal Protestants consider the LDS a Christian Church. The Boy Scouts are the official youth movement for the LDS, and LDS opposition to homosexual scoutmasters has stiffened the Boy Scouts of America policy against homosexual scoutmasters. Gays therefore tend to have a particular animus against the LDS. Two gays were apprehended by guards at Temple Square because they were showing signs of affection. The gays claim it was a chaste kiss on the cheek the guards claim it was groping. As there was alcohol involved, I suspect the guards were giving the more accurate description, especially since many LDS visitors from other countries come from cultures in which it is not unusual for men to exchange kisses.

I was at lunch at the rooftop restaurant adjoining Temple Square, and all around me LDS worthies were discussing the incident; they suspected it was a deliberate provocation and start of a campaign to embarrass the LDS. These worthies seem to have been right. The Tribune reports that the gays are  planning a Kiss-In at Temple Square. The carnival is just starting.

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Boccacio on the Church

in clergy sex abuse scandal, Uncategorized 2 Comments Tags:

A Jew decides to go to Rome to see what the center of the Church was like. He investigated the papal court. He realized that

Not only did they indulge in normal lust but without the last restraint of remorse or shame even in sodomy and to such an extent that the influence of whores and minions was of no little importance in currying favor. Various other attributes he found them to posses besides lechery. They were gluttons, swillers guzzlers in general and devoted to their bellies like brute beasts. Investigating further he saw they were all avaricious and greedy for money.

People have asked me who I can remain a Catholic after I discovered what was going on in the clergy. Well, the Jew, after seeing the corruption of the papal court tells a Christian

For all I can judge it seems to me your Shepherd and consequently everyone else with him do their utmost, exercise every care, wit and art at their disposal to ruin the Christian faith entirely and ban it altogether form the world, instead of striving to be its foundation and mainstay. Yet when I notice their aim is not fulfilled, but that your religion continually grows and becomes more bright and clear, it seems to be very evident that the Holy Spirit is its foundation and support, so it must be the truest and holiest of all faiths.

So the Jew becomes a Catholic.

A lawyer who represented abuse victims and saw the depths of corruption in the Church nonetheless became a Catholic. Like Boccaccio’s Jew, he decided that God most be at work in a Church that survives the determined eforts of the clergy to poison it.

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Saints, Angels, and Kachinas

in Icons, Southwest 1 Comment Tags: , , ,

In case you missed what I was getting at in the Hopi post, over at the ever-fascinating Reditus: A Chronicle of Aesthetic Christianity, our blogger Arturo notes:

I’m so Catholic …I pray to saints even the Pope doesn’t recognize. When we went to the cemetery as children, we used to visit the graves of my brother and sister who died a few days after birth. Because they had been baptized, my mother said they were angels (not true, but a common belief in Mexico… heck, close enough). It was kind of cool having a brother and sister who were angels.

In Latin America, it is hard not to think at times that the graves are shrines and not places of mourning. Maybe it’s “Catholic ancestor worship”, but people feel that they are helped from beyond the grave by even the suffering souls in Purgatory (there are holy cards for the “Anima Sola”, and people can seach my site for an English translation of the prayer.) Down there people have all sorts of “Catholic spiritual helpers”, some good, some bad, some not so clear: Sarita Colonia, Juan Soldado, La Milagrosa, Gauchito Gil, Pedro Jaramillo, etc.

All canonization does is say that a public cult can be celebrated for a person, and indeed it should. But I am beginning to think that, scratch the surface a bit, and PRIVATE cults are just as necessary. I pray to my deceased grandmother and some of her “folk saints”. I knew one blind woman who was a pillar of the Legion of Mary in my town who I consider a saint. Saints from long ago, reigning in glory both in Heaven and in the hearts of all the faithful, serve as an example of emulation and intercession that tie us into the mystery of the Universal Church through the ages (the Virgin, St. Jude, St. Michael, St. Joseph), but those “uncanonized” saints make it all real and tangible in the here and now. Both are very much needed, and both should be propagated both from the pulpit and in the Catholic home.

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Don’t Worry Be Hopi

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A Kachina

Maidie and I went on a Kachina tour of Arizona, under the aegis of Crow Canyon and under the leadership of the archeologist Chuck Adams (above), who has worked on the Hopi mesas for thirty years. We started off in Phoenix at the Heard Museum, and then went up to Flagstaff, to the Museum of Northern Arizona, where we were joined by Michael Kabotie, a Hopi artist. Chuck and Michael gave us a tour of the museum and of the mural that Michael has painted in imitation of a kiva.

The mural reads from left to right. On the right, through the rungs of the ladder, you can see some of the problems of the modern Hopi: alcoholism, diabetes, drug usage, and suicide. Michael himself, as he explained, at one point was a down-and-out alcoholic. But his kachina spoke to him, not so much in words as in feelings and ideas. Michael is in recovery, and an extraordinary artist. Here is one of his rings:

We then visited the ruins at Homol’ovi, which Chuck Adams had helped excavate.

Below Homol’ovi were rock art panels, one of which showed a kachina.

From there we drive north through dust devils and Navajo country to reach the mesas where the Hopis live. We stayed at the Cultural Center, which has an inn attached.

One of our local guides Micah Loma’omvaya, still plants his fields using a digging stick. But he said that only 15% of the arable fields were planted. Other Hopis rely on food stamps,

The Hopis were very open about the difficulties that have adjusting to the modern world: alcoholism, poverty, and a weakening of traditions.

But what they do have are the kachinas, the spirits of nature and the spirits of the dead, who bring rain and other blessings upon the Hopi.

One of my hopes has been to see a kachina dance, and we did. The Hopis feel that that cultural heritage has been exploited, so they strictly limit photography in the villages and absolutely forbid it at the dances. The few images I had seen did not prepare me for the dance. I had seen such images as these:

We entered a plaza similar to the one in the first picture and sat in a corner. The plaza was ringed by chairs filled with Hopi women and scores of children. The rooftops were also full of adults and teenagers. There were a handful of Anglos.

We sat for a while (the kachinas dance when they are ready) and then heard a few hoots in the distance. The kachinas, similar to the one in the first image, wearing ruffs of cedar and bells around their legs, started entering the plaza, 3, 5, 15, 25, 50, 100, and they kept coming. They milled around, making turkey-like noises for a while, and then formed a double oval line that filled the plaza. Then the kachinas in the center  started drumming, and all the kachinas started singing and dancing in unison, waving their headdresses and their triangular turquoise wands, and smell of the cedar and the sound of the bells filled the plaza.

They sang and sang and sang and danced and danced and danced. After about twenty minutes the singing stopped and the kachinas started milling around, going to the heap of food in the center of the plaza and starting to give the food to the crowd: candy and doughnuts and cookies and popcorn for the children, and big baskets of groceries for the elderly grandmothers who needed food. Then they started throwing carrots and apples and oranges and cookies into the crowd (my wife was tossed a sweet star biscuit) and to the people on the rooftop. The air was filled with a rain of food. The children, who know these are the real kachinas come down from the clouds, were delighted.

The kachinas reform their double line and do a different dance and song. Their song and their dance is a prayer, for rain and a good harvest and peace and blessings for the Hopis and for all people, black, white, yellow, throughout the world, for Hopiland is the center of the world.

The Hopis seem to have a strong sense of transiency. Masau is the spirit of this earth, and the spirit of death. But is the sadness rather than the cruelty of death that the Hopis seem to feel.

We saw two carved figures, both star beings, but of different colors. They symbolize the male and female principles. We were told that seeing one shooting star was wonderful, but to see two shooting starts go through the sky together and disappear into eternity is even more wonderful. Such are husband and wife, or friend and friend, passing briefly through this word together until they enter eternity.

The Hopis believe that when they die they become kachinas, spirits that carry prayers to the Creator and bring his blessings back to the earth, especially the blessing of rain. The kachinas therefore appear as clouds. A small Hopi child overheard us talking about kachinas and said “There are many kachinas today.” We asked where, and he pointed to the sky which was filled with white puffy clouds.

The Hopis feel their losses, and say that it has been prophesied they will one day lose everything and go on their wanderings again, but it has also been prophesied the kachina dance will be the last thing they lose. May it be many, many years before that happens.

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There was the Priest, the Rabbi, and the Minister…

in Liturgy, Uncategorized 2 Comments Tags: ,

Priests who crack jokes during the Divine Liturgy are on my little list, and none of them will be missed. I know that priests have long been given the bad advice to begin the sermon with a joke to crack the ice with the congregation – but a sermon is not public speaking at a banquet, and the jokes usually fall flat. Even worse are those who make jokes throughout the liturgy.

 

A friend attended Palm Sunday serves; the celebrant began mass by saying ho much he enjoyed Holy Week and Paschaltide because he got to smack people in the face with water. My friend shared my reaction: Just the way to begin the week when we remember the death through torture of the Son of God and his conquest of Satan for the salvation of the Human race – a lame joke.

 

Some bishops share my reaction. The Sydney Morning Herald reports: 

LAUGHTER may be the best medicine, but God is no joke, according to an Anglican bishop who has chided Christian church leaders who think of themselves as stand-up comedians and resort to making jokes during sermons.

The Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, says there is nothing funny in “lame-fisted attempts” to crack jokes and be funny during services and church meetings. Humour has its place, but God and church, he says, is no laughing matter.

“I am frankly sick of ‘leaders’ ruining the atmosphere of the meeting/service and disrupting the focus on God with half-baked comic lines,” he wrote for a Sydney Anglican online ministry resource guide. “Or they detract from my reflection upon some important point made in the sermon with smart cracks or attempts to make funny comments about the preacher or the sermon.”

Another bishop feels the same way: 

Sydney’s Catholic Auxiliary Bishop, Bishop Julian Porteous, agreed with the sentiment, saying that Mass was not the venue for the priest to indulge his own personality.

“A religious ceremony, for Catholics a Mass, is a sacred event, and therefore the whole context of celebration should be one that engenders respect, appreciation of the divine and a whole sense of reverence for holy things – that is always got to be the ground in which a priest approaches his duties.

“There has been a tendency for people to feel a joke at the end of the Mass is something to leave people with a smile, but I personally don’t think it is appropriate.”

Preserving the dignity of the occasion should be uppermost in the mind of a priest. “There can be place for a comment which may be a truth or insight into the foibles of humanity, but jokes, if they are corny and self-serving, are inappropriate.”

Now if they could only get priests to stop acting like Vegas MCs.

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Vigilante Justice

in abortion, clergy sex abuse scandal, law enforcement, Responsibility, war 4 Comments Tags: , ,

The abortionist George Tiller was apparently killed by a pro-lifer. This has led to attacks on the pro-life movement at innately violent.

The widespread denunciations of the Vietnam War as illegal, unjust, cruel, and criminal, led students at Brandeis to plot the violent overthrow of the government.

On Sept. 23, 1970, Brandeis University woke up to another day of classes, cool fall weather and news of a murder and bank robbery at the hands of three of its students.

There were five people suspected of murder and robbery, three of whom were associated with Brandeis. According to the Sept. 29, 1970 issue of the Justice, the suspects included Robert Valeri, 21, a student at Northeastern University; William Gilday, 41, also a student at Northeastern; Kathy Power ’71, 21, a senior at Brandeis; Susan Saxe ’70, 20, a Brandeis graduate and admitted Brandeis graduate student; and Stanley Bond, 25, also a Brandeis student. The five were accused of murdering Boston patrolman Walter A. Schroeder during a robbery that gained the group $26,000 from a Brighton, Mass. bank. Schroeder, 42, had nine children; he died from a gunshot wound in the back.

Should the anti-war demonstrators have kept quiet, for fear of causing some people to become violent in their actions against violence?

Edward Abbey’s denunciation of the rape of the West in The Monkey Wrench Gang inspired some of his readers to become eco-terrorists, burning property to prevent development. The Unabomber was also motivated by fears of technology and its effects on freedom and the ecology. Should Al Gore tone down his rhetoric for fear of causing people on the fringe of rationality to become violent?

As a teenager Dontee Stokes was sexually abused by the Rev Maurice Blackwell. Years later, the stories of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church filled the media. Dontee obsessed over them, got a gun and confronted Blackwell, demanding an apology. Blackwell refused, and Dontee shot him. Joseph Druce had been sexually abused as a child; he had murdered a homosexual who had tried to pick him up. Druce was on the same cell block as the convicted molester the Rev. John Geoghan. Druce watched the months of television exposes of sexual abuse in Boston and heard the denunciations of the molesting priests as monsters. He overheard Geoghan planning to get out on appeal and to go to South America to molest children there. Druce murdered Geoghan so that Geoghan would never again molest. Should the Church have been allowed to cover-up its crimes forever for fear of a revelation of its iniquity inspiring private vengeance?

Bush administration officials have been denounced as torturers and war criminals. Suppose someone decides to kill one to punish a torturer?

Any denunciation of evil has the potentiality to inspire someone to decide to become judge, jury, and executioner. Therefore should evil never be denounced, for fear of inspiring vigilantism?

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