Whispers in the Loggia reports:
Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, issued the following statement in response to Father Raniero Cantalamessa’s Good Friday comments (fulltext) at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome:Father Cantalamessa’s words on Good Friday, somehow linking the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal with anti-Semitism, were unfortunate and reprehensible. They pose harm to Catholic-Jewish relations in Baltimore and around the world and I personally denounce them.Rightly upset and embarrassed as we are by the scandal we are enduring as Catholics, as frustrated as we are by the sometimes unfair coverage in certain elements of the press, nothing justifies this insensitive, harmful and regrettable comparison.On behalf of the Catholic Church in Baltimore, I offer apologies to our friends in the Jewish community, to victims of clergy sexual abuse, and to anyone offended by Father Cantalamessa’s personal views.
I wonder whether anyone has pointed out to O’Brien that his Holy Thursday paralleling of the pain of sex abuse victims and his pain at seeing press criticisms of the hierarchy was about as offensive as Cantalamessa’s remarks. Perhaps I shall.
Do it, Leon, do it! Only public pressure will made these “false shepherds” change their ways!
This same Archbishop Edward O’Brien is the one, who as archbishop of the military archdiocese, tried to can Fr Tom Doyle as a US Air foce chaplain two months before he was elegible for retirement benefits after 20 years of service. It was a vicous and low retaliation against Doyle for his long and courageous advocacy on behalf of victims. Even the Air Force was astonished at such a vindictive act and supported Fr Doyle, allowing him to keep his commission as an alcohol & drug counselor until retirement. The US Air Force showed itself far more ” Christian” than the current archbishop of Baltimore.
O’Brien is yet another power hungry climbing cleric, soon to get his red beanie. Doyle was also a very political animal when he was riding high at the Vatican embassy. Tom, however, sacrificed a promising career which could have rivaled O’Brien’s, because he dared to defend the causeof victims of abuse. He made the mistake of believing in the beginning that the Church would really listen and honestly fix the broken system. That is where he was wrong. Rather than protect victims, prosecute & remove pedophile predators and examine an institution that allowed this, the Church hierarchy, over populated by men like O’Brien persecuted Tom Doyle and any other whistle blower.
Tom is the great hero in this whole sorrry and sordid scandal. The fact that he has angered the hierarchy to the point of taking the kind of action that O’Brien took, only adds to his honor and integrity. Some years back Cardinal Law, once a friend of Doyle, publically called him “an ememy of the Church.” Cominig from Law it is almost a tribute. O’Brien is a company man and that company does not include Jesus Christ.
The bottom line is that people shouldn’t make analogies to the holocaust. Period. It’s never a good idea.
Yes Dr. Podles. Please do it, and give your readers his address. I’ll be happy to write him. My diocese has always had a “one strike and you’re out” policy with regards to priests messing with kids. Are we rare?
In 1984, auxiliary bishop of Boston, John D’Arcy wrote then Archbishop Bernard Law concerning Fr. John Geoghan, who was well known for acts of peodophilia with minors. For his efforts, D’Arcy was made Bishop of the Ft. Wayne – South Bend Diocese. He too was shuffled, some 1000 miles plus away from the center of the scandals to shut him up. Geoghan would go on to spiritually murder more than 150 boys and later was murdered in prison. Law, of course, for his efforts was moved to St. Mary Major in Rome. What is wrong with this picture?
Wait a darn minute. Cantalamessa didn’t liken anything to the holocaust. A Jewish friend of his wrote to him a letter that he quoted, a letter which likened the operation of anti-Catholic prejudice to anti-Semitism. Any prejudice operates the same way: jumping from false particulars to false universals and false stereotyping. Granted, there is no comparison between prejudice against the Church and the holocaust, but there is a comparison between prejudice against the Church and prejudice against Jews. Both have been rashly judged, smeared, and persecuted. Cardinal O’Brien’s remarks are absurd, in both cases.
Unfortunately, the hoohah over his remarks at the end of the sermon were to drown out his remarks on women:
“However there is a yet more grave and widespread violence than that of youth in stadiums and squares. I am not speaking here of violence against children, of which unfortunately also elements of the clergy are stained; of that there is sufficient talk outside of here. I am speaking of violence to women. This is an occasion to make persons and institutions that fight against it understand that Christ is their best ally.
It is a violence all the more grave in as much as it is often carried out in the shelter of domestic walls, unknown to all, when it is not actually justified with pseudo-religious and cultural prejudices. The victims find themselves desperately alone and defenseless. Only today, thanks to the support and encouragement of so many associations and institutions, some find the strength to come out in the open and denounce the guilty.
Much of this violence has a sexual background. It is the male who thinks he can demonstrate his virility by inflicting himself on the woman, without realizing that he is only demonstrating his insecurity and baseness. Also in confrontations with the woman who has made a mistake, what a contrast between the conduct of Christ and that still going on in certain environments! Fanaticism calls for stoning; Christ responds to the men who have presented an adulteress to him saying: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). Adultery is a sin that is always committed by two, but for which only one has always been (and, in some parts of the world, still is) punished.
Violence against woman is never so odious as when it nestles where mutual respect and love should reign, in the relationship between husband and wife. It is true that violence is not always and wholly on the part of one, that one can be violent also with the tongue and not only with the hands, but no one can deny that in the vast majority of cases the victim is the woman.
There are families where the man still believes himself authorized to raise his voice and hands on the women of the house. Wife and children at times live under the constant threat of “Daddy’s anger.” To such as these it is necessary to say courteously: dear men colleagues, by creating you male, God did not intend to give you the right to be angry and to bang your fist on the table for the least thing. The word addressed to Eve after the fault: “He (the man) shall rule over you” (Genesis 3:16), was a bitter forecast, not an authorization.
John Paul II inaugurated the practice of the request for forgiveness for collective wrongs. One of these, among the most just and necessary, is the forgiveness that half of humanity must ask of the other half, men to women. It must not be generic or abstract. It must lead, especially in one who professes himself a Christian, to concrete gestures of conversion, to words of apology and reconciliation within families and in society.
Typ: the hoohah over Cantalamessa’s remarks, not O’Brien’s
typo: the hoohah over Cantalamessa’s remarks, not O’Brien’s/
Mary Parks, after your post, I did read the entire homily and yes, in context, I loved it. I still think that Fr. Cantalamessa’s reference to his Jewish friend’s letter was ill-advised, especially given the sound bite nature of today’s media. But that is as much of a poor reflection on the media, as it is on Fr. C.
Why can’t we live in peace?? Why must each word, each sentence be misconstrued? All we do is apologize and apologize, not to mention judging one another. Lord have mercy on us.
Let’s get on our knees and pray for our church and one another.