Much More Importantly, Guilty of Sin In The Eyes of God
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Monsignor William T. Lynn has been found guilty by a jury in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, of endangering children for his role in seeking to protect clerical abusers. The jury rejected the contention of Monsignor Lynn's defense attorney that he was carrying out the orders of his superior, Anthony "Cardinal" Bevilacqua, who was the conciliar "archbishop" of Philadelphia from December 12, 1983, to December 8, 1987, acquitting him of a second charge of child endangerment and a third charge of conspiracy. The conviction on the single count, however, is a first of its kind. Years of the conciliar chancery thugs, including "cardinals" (Bernard Law, Anthony Bevilacqua, Roger Mahony, Edward Egan) and "archbishops" (Rembert George Weakland, Theodore McCarrick, John Favalora, William Levada) and countless "bishops," skating by because of "respect" for their positions or because of statutes of limitations in various states is now over. Even though individual priests/presbyters have been convicted of abusive behavior, this is the first conviction for a chancery enabler for refusing to protect innocent souls from known predators:
PHILADELPHIA — Msgr. William J. Lynn, a former archbishop’s aide, was
found guilty Friday of endangering children, becoming the first senior
official of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States convicted of covering up sexual abuses by priests under his supervision.
The 12-member jury acquitted Monsignor Lynn, of the Archdiocese of
Philadelphia, of conspiracy and a second count of endangerment after a
trial that prosecutors and victims rights groups called a turning point
in the abuse scandals that have shaken the Catholic Church.
The single guilty verdict was widely seen as a victory for the district
attorney’s office, which has been investigating the archdiocese
aggressively since 2002, and it was hailed by victim advocates who have
argued for years that senior church officials should be held accountable
for concealing evidence and transferring predatory priests to unwary
parishes.
Monsignor Lynn, 61, sat impassively as the jury foreman announced the
verdicts, but relatives behind him were in tears. Judge M. Teresa
Sarmina of the Common Pleas Court revoked his bail, and the monsignor
stood up, removed his clerical jacket and was led by sheriff’s deputies
to a holding cell area. His conviction, on the 13th day of deliberations, could result in
a prison term of three-and-a-half to seven years; sentencing is set for
Aug. 13.
The trial sent a sobering message to church officials and others
overseeing children around the country. “I think that bishops and
chancery officials understand that they will no longer get a pass on
these types of crimes,” said Nicholas P. Cafardi, a professor of law at
Duquesne University, a canon lawyer and frequent church adviser. “Priests who sexually abuse youngsters and
the chancery officials who enabled it can expect criminal prosecution.”
The three-month trial cast a harsh light on the top leadership of the
archdiocese, especially Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, whom Monsignor
Lynn advised. Archbishop of Philadelphia from 1988 to 2003, he died in
January, but his name was invoked frequently during the testimony.
Monsignor Lynn’s own lawyer told the jury that “in this trial, you have
seen the dark side of the church.”
The revelations of sexual abuse and seeming official indifference have
tormented an archdiocese that was long known for imperious leaders and
an insular camaraderie among its priests — “the priestly equivalent of
the blue wall of silence,” said Rocco Palmo, the Philadelphia-based
writer of Whispers in the Loggia, a blog on Catholic affairs. It has
also been costly: the financially ailing archdiocese said recently that
legal fees and internal investigations spurred by the abuse cases had
cost $11.6 million since early 2011.
Cardinal Bevilacqua and his aides, the prosecutors argued, sought to
avoid scandal and costly lawsuits at almost any price, putting the
reputation of the archdiocese ahead of protecting vulnerable children.
The archdiocese issued a conciliatory statement on Friday, saying that “the lessons of the last year have made our
church a more vigilant guardian of our people’s safety,” and offering a
“heartfelt apology to all victims of clerical abuse.”
Monsignor Lynn served as secretary for clergy for the 1.5 million-member
archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, recommending priest assignments and
investigating abuse complaints. Prosecutors presented a flood of
evidence that Monsignor Lynn had not acted strongly to keep suspected
molesters away from children, let alone to report them to law
enforcement.
But the length of the jurors’ deliberations and the mixed verdict showed
the difficulty of placing criminal blame on one church official. The
jurors also wrestled with the definition of conspiracy, and with the
question of criminal intent on the part of Monsignor Lynn, who presented himself as an affable man who tried his best.
Nevertheless, the Philadelphia district attorney, R. Seth Williams,
said Friday that the verdict had sent a lesson to the nation. “This
monumental case will change the way business is done in many
institutions,” he said.
Victims advocates said that they hoped the conviction would embolden
prosecutors in other states to investigate senior church officials, and
predicted that it would lead to more victim lawsuits.
“The guilty verdict sends a strong and clear message that shielding and
enabling predator priests is a heinous crime that threatens families,
communities and children, and must be punished as such,” said Barbara
Dorris, of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
But such proceedings may often be limited, legal experts said, by statutes of limitations. (Phony Cardinal’s Aide Is Found Guilty in Abuse Case.)
I was a first-hand witness to the presence of men who were active practitioners of perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments being advanced to conciliar "orders," including the conciliar presbyterate itself, while in two different seminaries. What I learned in those seminaries was only confirmation, however, of what I had discerned as an obvious problem back in the 1970s when, simultaneously with the pursuit of my doctorate at the then named Graduate School of Public Affairs of the then named State University of New York at Albany, I was investigating various dioceses and religious communities. One vocations director of an East Coast diocese was very blunt with me back in 1975, "Do you know that there are dioceses within two hundred miles of here who will accept open homosexuals?" And it was around that same time that, according to a conciliar presbyter who was once in my acquaintance, Father Benedict Groeschel, then a priest of the Order of Franciscans Minor, Capuchin, told a group of seminarians that there was a crisis concerning the admission of homosexuals into seminaries that would explode within twenty years." He was no wrong.
Indeed, a friend of mine in Virginia, a man who was very active pro-life causes and sought to root out the practitioners of perversity from the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, having many a run-in with "Bishop" John Keating over the matter, showed me a sheath of documentation in February of 1987 on the infestation of predators in one diocese and religious community after another. Even the late Father Vincent Miceli and the publisher-editor of The Wanderer, from what the man told me at the time, did not want to believe that the information was true, although The Wanderer, to its credit journalistic credit, became one of the few media sources in the 1990s that published stories on these predators, principally by means of the investigative reporting done by Paul Likoudis. There was even a true priest, a very fine and sardonic native of The Bronx who, most sadly, was a very strong partisan of the embodiment of all evil in the world, the New York Yankees, staying at the man's house who had left his religious community because it was a nest of homosexuals, later associating with an "indult" (now "Motu") community.
My host, Mr. Frank Kelly, a former lieutenant colonel in the United States Marines, walked right up to "Archbishop" Agostino Cacciavillan, then the "Apostolic" Nuncio to the United States of America, tell him that
his betrayal of the trust of the priests who had written to him to
document their charges against the morally and doctrinally corrupt predator named "Bishop" Daniel Leo Ryan (Cacciavillan sent the letters to
Ryan, thereby violating his promise to the priests that their
confidentiality would be maintained) was criminal. Mr. Kelly then poked his finger right in the phony prelate's chest,
telling him that he belonged in jail for how he had betrayed the
priests. "Archbishop" Cacciavillan, who was "Papal Nuncio" to the United
States from 1990 to 1998, received endless letters from Catholics
complaining about how American "bishops" were protecting perverted priests who had abused their own
children. He did nothing to correct the problem. Nothing. He was
rewarded for his years of protecting cowardly and corrupt members of the
American conciliar "hierarchy" by receiving a "cardinal's" red hat from
Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II in 2001.
Yes, numerous articles on this site have covered this worldwide tragedy that has devastated the life of the Holy Faith in countless numbers of souls and that has led some victims to commit suicide (see, among many others, Of Worldwide Scope, Always Evading Root Causes, Swinging Clubs To Protect The Club, Surely He Jests, "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts, More Than A Matter of Legality, Audio Presentation: Scandal In a Church of Apostasy.WMA, "Fall Guys" Aren't Usually "Stand-Up Guys", Apologizing to Everyone Save For God Himself, Not Going Down With the Conciliar Ship, Touchy, Touchy, Chastisements Under Which We Must Save Our Souls, part two, Not So "Deplorable" After All, and Future Home of the "Reform of the Reform", Ratzinger's Revolution Unravels, part two, Nearly A Decade After Law Was Broken).
As has been noted so many times before on this little
read and much castigated website, one of the most little discussed
effects of the doctrinal and conciliar revolutions has been the almost
total destruction of the sensus Catholicus within the souls of a
large percentage of Catholics alive today. Having been convinced by the
blitzkrieg of liturgical changes that burst upon them in the 1950s
and 1960s, culminating in that perpetual spawner of sacrileges and
outrages that is the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service,
that ceaseless change was now an ordinary and expected part of what
they believed to be the Catholic Faith, so many Catholics lost almost
all sense of decency and honor, starting with honor for the Most Blessed
Trinity, as they plunged themselves headlong into attitudes that were
either indifferent of the horror of personal sin. Many of these
Catholics, having had their souls deformed in supposedly Catholic
schools and colleges and universities and institutions of professional
learning (law schools, medical schools, etc.) and from the very pulpits
in the church buildings where stagings of the "new Mass" took place,
began to justify aberrant personal behavior in the name of "human
rights," "diversity," "choice," "freedom," "tolerance," "understanding,"
"compassion" and, among so many others, "conscience."
The loss of this sensus Catholicus, on the part of ordinary Catholics, began with the loss of the sensus fidei (the sense of the Faith) by the leaders of the doctrinal and liturgical
revolutions, each of whom fell from the Faith by adhering to, no less
publicly promoting, propositions that had been condemned by the teaching
authority of the Catholic Church and are thus completely
irreformable.
The revolutionaries of the counterfeit church of
conciliarism understood that the only contact that most Catholics had
with their holy religion was when they went to what they thought was
Holy Mass on Sundays (or, in the un-Catholic world of conciliarism, on
Saturday afternoon or evening to get the Sunday "obligation out of the
way"). It was necessary, therefore, to change the Sacred Liturgy into a
singular vessel of perdition into which could be poured the elements of
doctrinal corruption that would pave the way to the ready acceptance and
embrace of moral corruption as being not in the least offensive to a
"loving" God or in any way harmful to their eternal salvation.
A ready acceptance of even perverse sins against
nature has become commonplace in the lives of so many Catholics, most of
whom do not have the benefit of having true Sacraments are are
thus more ready to embrace the false currents of the world that are at
the foundation of the the false representations made to them by the
conciliar revolutionaries. Need we be reminded that such conciliar
revolutionaries as Rembert George Weakland, (see Weak In Mind, Weakest Yet In Faith and Just A Matter of Forgiveness?) and Roger "Cardinal" Mahony (see The Six Hundred Million Dollar Man and His Friends, Yes, Sir, Master Scribe and Apostasy Is His Field),
and, among so many others Howard Hubbard, whose scoffing at New York
Governor Andrew Cuomo's concubinage and support for chemical and
surgical baby-killing and "marriage" for people of the same gender was
discussed in Memo To Howard Hubbard: Public Scandal Is Never A Private Matter,
have helped to promote the "lavender" agenda in so many ways? It is
such a promotion of the what Mrs. Randy Engel calls the "homosexaulist
collective" that has made it more and more possible for ordinary
Catholics, accustomed to doctrinal and liturgical aberrations as
perfectly consonant with the Holy Faith, to cheer at the "advances"
being made by "society" in behalf of "loving couples."
Propagandizing in behalf of perversity is common
throughout the conciliar structures. Such propagandizing begins even in
Kindergarten with the rot that is explicit classroom instruction in matters
pertaining the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, right through Twelfth
Grade. Religious education programs and theological seminars and
"updating" programs are staffed in many instances by open practitioners
of perversity and/or by those who are "sympathetic" to "gays" in the
name of "compassion" and "tolerance" and "diversity." Countless numbers
of alleged liturgies have been held to "celebrate" the "rainbow agenda,"
including very notoriously at Most Holy Redeemer Church in San
Francisco, California, Saint Francis Xavier Church in the Borough of
Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, and Saint Joan of Arc
Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Countless also are the formerly
Catholic colleges that promote this sin that cries out to Heaven for
vengeance, doing so with plays and "readings" and entire courses and by
permitting those who are engaged in unrepentant sins of perversity to
identify themselves publicly and to form clubs and groups and
associations that recruit members.
We have seen the Vatican and its conciliar "bishops" and their chancery
factotums engage in all manner of self-exculpatory "spinning" to deny the scope
and extent of the clerical abuse that they had suborned for decades. This has
been the standard modus operandi of the conciliar "bishops" and their factotums
when caught up in the vast web of the clerical abuse scandals:
(1) Denials that anything occurred
(2) Attempts to claim
that they were “framed” or “set-up.”
(3) Accusations that the victims have
been lying.
(4) Efforts to intimidate the victims and their family
members/friends/supporters with threats of lawsuits, sometimes threatened by
chancery officials or attorneys for insurance companies in the employ of a
diocese or religious community.
(5) Numerous threats to publicly humiliate
the accusers with a recitation of their own sins and faults a
standard practice of bullies and thugs who, lacking facts, believe that
their bare-knuckles, "win, baby, win" tactics will scare the timid into
backing off so that those guilty of egregious behavior can continue with
their misdeeds as the attempt to "preserve" reputations that are
undeserved.
Too strong? For those with short memories, consider the case of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York, my "home" diocese as a native Long Islander (I was in Kindergarten at Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New York, during the 1956-1957 school year when the diocese was erected by Pope Pius XII out of the Diocese of Brooklyn). "Monsignor" Francis Caldwell, who had been the "priest personnel" director and then a "secretary" to the nefarious "Bishop" John Raymond McGann, admitted that the diocese admitted to blackmail "Father" Michael Hinds about his own record as an abuser if he came forth with information about how he had been abused as an altar boy by Monsignor Charles H. "Bud" Ribaudo:
Q: That is a pretty long,
pretty substantial period of time when the priorities were that we have
to get the new bishop [William F. Murphy, an Opus Dei-friendly auxiliary
'bishop" in the Archdiocese of Boston who had enabled perverted priests
and presbyters under the morally bankrupt reign of Bernard "Cardinal"
Law] installed rather than we have to address the issue of a sexually
abusing priest who is the pastor of a parish where there is a number of schools.
A: Well, it was a confluence of things happening, but it’s true, there was a time gap there, yes…
Q: … was that your decision to wait…
A: That was my decision…
Q: What, under the written policy that is in existence, or was in
existence at the time, that is in evidence as Grand Jury Exhibit 144,
gives you the authority to do that…?
A: Well, nothing really. There was just so many things happening
all at once that, you know, as you ask these questions, I, ou know, it
was a mistake...
Q: …you and the Diocese became aware of the fact, by his admissions, he [Priest O] had abused roughly 13 boys; is that right?
A: Around that, yes…
Q: …and yet you took a delay in even accepting him for the
initial evaluation, waiting for the installation of the bishop; is that
right?
A: Yes…from hindsight, it was not prudent.
Approximately six weeks after the original disclosure, Priest W
[Michael Hands] was informed by a high-ranking Diocesan official that
Priest O [Charles Ribaudo] admitted abusing him. Priest O was then to be
sent for a psychological evaluation Initially, the Diocese wanted to
send Priest O to the same facility that was treating Priest W. Upon
Priest W’s objection, the Diocese chose a different one. Priest W was
also told that the parish was informed that Priest O was having heart
problems and needed
treatment for them The Diocese told Priest W that Priest O would
be the most heavily evaluated priest ever, and they hoped to reassign
him to his parish at a later time.
The Diocese was very concerned that Priest W would disclose the
abuse if they reassigned the priest. A high-ranking Diocesan official
spoke to Priest W and stressed that the abuse occurred twenty years ago, Priest W was led to believe there were no other victims. 84
Diocesan officials emphasized that Priest O was the pastor of a
financially important parish [Saint Dominic's in Oyster Bay, my own home
parish between 1965 and 1973 and again from 1980-1983 and 1985-1986];
disclosure of the abuse would ruin the priest’s credibility and be bad
for Diocesan public relations and finances. Priest W was also
told that that his parents should tell no one of the abuse. If Priest W
kept this quiet, the Diocese would continue to help him and pay for his
treatment
A Diocesan Official confirmed for the Grand Jury that he indeed
told Priest W not to talk about the sexual abuse he suffered at the
hands of Priest O. The following colloquy ensued in the Grand Jury:
Q: Did you tell him [Priest W] outright, don’t tell anybody else about this?
A: …um, I said to him, you know, I wouldn’t tell anybody else about this at this time.
Q: Why did you say that to him?
A: Because I just didn’t think it would be good for him to start blabbering that around at that time.
Q: You were very concerned about the adverse publicity
that such an allegation would have concerning [Priest O’s] position and
the diocese?
A: Yes, of course.
This of course was not true. As set forth in the narrative
concerning Priest O, there was an earlier allegation of sexual abuse
against him by another student at the same High School.[Holy Trinity
Diocesan High School, Hicksville, New York]. Diocesan Officials
summarily dismissed the charge as baseless. When Priest O was ultimately evaluated, the charge was found to be true.
Three or four weeks later, another high-ranking Diocesan Official
visited Priest W at his treatment facility. Priest W told him about the
abuse and its effect on his life. This official could only say about the
allegation, “That’s sad…because I hear he’s a very talented man”
In December 2001, Priest W was back in Rockville Centre for a
visit. A Diocesan official told him that they knew his mother had told
another priest in the Diocese about the abuse. At the same time he
reminded Priest W that the Diocese wanted to put Priest O back in his
parish assignment. There was a simple quid pro quo: remain silent about the abuse and the Diocese would continue to pay for his continued therapy This official, who knew Priest W’s mother as she had once worked for him, told him to call her and tell her to be quiet. Indeed, Priest O was returned to his assignment before Christmas with the explanation that his heart problems had been treated
Shortly after hearing of Priest O’s return, Priest W was visited again by a high-ranking Diocesan official. He confirmed the reassignment and the importance of remaining quiet.
Priest W explained that he would not volunteer the information to the
general public but would tell the Court handling his case about it as
well as the probation department during his pre-sentence interview. The
Diocesan official asked him to limit his disclosure and “…just say I had experienced sexual abuse by a significant adult in my life and not say he was a priest and not say his name” Priest W agreed to try and do so.
About five months later, Diocesan officials spoke with Priest W
about a pending article in Newsday that would reveal the abuse he had
suffered. They told Priest W that he must call Newsday and deny the truth of the article. They characterized the abuse as not that serious and advised Priest W “you better consult your conscience and call and try to save him [Priest O]
from this” Again, Priest W said he would not volunteer the information but would not deny it if asked.
To appreciate the gravity of the situation, the testimony of
Priest W and a high-ranking Diocesan official must be examined together
and in conjunction with the psychological evaluations of Priest O. While
Priest W clearly has a motive to slant the testimony in his favor, the
salient facts were admitted by the Diocese in the Grand Jury. Priest W
was, indeed, sexually abused by Priest O; the priest confirmed this to
the Diocese and to his evaluators. In fact, Priest O had
subsequently admitted to Diocesan officials his sexual abuse of
approximately a dozen underage boys while assigned to the High School.
In the Grand Jury, a Diocesan Official admitted that he had
implied to Priest W that the Diocese would require his silence in return
for continued insurance coverage of his treatment and other benefits.
In this regard, the following colloquy took place in the Grand Jury:
A: …I did tell him that, that it would not be a good thing
for him to speak with Newsday. I don’t recall specifically saying to
him not to, not to mention something…It’s definite that I told him it
was not good to speak to Newsday.
Q: Did you tell him the diocese had been very good to him in
terms of paying for his therapy, paying for any transitional expenses
that he might incur?
A: Yes…
Q: So his treatment at St. Luke’s was very expensive, tens of thousands of dollars; was it not?
A: Yes.
Q: He’s going to have to start a whole new life and find a whole
new career and that’s also going to be very expensive; is it not?
A: Yes.
Q: And the diocese would help him with that, under ordinary circumstances. You certainly have done it before?
A: Yes.
Q: You certainly have paid many expenses of priests similarly situated before?
A: Yes.
Q: Did you imply to [Priest W] that if he spoke to
Newsday and told them about his relationship with [Priest O], that
perhaps that money would not be there to help him with those
transitional expenses?
A: I think I might have implied that, yes…
Q: …did you tell him that if was asked by a Newsday
reporter to confirm or deny his, the fact that [Priest O] had sexually
abused him…he should deny it?
A: I don’t recall telling him he should deny it because I knew that it was true.
Q: Did you have any similar conversation with…any other priest
whose name appeared in Newsday in 2002 that if they talked to Newsday
they could lose their benefits?
A: I don’t recall that.
Q: So it’s just [Priest W] that you said that with?
A: Yes.
So afraid was the Diocese of bad publicity that even
after Priest O was relieved of his priestly faculties after he retired,
he was denoted in the parish bulletin of his former parish as Pastor
Emeritus. Although now retired and technically entitled to this title,
such a designation indicates that a priest is in good standing and
possesses his priestly faculties. A Diocesan official conceded that this
was misleading and the designation was later removed.
The concern of the Diocesan hierarchy has always
been to avoid scandal and the resultant loss of financial revenue. To
avoid these disasters, payment of healthcare coverage for Priest W was
offered to induce him to remain silent. This was not surprising
since the Diocese had been doing this same thing for years with the
victims of priest sexual abuse. The Intervention Team offered counseling
payments to victims while assuring them that the offending priest would
be properly dealt with. All the while, the real goal was to return the
priest to ministry despite the nature of the offense or the wishes of
the victim. Money to victims bought their silence so this could be
accomplished.
Diocesan practice was at odds with official written policy.
Priest O was not sent for an immediate evaluation. Weeks passed because
of the upcoming installation reception for the new bishop. Priest O was
evaluated and returned to ministry within two months, hardly enough
time to effectively evaluate and treat his disease.
Parishioners were misled about his absence. Despite his admission
that he had abused Priest W and many other boys, his parish was told
only that Priest O needed treatment for his heart condition. Only when
his victim refused total silence was Priest O sent for further
evaluation and, only after this evaluation concluded that he should not
be around young males was he required to retire or face removal from his
position. Wittingly or not, the psychological evaluation process
utilized by the Diocese was clearly ineffective. Reassignment of
priests were made upon faulty and incomplete information designed more
as a basis to justify reassignment than for the proper treatment of
offenders. The Grand Jury finds that the Diocesan practice of evaluating
priest/abusers was fatally flawed. The handling of Priest O’s case
epitomizes this. (Suffolk County Supreme Court Special Grand Jury Report.)
It has been no different with the Vatican itself, including the "papacy" of the supposedly "Blessed" "Pope" John Paul II, especially as regards his refusal even to look at evidence of the corruption of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the late Father Marcel Maciel Degollado:
A string of Vatican investigations and the arrest of the papal butler
for allegedly leaking secret documents to the Italian press grabbed the
big headlines out of Rome in May and June. The tales of palace intrigue,
backbiting cardinals and new mysteries of the Vatican Bank overshadowed
the latest jolts in the deepening saga of the Legionaries of Christ,
the once high-flying order founded by Marcial Maciel Degollado.
A new disclosure in a just-published book based on leaked Vatican documents, Sua Santità: Le Carte Segrete di Benedetto XVI ("His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI") by Italian
journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi, reports that the Legion priest who was
closest to Maciel for many years met with Pope John Paul II in 2003,
attempting to brief him on Maciel, but was shown the door.
Moreover, a priest who in 2009 met with Cardinal Franc Rodé, then the Vatican official in charge of religious orders, told NCR that Rodé discussed a videotape he had seen of Maciel with one of his
children in 2004, yet made no move to punish the Legion founder. Rodé,
who has since retired, championed the Legion and its lay wing, Regnum
Christi, with glowing speeches to the groups for several years after
Maciel was banished from active ministry.
The most startling revelation of recent weeks was the admission to NCR senior correspondent John L. Allen Jr. by Fr. Thomas Williams, a Legion
commentator for NBC and CBS, that he had fathered a child "a number of
years ago." That news followed a report by Nicole Winfield of The
Associated Press on sex abuse accusations involving seven Legion
priests. Finally, Legion general director Fr. Álvaro Corcuera issued an
apology, saying he had known about Williams' child since 2005.
Cardinal Velasio de Paolis, the canon lawyer delegated by Benedict as the Legion overseer, told Reuters that he had
known about Williams since January. "There is a need to be careful in
cases like this," he said. "It concerns a private life. These things
happen these days, unfortunately." (A Legion of Christ Vatican Meltdown.)
These things "happen" these days? Sure, "Cardinal" Velasio de Paolis jests. Surely. These things "happen" these days. Incredible.
How sad it is, therefore, that there are some even in the world of traditional Catholics who seek to indemnify clerics accused of inappropriate behavior with males because they "like" them and thus imagine conspiracies that don't exist and then seek to exactly what the conciliar authorities have done with such Stalinist brutality: to assault the integrity of the victims because they had been shamed by their being so blind and conflicted by a different emotions as a result of being "groomed" into thinking that their predators actually "loved" them and that it is normal and natural for men to engage in long, sustained embraces involving gestures that no normal, well-adjusted man would even thinking of doing. No, those who are obstinately blind to the faults of others have to make the victims appears to be "guilty" of "making up" that which will be revealed at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead of being absolutely true, all of their vulgar protestations and strenuous efforts to serve as enablers of predators and would-be predators to the contrary notwithstanding.
Look at all the lies told by chancery official after chancery official. Look at all of the intimidation and browbeating. Look at all of the time money spent to hire attorneys to intimidate victims and their families. Look at the number of young men who have committed suicide because, succumbing to the devil's wiles, they despaired of ever receiving justice in this world and of ever recovering from the shame of being victimized in such a horrible, perverse manner.
Anyone who enables a predator or a would-be predator will find out when they die that all of their efforts have been for naught, that one can never bluster away truth or minimize the horror of crimes by screeds and threats to use attorneys to shut people about about their "friends" and colleagues. Sure, such people, especially those who want to show that they "never lose" a "battle" that they seek to engage in, may "win" and then seek to continue to exact "revenge" on those they have wrongly accused of harboring "hatred" for "falsely accused" predators. They might very well lose at the moment of their Particular Judgment, a loss that would be made manifest on the Last Day.
Alas, jury verdicts in the cases such as Monsignor William T. Lynn's force enablers of predators to pay back the wound to justice that has been done to civil society. Such verdicts, however, are far less important than the simple fact that men such as William T. Lynn and the man he served so faithfully in a cause that perverted justice in behalf of protecting and indemnifying clerical perverts, Anthony Bevilacqua, stood guilty in the eyes of God as soon as they enabled one such threat to the spiritual and bodily integrity of other human beings.
Quite predictably, of course, the same pattern of denial and putting the victims on trial was at work in the case of former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, convicted last night of forty-five of forty-eight counts of perversely abusing children. Many of his defenders, some of whom were concerned about his value to the university's vaunted varsity football team's "winning" of games than truth and/or the fact that they had known and "liked" Sandusky, victimized the victims or sought to minimize his behavior ("What's the big deal about a kiss?," "What's the big deal about a little friendly 'squeeze'?", "What's the big deal about getting cozy with a boy in bed?"). It had to be the fault of the victims, not of their "friend," Jerry Sandusky. A jury, many of whom with ties to Penn State, thought otherwise. So would any rational human being who was thinking even on a purely naturalistic, no less supernatural, level (see Sandusky Convicted in Perverted Abuse of Boys). Then again, rationality is in short supply these days, especially when "friends" and colleagues are involved.
God will not be mocked. Truth wins out in the end. Yes, it may not be until that Last Day, which means that victims and those who have sought to expose the crimes of their abusers will have to be patient as they pray for the conversion of those guilty in God's eyes, although not perhaps that of the "world," of abuse and misbehavior as they themselves, quite of course, seek to to keep uppermost in their minds the need never to let offenses done to them cause them to hate their abusers. We must forgive those who cause us harm while at the same time seeking justice, as far as that is possible to be done in this passing, mortal vale of tears, in the temporal realm. It is also the case that every person, including the victims of twisted, perverted behavior, must recognize that everything happens in the Providence of God, Who wills to bring good out of evil, and that nothing that anyone does to us or says about us is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins did to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother to suffer as those Seven Swords of Sorrow were pierced through and through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Perhaps the conviction of "Monsignor" William T. Lynn might cause those in the secular media to take seriously Mrs. Randy Engel's exhaustive documentation of the long history of the fostering of a culture in the conciliar church favorable to the advancement of what she calls quite correctly as the "homosexualist collective" (see The Rite of Sodomy). Perhaps. Perhaps.
It is one thing to sin, however, and to be sorry as we seek out the ineffable Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. It is quite another to persist in sin, no less to justify or minimize it before men or to protect those guilty of serious sins, including sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. The conciliarists have protected clerical abusers and they have refused to penalize Catholics in public life who support the chemical and surgical assassination of innocent preborn children, many of whom also support the "right" of those engaged in perversity to "marry." These are signs of a "church" that have nothing to do with the Catholic Church whatsoever.
Each of us is a sinner. We must suffer for
our sins. There is no escape from this suffering, and living in this
particular time of apostasy and betrayal is part of the plan in the
economy of God's salvation to effect effect our own salvation as we
suffer and suffer well for our sins and those of the whole world. The
graces won for us by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on the
wood of the Holy Cross that flow into our hearts and souls through the
loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are
sufficient this moment. They are sufficient for every moment and every
need.
Each of us has an obligation to do our own duty
before God by making reparation for our own many sins that have worsened
the state of the Church Militant on earth and of the world-at-large in
many ways that we may understand fully only in eternity. We must live
more and more penitentially as the consecrated slaves of the Most Sacred
Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary,
praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits,
especially during this month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This era of apostasy and betrayal will pass. The true sensus Catholicus will be restored. Catholics will once again have a true sense of the
horror of personal sin and they will seek voluntarily to make reparation
for their own sins and those of the whole world as the slaves of the
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Men and their nations will
submit themselves to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be
exercised by Holy Mother Church.
Yes, there will be the Triumph of the Immaculate
Heart of Mary when her Fatima Message is fulfilled. We may not live to
see this with our own eyes. Moses was given a glimpse of the Promised
Land, but died before entering there. The Apostles and the martyrs of
the first centuries of Holy Mother Church did not live to see the glory
of Christendom that resulted from their fidelity and their
sacrifices. We must not look for "results" in our own lifetimes.
May the Rosaries we pray each day help to bring about the restoration of the Church Militant on earth and of Christendom in the world.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
