Unable To See The Forest of Apostasy
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Many are the efforts by well-meaning Catholics who are still attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism to seek to find "lessons" about the supposedly "wayward" "bishops' who have been engaged in perverse sins of one sort or another and/or who have protected others who have done so. I know all about these efforts as I did the exact same thing for far, far, too long. "If only the pope" knew, I thought to myself at the time. "He'll take care of things. I have to get information to Rome. We've got to organize a letter-writing campaign."
Indeed, I wrote a series of articles two years ago on this exact theme, explaining that latter day conciliar apologists who use the "If only the 'pope' knew" argument are just continuing the utterly futile, Sisyphus-like work that some of us had done for several decades before coming to accept the truth that the conciliar authorities are apostates who have defected from the Catholic Faith and that the counterfeit church of concilairism is but a false ape of the Catholic Church, the spotless and virginal Mystical Bride of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who can never give us any liturgy that is an incentive to impiety or provide us with any doctrine or teaching that is unclear or ambiguous, no less contradictory of that which she has taught from time immemorial. (See Boy, If Only The "Pope" Knew and Boy, If Only The "Pope" Knew, partie deux.)
Before coming to accept the true state of the Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal six years ago, however, I had "moved" into the "resist but recognize" camp. A reader of this site wrote recently to say that he once asked one of the lay leaders of this particular "camp," based as it is in the clear rejection of the evidence brought forth by Gregorius in The Chair is Still Empty, what he thought of me. The man just rolled his eyes while turning red in the face, saying, "Don't you know? He's gone over to the other side." Truth, of course, has no sides. Truth is what it is, which is one of the reasons I just have to smile when correspondents say that they can't take "sides" on a particular issue. Truth simply has no sides.
Before I gone over to the "other side," however, I did write such articles as
Time for Plain Talk and The hard-ball legal tactics used by diocesan authorities). Thus it is that I recognize full well efforts such as that published recently on the LifeSiteNews website that sought to teach "lessons" concerning the fall of the purveyor of child pornography, Raymond Lahey, who resigned in disgrace as the conciliar "bishop" of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, on September 25, 2009, after an inspection of his computer at the airport in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, earlier that month revealed such terrible images. The "educative" article on the LifeSiteNews website, which can be read in its entirety by clicking on the hyperlink below, included several excerpts that are worth a bit of comment"
March 6, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- The internationally-reported child porn possession case of Bishop
Raymond Lahey of Antigonish, Nova Scotia is indeed a sad one for the
Catholic Church. Yet from it, many valuable lessons can and should be
learned, not only for the benefit of the Church, but also for the
building of a culture of life.
Bishop
Lahey was caught with child porn on his computer at the airport in
2009. Of the 155,000 pornographic images on the computer, 588 photos and
63 videos depicted young boys in sexual acts. Lahey was sentenced this
past January 4th to eighteen months in prison, but was released right
after the trial since he was given two-for-one credit for the 8 months
in jail he had already served.
Lahey told the court that he was a homosexual and had been in a steady homosexual relationship for 10 years. He hoped, he said, to return to this relationship after prison.
One of the first lessons to glean from this sad story is the need for
effective action by fellow clergy when they have knowledge of grave
scandalous actions by their brother priests or even their bishops. How
many of his fellow clergy, his brother bishops, his close friends and
colleagues knew of Bishop Lahey’s dark secret - not only the porn
addiction, but also his homosexual relationships and his repeated trips
to Thailand, widely known as a major destination for those wanting to
engage in pedophile adult/child sex?
It defies reason to conclude that at least a few fellow clerics, if
not more than that, did not know of Lahey’s serious problems.
In fact, Bishop Lahey’s problem with pornography, and other clerics
having been advised of it, dated back more than 20 years. A few short
years after Lahey was ordained auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of St.
George, Newfoundland, a sexual abuse victim found pornography at Lahey’s
house and reported it to a priest. In 1989 Shane Earle told Fr. Kevin
Malloy of his find. Malloy reported it to then Archbishop Alphonsus Penney, but the trail ends there. . . . .
One of the major road-blocks to having such scandals avoided and put
to a swift end is the culture of fear created by these scandalous clergy
and Bishops. Bullying and other strong-arm tactics are often employed
in cowing faithful, orthodox clergy, and even fellow bishops into
silence. This has actually been rather common, as LifeSiteNews has
learned to its dismay over the years.
The 2006 investigative report issued by his own former Diocese of
Springfield noted that Bishop Daniel Ryan had “engaged in improper
sexual conduct and used his office to conceal his activities.” He had
fostered “a culture of secrecy ... that discouraged faithful priests from coming forward with information about misconduct.”
But there is more than fear which dissuades faithful priests and
bishops from exposing the scandal or their brother clergy. A misguided
sense of personal loyalty, false charity, and an all-too-convenient
rationalization that avoiding needed corrective action is in fact a way
of guarding the faith, often come into play.
As we have seen over and over again regarding the numerous cases of
grave and ongoing sexual scandal, these sentiments are terribly
misguided and in fact accomplish the opposite of what they propose.
Obviously when such abuses are dealt with, charity is extended to the
victims of abuse. But beyond this, it is true friendship and charity
not only to the Church, but also to the offender, to expose him to the
proper authorities in order that the offender may be relieved of his
duties.
Bishops and other clergy involved in such scandal do themselves and the faith much harm in living double lives. In
exposing the scandal and having the offender relieved of his duties,
the courageous and determined whistleblower performs an act of charity
for his brother clergy. The offender is enabled to seek the
forgiveness and help which he needs to overcome his addictions and live
out his life (and afterlife) in peace.
Our Lord Himself warned of the seriousness of religious leaders
leading the faithful astray. “It is impossible that scandals should not
come: but woe to him through whom they come,” He said. “It were better
for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into
the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones.” (Lk
17:1-2) (The lessons of the Raymond Lahey scandal.)
This quite good as far as it goes, leaving aside the fact that the Diocese of Springfield was still covering for abusive priests at the time of its "ordinary," George Lucas, now the conciliar "archbishop" of Omaha, Nebraska, issued report on his predecessor's guilt (see Why has Bishop George Lucas, of the Springfield Allowed Predators to Remain In Positions of Authority).
While the author of the article, John Henry-Westen's article is premised upon the belief that the conciliar officials represent the authority of the Catholic Church, which they do not, he wrote the truth when explaining that the most charitable thing that can be done for recidivist offenders in these matters is to expose them to the light of scrutiny. It is better to suffer a little bit now than to suffer the pains of Hell for all eternity. Moreover, it is a fundamental work of charity for the souls of those who could become possible future victims of men who are inclined to the commission of unnatural acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments to warn them about a wolf in shepherd's clothing. Isn't admonishing the sinner one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy?
It is never easy to do this. No one I know who has been involved in exposing such cases has taken a moment's worth of glee or satisfaction from doing so. After all, who really wants to put himself in a position of being pilloried and shot on sight for exposing the perverse behavior of those who are a menace to souls?
Mr. Stephen G. Brady, the founder of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc., now defunct, took no glee at all from what he did in November of 1996 when he wrote to "Bishop" Daniel Leo Ryan of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, to demand his resignation after he had spoken to two diocesan presbyters who had been abused by Ryan personally. Mr. Brady did not act rashly. He had the behind-the-scenes advice and support of Father Peter Mascari, a true priest of the Diocese of Springfield who died on December 30, 2002, the murdered Father Alfred Kunz, who was killed in a gruesome ritualistic manner in the rectory of Saint Michael's Church in Dane, Wisconsin, on March 4, 1998. Yet it was that he was excoriated by the Director of Communications for the Diocese of Springfield, Mrs. Kathleen Sass, who has yet to apologize, whether privately or publicly, to Mr. Brady for criticizing him when she should have been questioning Ryan, who the most to gain from a cover-up.
This writer also was excoriated for mere having written the first several articles about the efforts of Mr. Brady and the attorney who assisted him and vetted his work, Mr. James Bendell, in the pages of The Wanderer in 1997 and 1998. "You're causing scandal. . . . You should be ashamed of yourself. . . . Why are you doing such things?" Mind you, those were some of the comments that can be printed. No one thought to ask what Mr. Brady had to gain from fabricating a story. To get publicity? Who needs to be beaten up regularly as a "scandal-monger"? No one I know. Steve Brady was concerned about souls, starting with that of Daniel Leo Ryan and, of course, with the men he had abused. He acted only after the conciliar authorities in the Vatican refused to do anything. Due diligence was done.
Nonetheless, many members of the laity, infected with Protestant and Judeo-Masonic ethos of sentimentality and what could be termed "Rodney King-itis" ("Why can't we all just get along?"), wrote to me to say that it was better to keep such news "quiet" or sought to minimize the nature of perverse behavior as being "nothing to excited" about as there are other issues more important to discuss, objections that leave aside the simple fact that the protection of souls is paramount to Christ the King, Who shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem just one soul" (see Souls? Who Cares About Souls?).
Yet it was that many knew about Ryan's activities for years, something that Francis "Cardinal" George, a confessed enabler of abusive clergymen, told Mr. Brady in January of 1998 that the American "hierarchy," such as it is, of course, in so many words. What's the good of "knowing" something and refusing to take the proactive measures necessary to protect souls?
The cases of Raymond Lahey and Daniel Ryan are far from unique in this regard. Lots of people "sit" on information, as has happened even in traditional circles, that they admit to others after a scandal has broken that they had "known" all along. Where is the sense of one's duty before God to warn those one knows have associated in good faith with a known predator? A desire to see a perceived "enemy" embarrass himself by engaging in such an association? A desire to protect the predator's undeserved "good name"?
What is missing, however, from the recent commentary on LifeSiteNews, a site which has made only two references to Mrs. Randy Engel's The Rite of Sodomy, both which came immediately after this definitive tome's publication in 2006, is what was missing from my own articles on like matters, including the Ryan case: the realization that indifference to the moral perversity of clergymen, truly ordained or not, while not unknown prior to the "Second" Vatican Council as true bishops simply sought to sweep "problems" under the rug in order to avoid "bad press," on the part of the conciliar "popes" and "bishops" is but a logical consequence of these officials' promotion of numerous proportions that have been condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church and of the propagation of false, sacramentally barren liturgical rites that are offensive to God and of no use to souls.
Article after article on this site has shown how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict not only promotes errors in his own right but is deaf, dumb and blind to their promotion by others (see Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy for a listing of some of these articles as well as a summary of some of the false "pontiff's" many errors; see also As We Continue To Blaspheme Christ the King and His True Church for chronological review of some of the "highlights," such as they are, of Ratzinger/Benedict's first six years of "papal" apostasy). Remember, it is now one thousand sixty-four days since "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the president of the conciliar "bishops'" conference in the Federal Republic of Germany and the conciliar ordinary of the Archdiocese of
Freiburg in Breisgau, Germany, denied publicly that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins. One thousand sixty-four days have passed since Robert Zollitsch uttered this blasphemous heresy. Not a word of public rebuke has been heard from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and it is this passivity in the face of outright denials of Catholic dogma by his own "bishops" that makes it far easier for the false "pontiff" to fail to recognize that the proximate root cause of the clergy abuse scandals in the conciliar church is the promotion of sodomites and the agenda of sodomy that has prospered in the ethos of conciliarism and in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo worship service.
Moreover, as has been pointed out in the past, Ratzinger/Benedict himself is a blasphemer who has called down himself the wrath of God by denying the nature of dogmatic truth to consign the dogmatic pronouncements of the Catholic Church's true councils and the teachings of her true popes to the dust bin of history by asserting that they can be reinterpreted now because the language used at the time of their formulation was conditioned on the historical circumstances of the moment, an assertion that is an utter act of blasphemy against God the Holy Ghost. Ratzinger/Benedict has praised false religions, esteemed their symbols with his own priestly hands, entered into their places of false worship and called them "sacred," and has stressed that the "values" of false religions can help to build the "better," more "peaceful" world. A man who believes and does these things will be incapable of reacting with the proper amount of moral outrage when faced with the suffering of the sheep, reacting only when bad press forces him to do so.
Ratzinger/Benedict has refused to do anything other than issue an "apology" for the terrible crisis of clerical abuse uncovered in Ireland, angering the conciliar "archbishop" of Ireland, Diarmuid Martin, who is, apart from his criticism of Ratzinger/Benedict's passivity in the wake of the report issued by the Murphy Commission in 2010, a complete creature of conciliarism. Not one of the Irish "bishops" has been penalized by the "pope." Not one. Indeed, Ratzinger/Benedict even refused to to accept the resignation of two of these putative Successors of the Apostles, Eaamon Oliver Walsh and Ray Field, after they had tendered them to him in 2010. And it was, after all, Ratzinger/Benedict who appointed the lavender-friendly George Niederauer to succeed his protege, William Levada, as the conciliar "archbishop" of San Francisco, California, after he named Levada as his own successor as the prefect of the conciliar Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Ultimately, of course, the likes of George Niederauer and Raymond Lahey and Daniel Leo Ryan were made "bishops" of the counterfeit church of concilairism by the very non-blessed Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II (see "Canonizing" A Man Who Protected Moral Derelicts). Ratzinger/Benedict and his spokesflack, "Father" Federico Lombardi, S.J, both expressed indignation over the searching of the offices of the Belgian conference of conciliar "bishops" by civil authorities in 2010 despite their long record of lavender-friendly policies and the protection they accorded one of their own members and other clergymen who were out and out perverts (see Not So "Deplorable" After All). The false "pontiff" himself has been guilty of, at best, indifference, to the assignment of an abusive clergyman, "Father" Peter Hullermann at a meeting he presided over as the "Archbishop" of Munich and Freising, Germany, on January 15, 1980.
Raymond Lahey is not the problem, Mr. Henry-Westen. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is the problem.
As one who was unable to see the forest of apostasy because I was lost in the "trees" of the ins and outs of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, I know full well what it is to believe that the "bad" "bishops" are preventing the "good," "suffering" "pope" from acting the way that he knows he ought. I do not condemn those who do not see this as of yet. I do, however, want to challenge those who do not see it or to accept it to consider the fact that the "bad" "bishops" did not come out of nowhere. They are creatures of the conciliar "popes" and march in lockstep with him on the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions of conciliarism.
Ratzinger/Benedict has maintained the good standing of countless spiritual and moral menaces to the souls of those who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The names are legion: Roger Mahony, Tod Brown, George Niederauer, William Levada, Sylvester Ryan (each of which were closely associated in their seminary days), David Brom, Howard Hubbard, William Skylstad, Robert Banks, Bernard Law, William Murphy, John McCormack, Richard Lennon, Rembert Weakland, Joseph Imesch, Thomas Gumbleton, Timothy Dolan, Francis George, Thomas Daily, John Favalora, Richard Sklba, Michael Sheehan, Raymond Hunthausen, Matthew Clark, Edward Egan, Theodore McCarrick, and Daniel Pilarczyk, among so many others.
Each of these men has protected or looked the other way at those who were recidivist practitioners of perversion.
Each of these men permit the innocent and purity of children to be undermined by the horror of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
Some of these men have praised motion pictures that have served as propaganda vehicles in behalf of perversion.
Two of them, Weakland and Gumbleton, have written explicitly in support of perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments as expressions of "love."
Each of them engages in the forbidden practices of ecumenism and "inter-religious prayer" services.
Each of them, accompanied by all other Roman Rite "bishops" in the conciliar structures, offends God by simulating a "worship service" that is a corruption of Catholic liturgy and that has reaffirmed ordinary Catholics in the spirit of the world.
These men are scandals in the sight of God for the doctrines they propose, for the liturgy they "offer" and for the behavior they have countenanced and enabled among their clergy as so many of them have used clubs against the suffering sheep to protect their own clerical club of privilege in this world that will do them no good in the next if they do not repent of having turned the sheep away to protect themselves and their own reputations. While it is certainly true that fallen human nature caused many true bishops of the Catholic Church to misuse their clerical authority in the past (and to cause some today to do so in the Catholic catacombs) that has played a significant role into feeding into the scandals of recent years, it is also true that the problems at present are far worse because the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" defect from the Catholic Faith in so many ways and participate in liturgical services that would have made the Arians blanche.
To be sure, an examination of our own consciences will reveal that at least some of us (my hand is raised right now) have given scandal to others by our public words and actions. The mind does not want fathom the horrible truth that one or more souls might have lost the Faith or have been turned away from any real consideration of converting to It by things we may have said or done to them or in their presence, which is why we need to pray to Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Augustine and Saint Camillus de Lellis, Saint Mary of Egypt and Saint Margaret of Cortona and even Saint John of God, who had a rough patch in his life, that our prayers and penances and mortifications and sacrifices offered to God through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary will help to win back the souls who we may have scandalized.
It is a terrible, terrible thing to reckon with the fact that one might be responsible for the loss of a single soul. It is thus the case that that while decry the insensitivity to the loss of souls demonstrated by the conciliar "bishops," we must never lose sight of how we might have demonstrated this insensitivity in our own lives. The loss of the Faith in a single soul caused Our Blessed Mother to suffer those bitter pangs during her Divine Son's Passion and Death and Good Friday.
May Our Lady help us to persevere in our own personal Lenten resolutions as we end the Second Week of Lent this evening so that we can continue to walk the rocky road that leads to the narrow gate of Life Himself, truly sorry for the many times that we have walked so casually on the wide and smooth road that leads to the gates of perdition. It is only by the graces won for us by Our Lord that are sent to us through Our Lady's loving hands that we can continue to walk the rocky road with persistence, recognizing that our vigilance in attending to the interior castle of our soul will help to build up the Church Militant on earth and prepare us to be of more worthy assistance to the Church Suffering in Purgatory and for a blessed reunion with all of the souls of the just in the Church Triumphant in an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise.
As we do so, of course, we must, while praying for the conversion of leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, recognize falsehood and obfuscation when we see it, clinging to the good shepherds who will treat us with the gentleness and the attentiveness of the Good Shepherd, Who never used His staff to drive away the sheep who sought Him out to entreat Him for a caring ear or for a word of support.
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?
