Waterloo For Benedict?
by Thomas A. Droleskey
What are the defenders of all things Benedict going to say now? That he didn't know about the perverted priest in the Diocese of Essen within the metropolitan province of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising when he was the conciliar archbishop there between
March 24, 1977, to February 15, 1982? That is was, as his spin-doctoring spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., is contending with a straight face, all the fault of the vicar general of the archdiocese? That he, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, just did not understand the seriousness of the allegations, that he was acting upon the advice given him by "experts" in mental health and pastoral ministry? That he is being persecuted for being the "restorer of tradition" and his efforts at "reconciliation" with the Society of Saint Pius X? That the secular press in Germany is trying to "get" the false "pontiff." (Actually, this "shoot the messenger" message is being used aggressively by some in the conciliar Vatican at this time. See Vatican Speaks as Abuse Details Emerge.)
What are the defenders of all things Benedict going to say about the emergence of new witnesses who are telling their stories of physical abuse now that, as occurred in the United States of America and Ireland and Australia and Austria, initial wave of reports in the secular media about such abuses have been made public? Take a page out of the self-serving playbook of emotional manipulation and misrepresentation that has been used by a prominent prelate in recent months? That the witnesses are "mentally instable"? That they are "priest-haters"? That they are violating the precepts of the Eighth Commandment in coming forth now with their stories of abuse? That they the devil has "buzzed" them into their ears and taken possession of their souls to a greater or lesser extent?
Although the indemnification of unrepentant and unreformed moral criminals who persist in their immoral behavior even after so-called "therapy" is not a crime against the Holy Faith, God does care about moral integrity just as much as He cares about doctrinal integrity. One cannot save his soul by persisting in a state of unrepentant Mortal Sin until the moment of his death. One cannot save his soul be reaffirming others in their commission of what are, in the objective moral order (leaving aside, as always, subjective judgment of another's soul to God alone), Mortal Sins or by making it possible for them to continue committing these sins by minimizing their horror or denying that such malefactors pose a real and immediate threat to souls that requires them to be withdrawn from any kind of pastoral ministry for the rest of their lives as they seek to penance for their sins in some kind of monastery or cloister. Those who commit Mortal Sins must reform their lives in cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, and seek to do penance for their sins.
At the root of the worldwide scandal that has broken in conciliar circles, and that, because of fallen human nature, is not unknown in the Catholic catacombs in this time of apostasy and betrayal, is a failure to understand the horror of personal sin in general and a failure to recognize the those who are inclined to commit perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments are mentally ill, that priests or presbyters who engage in such acts must never be restored to pastoral ministry ever again. A true priest so afflicted can give glory to God and add grace the world every time he offers a true liturgy of the Catholic Church (the Immemorial Mass of Tradition or the of the Uniat Rites of the East). He can administer the sacraments to the sick and dying in situations of genuine emergency. A priest afflicted with the mental illness of perverted acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, however, must never be put in what is to him the near occasions of sin and what is for the faithful a cause of great, demoralizing scandal that might cause some of those who are weaker from the Faith to fall from its practice entirely.
The conciliar "bishops" (and their predecessors in the Catholic Church) who played shell game with souls by moving around perverted priests and presbyters have shown themselves to be entirely bereft of any sense of the good of souls as they have tyrannically beaten down victims with the stick of clericalism and have sought to silence anyone and everyone who would dare question their protection of serial abuses of bodies and souls. Time and time again the conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotums have sought to minimize their crimes, frequently making advertence to the claim that there is no more abuse in conciliar circles than is found elsewhere in society. This is a damnable effort at self-exculpation that flies in the face of what Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ taught us about those who dare put the innocence and purity of one of His little ones into question:
But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18: 6)
There are nine ways in which one can be an accessory to the sins of others. The conciliar "bishops," including the architect of the worldwide cover-up that is now exploding right in his very face, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, have indeed been accessories to the multiple sins of others in most of the following ways to a greater or lesser extent, noting that some of the "bishops" themselves have been active participants in perverse sins against nature and actually approve of those sins as an expression of "love" (Thomas Gumbleton, a retired conciliar auxiliary "bishop" of Detroit, Michigan, and Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., the retired and disgraced conciliar "archbishop" of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, come to mind in this regard; see
Weak In Mind, Weakest Yet In Faith):
- 1. By counsel.
- 2. By command.
- 3. By consent.
- 4. By provocation.
- 5. By praise or flattery of the evil done.
- 6. By silence.
- 7. By connivance.
- 8. By partaking.
- 9. By defense of the ill done.
The late Father Enrique Rueda and the late Father Charles Fiore, O.P., amassed sheaves of documentation as early as the 1980s concerning the infestation of perverted clergy in both the secular and religious clergy of what I know now to be the counterfeit church of conciliarism. It was at the home of a layman in Virginia in February of 1987 (at a time I was speaking at the Washington Catholic Rendezvous) that I was given a look at this documentation in the presence of a true priest who was leaving the Salvatorian Fathers because of what he said to me was a pervert-friendly atmosphere there. (The priest in question, who is now in a Motu community, certainly suffered a great deal in his original community, although perhaps some of that suffering could be said to be a just punishment visited on him for being a die-hard fan of the incarnation of all evil in the world, the New York Yankees.) The documentation I reviewed was very thorough, although newspaper editor to whom it had been sent was not ready, at least not at that time, to believe that the problems were that extensive, later changing his mind on the matter.
Yes, indeed, the problems were and are that extensive. They are worldwide in scope. They involve Ratzinger/Benedict himself:
A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.
The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment beyond the statement by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he said showed the “nonresponsibility” of the pope in the matter.
The expanding abuse inquiry had come ever closer to Benedict as new accusations in Germany surfaced almost daily since the first reports in January. On Friday the pope met with the chief bishop of Germany to discuss allegations emerging from church investigations and media reports.
Allegations of problems in the German church have already come close to the pope, whose brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, 86, directed a choir connected to a boarding school where two former students have come forward with abuse claims. In an interview this week, Monsignor Ratzinger, who directed the choir from 1964 to 1994, said the accusations dated to before his tenure. He also apologized for slapping students.
At a news conference following a one-on-one meeting with Benedict on Friday, Archbishop Richard Zollitsch, the head of the German Bishops Conference, said the pope was “greatly upset” and “deeply moved” by the abuse allegations, and urged the German church to seek the truth and help the victims. He said he did not discuss Monsignor Ratzinger’s comments or the investigation into the choir school with the pope.
The meeting and news conference occurred before the statement from the Munich archdiocese.
Archbishop Zollitsch said the German church had vowed to investigate all allegations of abuse, encouraging victims to identify themselves even if the abuse happened decades ago.
In recent weeks, hundreds of alleged abuse victims have come forward.
“The cases are growing every day,” said Thomas Pfister, a lawyer appointed by the German church to investigate abuse cases in the Ettal monastery boarding school in Bavaria. He said more than 100 people had contacted him so far.
“Every day I receive e-mails from around the world from people who have been abused,” Mr. Pfister said, adding that the school had posted his email address on its web site to encourage this. “There has been a very big silence, now they want to have a voice.”
Experts said the scandals could undermine Benedict’s moral authority, especially because they cut particularly close to the pope himself. As head of the Vatican’s main doctrinal arm, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he led Vatican investigations into abuse for four years before assuming the papacy in 2005.
“What is at stake, and at great risk, is Benedict’s central project for the ‘re-Christianization’ of Christendom, his desire to have Europe return to its Christian roots,” said David Gibson, the author of a biography of Benedict and a religion commentator for Politicsdaily.com. “But if the root itself is seen as rotten, then his influence will be badly comprised.”
When the American church sex abuse scandal broke in Boston in 2002, Pope Benedict — then Cardinal Ratzinger — was among the Vatican officials who made statements that minimized the problem and accused the media of blowing it out of proportion. But as the abuse case files landed on his desk at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, his colleagues said he was deeply disturbed by what he learned. On his first visit to the United States as Pope, Benedict met with abuse survivors from Boston and said he was “deeply ashamed” by priests who had harmed children. But victims advocates accuse the pope of doing little to discipline the bishops who permitted abusers to continue serving in ministry.
The case in Munich, which was brought to the attention of the diocese by the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, was a result of “serious mistakes,” the archdiocese said in the statement. The priest from Essen, “despite allegations of sexual abuse, and in spite of a conviction — was repeatedly assigned work in the sphere of pastoral care by the then-Vicar General Gerhard Gruber,” who worked under Benedict, at the time Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger. (Church Abuse Scandal in Germany Edges Closer to Benedict; see also Benedict under fire for priest transfer, letter; see also Benedict Remains Silent as Abuse Allegations Hit Close to Home.)
These charges are far, far different than those discussed two days ago in Blind to Truth, Blind to the Horror of Personal Sin. Ratzinger/Benedict may or may not have known about the abuses of school children in Bavaria when he taught in Regensburg and when he was the conciliar "archbishop" of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. And, quite unlike the case of the usher in the Vatican who was running a ring of perverts, something that it is not reasonable to expect that Ratzinger/Benedict had any knowledge of at all, it is indeed very reasonable to believe that the then "Archbishop" Joseph Ratzinger did indeed have full knowledge of the transfer of the perverted priest from the Diocese of Essen, Germany, that had been supervised by his own chancery office. Father Federico Lombardi is insulting the intelligence of Catholics worldwide if he expects them to believe that the vicar general of the archdiocese was solely responsible for the move.
Anyone who has written in criticism of Roger Mahony and Francis George and Thomas O'Brien and Rembert Weakland and Bernard Law and Richard Lennon and Robert Banks and William Murphy and Thomas Daily and Howard Hubbard and Matthew Clark and Joseph Imesch and Daniel Ryan and Raymond Hunthausen and J. Keith Symons and Andrew O'Connell and Thomas Dupre and Patrick Ziemann and Edward Egan and Louis Gelineau and John McGann and John O'Connor and Theodore McCarrick and and Joseph Bernardin and Daniel Pilarczyk and George Niederauer and William Levada and Robert Brom and Tod Brown and Joseph Adamec and Paul Loverde and the whole cast of Irish "bishops" whose corrupt behavior has scandalized the Catholic faithful cannot remain intellectually honest and now attempt to indemnify Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI by means of the weak, lame, pathetic explanation of "nonresponsibility" given by Father Federico Lombardi and the conciliar authorities in Germany, eager to throw Father Gerhard Gruber under a bus on the Autobahn.
Ratzinger/Benedict knows nothing? Go tell that to the late John Banner who portrayed the fictional Sergeant Hans Schultz on Hogan's Heroes (I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know noooooothing!). If Ratzinger/Benedict knows nothing about what happened when he was the conciliar "archbishop" of Munich and Freising and when he personally supervised a world-wide cover-up to protect perverted clergy (while lifting not one finger to help whistle blower presbyters such as James Haley and others who been censured for their fingering their perverted brethren), then he is as blind to the truth about his own actions as a putative bishop and cardinal and pope of the Catholic Church as he has been about the nature of doctrinal truth and thus of the very nature of God Himself. Why is it that Roger Mahony and Francis George and Richard Lennon and Robert Brom and George Niederauer and William Levada, et al., remain in power in the conciliar church despite their protection of perverted clergy? Because Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has willed it so, that's why. He has also willed to keep in place as the conciliar Archpriest of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore one Bernard "Cardinal" Law, who still exercises a fair degree of influence in the appointment of American "bishops." Ah, yes, I forgot. The "pope" of tradition. I forgot.
What is particularly astounding about the scandals to have broken in Germany is the fact that Ratzinger/Benedict is expressing his "sorrow" for what happened in his home country to the president of the conciliar "bishops'" conference there, "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, to whom Ratzinger/Benedict has not utter any public word of correction concerning his blasphemous statement made on Holy Saturday last year, that is, on Saturday, April 11, 2009, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not die on the wood of Holy Cross in atonement for our sins. This is just astounding. Two men who defect from the Catholic Faith in many ways consult with each other concerning scandals caused by those who do not take seriously the horror of personal sin and who think that those steeped in unrepentant acts of perversion can be sent back to what they believe is a legitimate form of "pastoral ministry." Ah, yes, I forgot. The "pope" of tradition. I forgot.
The casual, blase attitude of the late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and their "conciliar" bishops about the sweeping nature of the scandals that have broken into full public view in the past eight years (after many of these scandals having been reported in The Wanderer and National Catholic Reporter in the 1990s) and their constant enabling of perverted "bishops" and priests and presbyters stands in stark contrast to that Saint Peter Damian expressed to Pope Leo IX in the year 1049 A.D. and in very stark contrast with the prescription for the vice of perversion that was prescribed by Pope Saint Pius V in Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568:
That horrible crime, on account of which corrupt and obscene cities were destroyed by fire through divine condemnation, causes us most bitter sorrow and shocks our mind, impelling us to repress such a crime with the greatest possible zeal.
Quite opportunely the Fifth Lateran Council [1512-1517] issued this decree: "Let any member of the clergy caught in that vice against nature . . . be removed from the clerical order or forced to do penance in a monastery" (chap. 4, X, V, 31). So that the contagion of such a grave offense may not advance with greater audacity by taking advantage of impunity, which is the greatest incitement to sin, and so as to more severely punish the clerics who are guilty of this nefarious crime and who are not frightened by the death of their souls, we determine that they should be handed over to the severity of the secular authority, which enforces civil law.
Therefore, wishing to pursue with the greatest rigor that which we have decreed since the beginning of our pontificate, we establish that any priest or member of the clergy, either secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime, by force of the present law be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him be immediately delivered to the secular authority to be put to death, as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss.
I am not suggesting the revival of this penalty, only pointing out the fact that there was far less sanguine view of the horror of sins against nature in the past than has been exhibited by the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops" in the past forty years or so. So many souls have been devastated as a result of scandals that should never have come to light if complaints had been taken seriously and the perverted malefactors sent away to truly Catholic mental facilities where they could be treated for their mental illness and then sent to a monastery to spend the rest of their lives in prayer.
Instead, of course, the conciliarists have recruited those afflicted with the mental illness of perverted inclinations (for a review of the fact that such affliction is mental illness, please see
Statement Of The Catholic Medical Association) and protected and promoted despite their recidivist crimes. An entire ethos that is sympathetic to--if not supportive of--perversity has been created in the conciliar structures, up to and including the art, architecture, music, vestments and images found in conciliar church buildings, to say nothing of conferences funded by the contributions made by ordinary Catholics to their parishes and their dioceses that promote the agenda of perversion under one guise or another. Most, although not all, of those who have been promoting the agenda of perversion, which is "mainstreamed" in many conciliar schools and "religious education" programs under the slogans of "diversity" and "tolerance" and "inclusion," remain in perfectly good standing in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism (as do Catholics in public life who support baby-killing, whether by chemical or surgical means, under cover of the civil law).
No amount of appeals made by apparatchiks inside the conciliar Vatican to the necessity of protecting the good names of the accused and of the victims can justify reassigning who suffer from the mental illness of perverted inclinations to other parishes. While it is certainly true that measures must be taken to protect the innocent, it is also true that the faithful have been discouraged by chancery offices worldwide from registering complaints and presenting evidence. It has been mostly, although not entirely, the case that the officials in the conciliar Vatican have conducted investigations only after the victims, having been stonewalled and intimidated by the men they believe to be "bishops" and their chancery officials, have made their cases public.
These cases became public after it was proved from a review of diocesan records that known, proved perverted priests/presbyters were transferred over and over and over again without the faithful ever being warned whatsoever. Legal deposition after legal deposition has proved this to be the case. And the priest in the Diocese of Essen was reassigned after chancery officials in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising were convinced that the man was guilty of abuse and had sent him for "therapy." There was no thought that such men must never be reassigned, that they are threats to themselves and others. There was simply a desire to protect the institutional reputation and to use clericalism to browbeat the victims. Truly shameful
The American "bishops" were forced to confront the nest of corruption that they created when lawsuits were filed. The Irish "bishops" did so only after the report field by Circuit Court Judge Yvonne Murphy. The German "bishops" are doing so at present because of bad publicity, which was cited by a "monsignor" in the Diocese of Rockville Centre in grand jury testimony as the reason that a conciliar pastor, "Monsignor Charles H. "Bud" Ribaudo, was removed from Saint Dominic's Church in Oyster Bay, New York, even though they had known about allegations against him for years made by a presbyter. The faithful have been put at risk by the repeated protection offered to perverted members of the conciliar clergy, being asked thereafter to fund the over $2 billion in settlements that have been paid out those who were victimized by those practitioners of moral perversion. Any claim that that officials in the conciliar Vatican have been concerned principally about due process, which is, of course, a very important consideration, is secondary to the desire for institutional self-preservation as the crimes of perverts are minimized and as the culture of perversion continues to be protected the liturgy and catechesis of so many conciliar parishes worldwide.
There are some who just want matters of this sort to "go away." Matters of this sort do not just "go away." The faithful must be warned about the wolves who are out to devour their immortal souls. While we must pray and always be mindful of our need to do penance for our own sins as the totally consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, it is one thing to have true sorrow for our own sins and to seek to make reparation for them; it is quite another for men posing as shepherds, whether true or false, to turn a blind eye to the horror of personal sin being committed with their approbation as they seek to silence anyone who attempts to cry out them in private, fulfilling all the precepts of the Eighth Commandment, before understanding that these words of Saint Thomas Aquinas apply in circumstances of documented public scandal after private entreaties have failed to correct scandalous behavior:
"It must be observed, however, that if the faith were endangered, a subject ought to rebuke his prelate even publicly."
"Article 2: Fraternal correction is a matter of obligation (precept) out of charity for the sinner. And if the order of fraternal correction has been observed (beginning with private admonitions until there is no other recourse for the sake of the faith than to publicly proclaim the prelate), to do so for the sake of the faith can be meritorious." (Saint Thomas Aquinas)
The loss of even a single soul, no less many, to the Faith as a result of scandalous behavior by clergy, whether validly ordained or not, and by those under their authority is indeed a matter of the Faith. God is not sanguine about the loss of a single soul. Neither is His Most Blessed Mother.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great, whose feast we celebrated yesterday, made it clear that we must not conceal the truth about public scandals:
"It is better that scandals arise than that the truth be concealed."
We must actively cooperate with the graces that God sends us through the loving hands of Our Lady to save our souls. In like manner, soldiers in the Army of Christ the King must speak out to confront scandalous situations, recognizing, of course, that God alone is the sole judge of the subjective state of the souls of others and that some of us ourselves are not free of the guilt of speaking and acting in scandalous ways in the past for which we have much to make reparation.
The situation afflicting the counterfeit church of conciliarism is the result of the effects of Original Sin and Actual Sins upon individual souls. It is also, however, the result of the deliberate creation of an ecclesiastical and liturgical culture that denigrates the horror of personal sin and minimizes the responsibility before God and man of those who persist in grave sins against nature unrepentantly while in some cases actually glorifying the sin itself as an expression of "love."
This may not be "Waterloo for Benedict" as the conciliar troops line up to claim that the members of the anti-Catholic secular media have exaggerated the case in question and that they are out to "destroy" the "traditional" "pope." Lame excuses and blame-shifting can never erase the reality of the pro-perversity culture that has been created and sustained by many of the lords of conciliarism and which the conciliar "pope" refuses to correct.
Let me close by repeating what I wrote two days ago now:
We are indeed living in a period of profound chastisement where the devil is using the lack of faith and the bad example of Catholics all across and up and down the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide to scandalize and divide Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
The scandals afflicting the counterfeit church of conciliarism did not occur overnight. Many occurred years ago during the reign of true bishops. Granted. It is nevertheless true that the lords of conciliarism have proven themselves to be blind to the horror of personal sin because they are blind to the truth of God's very own identity and nature.
We cannot be blind to the truth about the horror of our own sins, each of which wounded Our Blessed Lord and Saviour once in time and wounds the Church Militant on earth today. We must be brutally honest about our sins and the harm that they have done to our souls and to the Mystical Body of Christ, earnestly seeking to live more and more penitentially, especially in these middle days of Lent, seeking to offer up all of our prayers and penances and physical sufferings and fastings and humiliations that come our way in a spirit of reparation to God through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We are very much responsible for the malodorous state of the Church Militant on earth and the world-at-large.
To Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart belongs the triumph that will vanquish the lords of Modernism once and for all.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
