Vatican decision on gays in seminary
The Vatican is close to putting out new guidelines for seminary candidates. It is expected that it will include a ban on admitting gays, but that’s no surprise considering that the Pope has said as much recently.
I love this line in the article: [I]Most of the victims of molestation by priests have been adolescent boys. Experts on sex offenders say there is no credible evidence that homosexuals are more likely than heterosexuals to abuse children, but several church leaders have argued that gay clergy are to blame for the scandal. The vast majority of victims are male and their abusers are all male. Period. And it’s not like they’re taking any available victim—boy or girl. Most of the abusers are going exclusively with boys.
Besides, it’s not just about the abuse of children. Look at the problems with Fr. Cote in New Hampshire. He had a sexual relationship with a boy of legal age; don’t tell me that’s pedophilia. It’s homosexuality.
‘'Ensuring that the church ordains only psychologically healthy priests is one answer to the sexual abuse crisis,‘’ the editorial [in the Jesuit magazine America] said. ‘'Scapegoating healthy and celibate gay priests is not.‘’ That begs the question of whether one can be gay and psychologically healthy. Many credible psychologists (and most moral theologians) say you can’t.
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Civic Duty Week
It’s Civic Duty Week here at Bettnet.com. Specifically, today I go out and vote (I’m already holding my nose) and on Thursday, I have jury duty.
Voting seems kind of pointless when you’re a conservative in Massachusetts. There’s almost never anyone you want to vote for. I will vote for Mitt Romney for governor, just because I think he will be less bad than Shannon O’Brien. I can’t believe I have to say it, but he’s less rabidly for abortion. Oh joy. I’ll also vote to abolish the state income tax (will never pass), to end bilingual education (has a chance), and to end the charade called “Clean Elections” (no idea what will happen). What I’m most looking forward to today is the end of political advertising. Living in Massachusetts, I get to watch all the New Hampshire political ads which seem to outnumber the local ads on local TV 2 to 1. Hey, get your own TV stations and stop bugging us.
As far as jury duty goes, it will be in Lynn District Court. If you know anything about the Boston area, you know that the likelihood of my being impaneled goes way up being in Lynn. But once I tell them that I am a journalist, out I go. People who actually pay attention to the news aren’t wanted by lawyers. What a great system—those least involved in the world around them are the lynchpin of the justice system. No wonder it’s so messed up.
Anyway, I’m hopeful for the rest of the country and that we might just pick up enough congressional seats that will vote to approve President Bush’s judicial nominees and start sending pro-life judges to the benches ... or at least judges who aren’t so ardently judicially active and liberal.
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Surprise! Globe takes negative spin on new norms
- The US bishops, meeting in Dallas, enacted a Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People that said any diocese ‘'will report to the public authorities any allegation of sexual abuse of a person who is currently a minor.‘’ But revisions to the policy proposed by the special commission and released yesterday do away with that mandate.
Actually, what the revised norms do is say that the diocese must comply with all state laws. If a state doesn’t require it, then the victims rights adovcates should be lobbying the legislature to change the law. And the policy does not prevent any victim from reporting the crime himself. In fact, that’s the first place these people should be going in any case, not to the bishop. Call the cops and let the cops call the diocese.
- Critics of the policy revisions released yesterday also pointed to a provision that would let stand - unless a bishop chooses to appeal to the Vatican for a waiver - a canon law requirement that claims of clergy sexual abuse of a minor be made before an alleged victim reaches 28 years of age. Some canon law specialists said the provision left unclear whether a bishop would be able to suspend a priest faced with an accusation falling outside the statute while waiting for permission to override it.
The revised norms make it clear that a bishop retains all his rights to move priests out of parishes. Removing his faculties for ministry would be more difficult, but at least being able to remove him from the parish should be enough.
- Victims of clergy sexual abuse find the notion of a statute of limitations of any kind objectionable, contending that many of those who suffer sexual molestations are psychologically ill-equipped to report the abuse until they reach midlife.
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Tips for online jobseekers
If you’re hunting for a job and using email to contact prospective employers, may I suggest a little tip? Make sure your email address projects a professional appearance. Just as you wouldn’t wear jeans and sneakers to a job interview, having “billybeerdrinker@burp.com” or something similar as your email address doesn’t impress me.
Once in a while, I get email at my work address from people, mainly new college grads, looking for jobs and what seems cute for keeping in touch with family and friends looks immature to me. Show me you take your job hunt seriously—get a professional email address (there are plenty of free services online), spell check your email, and make sure the grammar is correct. The last two are particularly important if you’re looking for work in journalism.
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New Vatican norms published
The US bishops’ conference has published the new revised Dallas policy. It is posted alongside the original policy to make it easy to compare the two.
I’m still reading it and I’m sure Catholic World News will have an analysis soon, but here are a few things that jump out immediately. Much of the language concerning the diocesan review boards makes it clear that their job is to assist the bishop and not supercede his authority. It also places the responsibility for dealing with cases of abuse squarely on his shoulders. It also removes the appellate review board at the province level. I suspect that this was taken out because it conflicts with canon law and the pre-existing law concerning appeals and such.
It also changes the provision that the accused be removed from ministry immediately and says the reputation of the accused must be protected during the investigation and that the penalty of removal from ministry will only be applied after compiling sufficient evidence that abuse occurred.
In the original policy, it said an accused priest could be forced by obedience to undergo psychologial evaluation, whereas the new norms say the evaluation is voluntary. Considering the sorry track records of many psychological consultants employed by the Church—especially in the area of chastity and homosexuality—that’s probably a good idea. Who knows what would be said about a falsely accused, celibate, heterosexual priest.
Interestingly it does keep the zero tolerance rule so that if a priest or deacon admits even a single act of abuse—or it is established in accord with canon law—the clergyman is permanently removed from ministry. It also makes it clear that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith must be defered to in certain special circumstances.
It also strengthens the language concerning transfer to another diocese. In the original, the first diocese is told to forward background information on priests, but the new norms say no priest or deacon who has committed an act of abuse may be transferred to another diocese. It also states that the bishop of the new diocese has a responsibility to make sure he has complete information on the new priest.
More later.
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Sorry Howie, not yet
I haven’t listened to Boston-based, nationally syndicated radio talk show host Howie Carr since January. Howie is a weird sort of conservative, more like a shock jock than anything. He takes potshots at everybody and everything and does it mostly for the shock value. I knew back in January that with the Scandal breaking, he would be making the most of the opportunity to say blasphemous and offensive things. He justifies it with the proviso that he was born Irish Catholic, even though he routinely rejects Catholic teaching. He once broadcast his vasectomy on air. But his take on local politics was once entertaining enough to make me grit my teeth to get through the offensive stuff. But no more.
So today, after Rush Limbaugh’s show ended, I thought I would listen to Howie to see if he had moved on. There wasn’t much in the news today about the Scandal so I thought it might be easier to listen. His opening was about a story being reported in the National Enquirer that Beltway snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, were gay lovers. It’s not like the Enquirer is a paragon of journalistic integrity, but it did break some stories during the Clinton years. A version of the story is posted at World Net Daily. I thought it was safe to listen until Howie noted that Muhammad could be termed a pedophile. Uh oh. He then asked whether it was too late for Muhammad to convert again—to Catholicism—and enroll for the fall term in the seminary. Click!
It’s one thing to deal with the Church’s problems in public. It’s another thing to use them for cheap laughs and public ridicule. Sorry Howie. Maybe in another six months. Maybe never.
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True confessions ... or “Woodstoves for Dummies”
One of the best aspects of blogging is the opportunity to share with the world all the dumb things you do. And I have one for you.
My home has a small wood stove and it’s a great thing. You can stack as much as you want into it, heat up the place to 80 degrees, and keep your heating bill down all winter. (A cord of wood that can last a good part of the winter costs $160 or so.) Of course, since you’re dealing with fire, you have to take a few more precautions than if you had a regular furnace and there a few onerous tasks.
One of those tasks is shoveling out the ashes. It builds up fairly quickly so you have to do it a few times a week. Well, we haven’t gotten around to buying an actual metal ash bucket yet, so we’ve been using a plastic pail. Since the ashes can still be hot in the morning, you have to pour water over it to cool them off. You can see where this is going, right?
So this morning, I shoveled out the ashes, lit a new fire, and hopped in the shower. When I came out there was a cloud of smoke in the house and an acrid smell. I bolted into the den (wearing only a towel!) and found the plastic pail with two holes melted in it and hot coals melting the rug. I grabbed the pail and put it out the back door (losing my towel in the process; I apologize to any neighbors for the awful sight) and filled a container of water and poured it over it and the rug.
Thank God and my guardian angel I didn’t do much harm. I feel like an idiot, but I’m glad I can laugh about it now. For a second’s inattention, I could have burned the house down around my ears.
Now excuse me while I go buy a real ash bucket and new plastic pail.
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Good PR
Kelly Clark aka “the Pew Lady” has a new column, this time examining the Boston Globe‘s castigation of Cardinal Law for doing bad PR. On the one hand, she is right to say the Globe goes overboard in criticizing the cardinal for how he released the information that Msgr. Michael Foster was innocent of accusations made against him. Not the way he was handled in being twice suspended for the same accusations made by an apparent liar, but for issuing a press release at the wrong time.
On the other hand, I have long maintained that the Church could do a better job of getting her message out. She lets all stories be defined by those who are antagonistic toward her. When the archdiocese decides to close a parish, the first we hear of it is the loud protests from parishioners who have run to the closest reporter. We don’t hear the whys and wherefores and the logical arguments. The same thing has been consistently done with the Scandal—the story is consistently defined by antagonists.
Kelly, we should expect the Church to do a better job at public relations, because she’s been doing it for 2,000 years. PR is just good communications and shouldn’t the Church be the greatest communicator of all? After all she has the greatest and most important message.
Other than that, I think her column contains much wisdom, especially her take on the Boston Priests’ Forum and people who say the cardinal should act more like a CEO.
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No sense of humor
Mark Shea links to an article by a woman who doesn’t like the new VeggieTales movie because it tampers with the truth of Scriptures. You see, Jonah wasn’t really a cucumber and the sin of the Ninevites wasn’t slapping people with fishes. You don’t say.
Mark says that Very Earnest Christians don’t get invited to parties. I’ve seen the same phenomenon of people who take their faith and every little jot and tittle way too seriously. Yes, somethings should not be parodied or made fun of, but must we be so dour? Paging Cotton Mather!
Once when I was in Steubenville, a priest was celebrating a Mass in a home. I forget the occasion, but there was a Very Earnest Catholic woman there. During the preparation for the Mass, the priest filled the chalice from a bottle of wine and passed it to someone to put away. I joked, “Make sure it’s out of consecrating range.“ The woman turned and said coldly, “It is the intent of the celebrant, not the distance from the altar, blah, blah, blah.“ I smiled weakly and nodded. I guess I look stupid. I also wondered when was the last time she had laughed.
Sure, sometimes the jokes go too far. I’ve been guilty of that too. But taking yourself or your faith too seriously can be a sign that you’re unsure of yourself or your faith. As the great Southern Rock band .38 Special once sang, “Hold on loosely, but don’t let go.“ Loosen up.
(By the way, that was a joke.)
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Bishop Daily’s interview with the Times
Bishop Daily of Brooklyn gave an interview to the New York Times. I don’t mind him comparing his troubles to the carrying of the cross and to it being God’s will. Christ carried the cross for others’ sins, but we usually carry the cross for our own. And that is indeed God’s will and His mercy that we suffer for it in this life so that we may not suffer for it in the next.
But one bit of the article stuck out: “He has been reading the writings of Edith Stein, a nun killed at Auschwitz and later canonized, and said he identified with her. He added that if he felt the people of the diocese no longer supported him, he would have no choice but to step down.“ I was taken aback a bit by that comment. The difference is that Edith Stein was persecuted because she was a former Jew and because she was a witness to Christ. Bishop Daily is being “persecuted” because he knew a priest advocated sex between men and boys and assigned him to a parish anyway and ignored the voices of those who protested.
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Chaput on voting pro-life
Here is Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver’s excellent article on voting as a Catholic. In it, the archbishop puts the lie to the old “seamless garment” argument that one can vote for a pro-abortion candidate since one is taking the candidate’s whole platform into account—as if being for fair wages makes up for being for killing children.
- In politics, prudence seeks the common good by weighing alternatives, making reasonable compromises and avoiding unnecessary conflict. Not every campaign issue is life and death, and no candidate is perfect. Good people can often choose to vote for very different political courses. Of course, prudence also shows us which compromises can be made, and which can’t; which conflicts can be avoided, and which really do need to be engaged.
- Every election year I hear from a few Catholic voters desperately looking for a way to evade or “contextualize” the abortion issue. Some complain that the Church is imposing her views on society at large. Others argue that they personally oppose abortion, but that it should be sheltered as a matter of private choice. Others want to minimize the gravity of abortion by weighing it against a dozen other social issues.
None of these arguments finally has merit.
First, democracy depends on good people working vigorously for their convictions in the political arena. Abortion is the worst kind of intimate violence. Being quiet about it in our politics out of a misguided sense of “good manners” is the worst kind of callousness, and the worst kind of citizenship.
Second, if we choose to allow violence, we can’t wash our hands of the consequences of that violence. No violence is ever private. That includes abortion. What we choose to allow, we choose to own.
Third, abortion is separated from other important social issues like affordable housing by a difference in kind, not a difference in degree. Every abortion kills an unborn human life—every time. No matter what kind of mental gymnastics we use, elective killing has no excuse. We only implicate ourselves by trying to provide one.
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McCormack apologizes
The priest admitted to having a sexual relationship with a boy over 16 during the 1980s. The boy says he was molested, but since he was of the age of consent, it wasn’t illegal. So McCormack sent him to the parish. As long as it didn’t break any secular laws, right?
- “In hindsight, I’m sorry I did it,“ McCormack told the Concord Monitor Saturday. He wrote a letter earlier to parishioners, telling them that though Cote’s actions were wrong, they did not violate the Diocese of Manchester’s policies on child sex abuse.
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Law asks forgiveness for his role in scandal
Cardinal Law used his most direct language yet in asking taking blame for shuffling abusers. He spoke at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday in a continuation of a new pattern of addressing the Scandal head on: meeting with abuse victims, meeting with priests, and now public statements.
- Standing alone in green vestments at the top center of the altar steps, and reading from a prepared text running some 1,200 words, Law appeared to tear up when addressing the abuse victims - two dozen of whom stood outside, as they do nearly every Sunday, bearing signs urging him to resign. Some of the victims, alerted that Law might address the crisis that has besieged the Archdiocese of Boston for 10 months, stepped into the cathedral to hear his remarks. Most were not impressed - although a few on hand commended Law for taking “baby steps” in what they called a much-needed campaign to reach out to victims.
Are all the people standing outside victims? According to eyewitnesses, they are not, but include others as well.
- “I see this as a calculating person doing some aggressive damage control,“ said Carmen L. Durso, a lawyer representing abuse plaintiffs. “Law has done nothing to take the weight off the victims via settlement. So this smacks of a PR onslaught in advance of a slew of ugly and damaging civil trials.“
So a lawyer who stands to make a lot of money from any settlement thinks any true apology would mean rolling over and opening up the archdiocese’s bank accounts. Hmm, typical. However sorry the cardinal is, he has a responsibility to us lay Catholics in the diocese to be a good steward of everything, including our property. He can’t just start liquidating the ardiocese’s assets and handing them out like candy.
- But Ruth Moore of Hull, a regular Cathedral protester, who also stepped inside to hear Law, called his words “too little too late.“ ... “He should have made a speech out here,“ she said. “He still avoids us and sneaks out the back door.“
And get attacked? If you haven’t actually seen the protesters, they are anything but peaceful. They spew hateful and obscene remarks at just the parishioners entering churches. What do you think they would do if they saw the cardinal? He wouldn’t get two words out of his mouth in the face of the howling mob.
- As Law was departing, photocopies of his speech began circulating among the demonstrators. After reading it, Paul A. Baier of Wellesley, a founding member of VOTF, said Law “ought to be commended, I suppose, for finally stating some of these things outright.“
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A little housekeeping
Which do you readers prefer for links to items off this page? Right now, all links open up in a new browser window so that when you’re done, you can just close the window and continue reading on this page. Would you rather the links travel in the same window so that you have to hit the back button to come back here? Please let me know in the comments.
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Daniel is here
Good news for family and Steubenville and Salem friends: My longtime friend Randy Reinbold and his wife Lori have had their first child. Daniel was born yesterday, three weeks early, but mother and child are doing fine.
It’s especially gratifying since just three years ago, Lori was in the hospital for a very different reason. Only a few months after their wedding, Lori contracted E. coli poisoning, and a very severe strain of it. She nearly died of organ failure. it was touch and go for a while. Then, after she recovered, they wanted to have children, but for various reasons it was difficult for them. So, in many ways, Daniel is a miracle child.
I know that the baby is named for Randy’s hometown friend, but I also think it’s a bit of homage to the late Father Daniel Doyle, a priest of our parish who died last month. It would have been his birthday on Wednesday.
God bless the whole family.
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Domenico Bettinelli, Jr.
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