Lost in the news yesterday about Paul Shanley being laicized was the announcement that another alleged pervert priest was cast out as well. Ron Paquin is serving 12-15 for child rape. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
Meanwhile, Sister Jeannine Gramick of the heterodox pro-gay New Ways Ministries, who has already been ordered silenced by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (evidently she’s not listening), called Shanley’s laicization unfair. You know what’s unfair? That a guy who ran around for years preaching that homosexuality is just fine and who was part of the group that started NAMBLA was able to use his priesthood to select and abuse at least four boys for years before he was simply set free to continue his depredations elsewhere. That’s what’s unfair. But Gramick has no words of concern for the victims only for her “fellow traveler” Shanley.
The abusers should be the first priority – but as we’ve seen, it takes years and years and years to expel BOY RAPISTS from the priesthood. But the survivors are right – the men, and the type of men, who allowed this to happen, are MOSTLY STILL THERE. And here is the thing. NOBODY IS GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT AT ALL – NOT THE POPE, NOT THE CURIA, NOT THE MORALLY SICK AMERICAN BISHOPS. The Pope should have fired most all of the bishops. That he has not is an atrocity, and casts a sickening shadow over American Catholicism. My own bishop is heavily implicated in the priestly pederasty scandal, and he is slated to confirm my SON in a few months. It makes me, and most I know, really, really, really sick. It is not right. It is wrong. It is nauseating. I, an millions of other Amercian Catholics, deserve far, far, far better.
And what of Gramick – is she going to continue on for years and years and years promoting sodomy and defending men who rape boys? C’mon… When I see things like this, I am frightened for my children and their generation.
IIRC, she already got herself transferred to a more liberal religious order. That should help her resist being dismissed or otherwise sanctioned, even if the Vatican should order it.