Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Who Will Make Reparation to God for the Sexual Abuse Crisis?

After the horrific Grand Jury Report from Pennsylvania on child and teen sexual abuse and numerous articles about the failure of Church leaders in protecting children and teens from predatory priests, there are a lot of changes that need to be made. Reforms must be instituted. And women in leadership roles must be consulted for their opinions as well as all lay leaders.
But what about the Bishops and Cardinals in our Church?
Upon leaving Mass on Sunday, after our pastor spoke at all the Masses about the damning report and how it was such a difficult week to be a priest and hear the devastating news about failures in our Church, on the way out, I said, "Father, we need a day of reparation, that goes into the evening." He replied, "I've been thinking the same thing."
Well, that would be a good start- a day of reparation throughout the United States and in Vatican City. Let all the Bishops and Cardinals in the Church fast, put on sackcloth and cover themselves with ashes and take turns lying prostrate on the floor of churches and cathedrals and pray for God's forgiveness. And for the lives that have been destroyed through sexual abuse and the poor handling of the crisis.
God weeps that the beautiful religion that is Catholicism has been mishandled and corrupted through crimes, cover-ups and sins against the people of God and against the holiness of God.
Who will make reparation for the gravity of this situation?
NJA

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

The Latest Grand Jury Report on Sexual Abuse from PA-Evil In The Church

Words cannot suffice to express the disgust and disappointment I feel after reading the front page New York Times article (8/15/18) entitled, "Church Hid Abuse of 1,000 Children Grand Jury Finds." This is beyond disgusting, deplorable, negligent, evil.
So the article goes, "Bishops and other leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in Pennsylvania covered up child sexual abuse by more than 300 priests over a period of 70 years, persuading victims not to report the abuse and law enforcement not to investigate it, according to a searing report issued by a grand jury on Tuesday." Some of the individual reports and accounts are so disgusting it makes me want to vomit. The Times called it-"A Catalog of Horrors"
A front page article in the Times which we subscribe to,  means I have to discuss it with my husband because he will see it and once again tell me this is one of the reasons he doesn't go to Church on a regular basis.  But lately it's worse because he wants to stop the donations we give to my local parish. Of course I defend my local parish and its good priests but this on going embarrassing, deplorable sexual abuse crisis is doing damage beyond what anyone, at this present time, can imagine.
God weeps, God has been weeping because to use such a beautiful religion and the beauty of the teachings of Jesus Christ and tarnish it to such an evil degree and to ignore not only the teachings of Christ but the law, is criminal.
For all the faithful, like me, who continue to go to Church and support it and believe in its power to do good and transform society, I just hope we can get past these latest sickening reports.
NJA

Thursday, August 2, 2018

A Broken and Suffering Church

In light of the horrific allegations against former Cardinal McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, one has to be worried about the future of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, it is a divine institution with Christ as the divine head and of course, "the gates of hell will not prevail against it," but the post modern world, with its technological advances is a strange place. Young people are simply not going to take this nonsense, they will walk away from organized religion, as they have been doing for years. Even though Pope Francis acted swiftly and other Bishops have been condemning the "moral failures of judgment," within the Church, the faithful are fed up with the sexual abuse crisis and all the secrecy surrounding it, large pay-offs and poor judgment calls. Real change, pragmatic change is needed and sadly will be slow in coming.
Any corporation or large secular institution would not continue to hold onto out-dated, falling policies or by- laws or laws which were hurting the institution and causing it harm. But that's what's happening here.
Mandatory celibacy for Roman Catholic priests has failed in many ways. And yet the Church continues to hold onto this man-made law even though it has hurt the Church tremendously in spiritual ways, financial ways and worst of all, caused great harm, in some cases.
Well my generation was upset, we are upset and frustrated with the blatant failures and the sexual abuse crisis, but the younger generation, they'll just walk away. Many of them want no part of organized religion and this is one of the reasons they've lost trust in institutions.
NJA