Many news outlets are reporting that there is a “smoking gun” letter from the “Vatican” that instructed them not to report abuse claims and threatened them with repercussions. At the time of this writing, a Google search shows 528 stories with this same basic theme.
Problem is, its all a lie!
Oh there is a letter, but it does not say what they allege it says and that should be obvious to anyone with a single fair bone in their bodies.
I will not spend any time here explaining why its a lie because I could not possibly do it any better than Jimmy Akin has already done it.
So anyone wondering what is going must read Jimmy’s post on this at the Register. It is a must read! Go. Now. What are you still doing here? Go read it here!!
January 19, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Mr. Akin, as usual, does a stellar job.
The comments thread following his article at the Register was fascinating.
The 'Anne Rice' commenter there was especially amazing for her
uncritical acceptance of the NYT spin/hatchet job re: the 1997 letter
and her refusal to explain how she could reject Mr. Akin's demolition
of the Time's article. Sad, really.
January 19, 2011 at 6:31 pm
The New York Times is bankrupt, morally, legally and financially. God does notice.
January 19, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Still, the Catholic Clergy has a long history of pederasty and pedophilia with arrests being made weekly (Here's your latest including non-catholics as well, its not like they have a stranglehold on immorality http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/01/this-week-in-holy-crimes.html) and its not as if there has been any reporting of these crimes by other clergy, so you can see where people become hair-trigger suspicious about a possible institutionalized cover up regardless of if this is actually the case.
January 19, 2011 at 9:10 pm
From the letter: "the situation of ‘mandatory reporting’ gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature”.
What are they? Mandatory reporting seems in each and every way a good thing to me. There is an accusation, and a bishop MUST report it to the authorities for them to investigate. Simple as that. Jimmy adds the term "overzealous" to "mandatory reporting" to get the Vatican to look good on this one. Sorry. The Vatican letter does not say "overzealous." To discourage bishops in ANY WAY not to report these crimes for any reason is to FAIL. By the way, how can you be "overzealous" about a thing of such a serious nature?
To defend this letter looks entirely desperate and a little sad. You know, I want the Church to come out on the right side of all of this, but this is no way to do it.
January 20, 2011 at 3:57 am
Blackrep: put yourself in the shoes of an innocent priest with a nasty piece of work making false allegations against you. Your reputation is now ruined for life. Forever the dark shadow of suspicion will hang over you. How does it feel?
January 22, 2011 at 8:37 pm
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
Thou shall love the Lord your God with your whole mind, your whole heart, you whole strength…
The Sovereign Catholic Church is guided by canon law. The Catholic Church offers worship to almighty God through the Sacraments and the Holy Mass and forgives sins through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, Penance. The Sacrament of the Holy Orders is closed to all but the ordained ministers for consecrating the Sacred Species. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, the forgiveness of sins, is closed to all but the ordained ministers of the Sacrament of Penance. The Sovereign Catholic Church is guided by the Magisterium, the teaching of the church, ex cathedra . The Sovereign Catholic Church is sovereign through its calling to worship God, WHO is TRUTH.
Therefore, the Sovereign Catholic Church answers ONLY to GOD.
You shall love your neighbor as yourself…
The Sovereign State, nation, is guided by human law. The state is entrust with the sovereign personhood of each of its citizens, but more so, with each and every sovereign human being whose sovereign personhood constitutes it and brings the state, nation into existence. The state( government by the people, of the people and for the people ) is public domain. NO PRIVACY. Everything belongs to every human being ever created. Should King Solomon rise from the dead, all persons who have gone before us as our ancestors and all generation to come after us, our constitutional posterity, all own and constitute our state, nation. PUBLIC DOMAIN…NO PRIVACY, not for abortion, homosexual behavior, taxation without representation, any, and all crime, come under public scrutiny through PUBLIC DOMAIN.
All freedom, of religion, speech, press and peaceable assembly is PUBLIC DOMAIN. E Pluribus Unum
In the Sovereign Catholic Church all is sacred and privileged information as between a doctor and his patient, an advocate and his client, because of sovereign personhood.
In the Sovereign State, nation, all is PUBLIC DOMAIN, all persons are required to respect the privileged rights (through the Sovereignty endowed by OUR CREATOR of every other person, their neighbor.) All truth must be witnessed by the testimony of TWO witnesses. Therefore, if any one says that he is a practicing homosexual, or married, he would have to prove his statement before two witnesses, as the kings and queens did before their Bishops after their exchange of vows. There is no PUBLIC RIGHT TO PRIVACY IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA except as a sovereign person. All is PUBLIC DOMAIN as the nation is constituted by every sovereign citizen and those gone before us and those to come.
Every marital act must remain open to the public in the person of another human being. This being said, there is no right to privacy for abortion in the constitution. The Constitution defines the civil rights of the sovereign person. The Declaration of Independence defines the sovereign person.
January 23, 2011 at 8:41 pm
There are two sides to this debate.
One side does not believe that Jesus Christ the eternal judge will reward goodness and punish evil. This side has judged the Catholic Church, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI guilty. They demand that the Catholic Church submit its authority to them absolutely, removing Jesus Christ as head of the Catholic Church and replacing Jesus with themselves. This side demands that the Catholic Church surrender all authority to secular entities as though the secular could effect a more perfect Justice than God.
The other side believes that no matter how badly any situation is handled, Justice will be done by God, W HO is Justice HIMSELF and the only way to handle the other side is to stand one’s ground on the ROCK of Peter. This side will prevail, because the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
All this seemingly passionate call for Justice for the sexually abused victims of clergy diverts attention away from the fifty three million sovereign persons who are begotten and murdered in the womb, since our society declared death in the womb to be a civil right. Satisfying one’s lust is small matter compared with defying God’s will in bringing forth another person.