Interact: Sound Off!

Life is though. But Nuns are tougher.  If you need helpful advice, just Ask Sister Mary Martha.

Here. 

Fish Out of Water on July 12th is especially funny.

From Maureen Dowd’s Op-Ed column Rome Fiddles, We Burn published in the New York Times on July 16, 2010:

“In The New Republic, Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church: Jesus “is the one who said, ‘Whatever you did to any of my brothers, even the lowliest, you did to me.’ That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus, raping Jesus. Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus. The cardinals said they must care for their own, going to jail if necessary to protect a priest. We say the same thing, but the ‘our own’ we care for are the victimized, the poor, the violated. They are Jesus.”

I wonder if the shock value of seeing Jesus as a holy innocent being sodomized–with a bishop standing by and doing nothing to stop it–would shake even the most hardened apologist into action against the church structure that allowed this to happen.

I am incredibly proud of the pastor, parishioners, and especially, members of the Catholic lesbian group at St. Francis Xavier church who refused to be silenced and marched in this weekend’s gay pride day parade.  As they have done for many years, gay people at St. Francis Xavier hand out literature to people along the parade route encouraging lesbian and gay people to come home and reconnect with their faith.

Here’s a clip of the group on CNN.  Great going!  Wow! 

Finally, an answer to the question “what is a lesbian?” This is either highly offensive or really funny.

View on YouTube here.

The Pope sees the Devil behind the timing of the world being made aware of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse. It was done to coincide with the ”Year for Priests.” 

John Allen reports from the Vatican: “Since the Catholic sexual abuse crisis erupted a decade ago, there have been numerous attempts to explain its causes, from a lack of fidelity to an over-emphasis on celibacy and clerical privilege. This morning in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI pointed to a deeper unseen force lurking behind the crisis, especially its timing: the Devil. It’s no accident, the pope implied, that precisely as the Catholic church was celebrating a “Year for Priests” in 2009-2010, the sexual abuse crisis once again took on massive global proportions. “It was to be expected that this new radiance of the priesthood would not be pleasing to the ‘enemy,’” Benedict XVI said. “He would have rather preferred to see it disappear, so that God would ultimately be driven out of the world.”The term “the enemy” is a traditional Catholic way of referring to the Devil.”

When I first heard it, that excuse reminded me of Flip Wilson’s old Geraldine routine’s “The devil made me do it, honey!” Here’s a skit on YouTube here! 

Seriously, I think people at times are open, vulnerable or willing to be instruments of evil. The Devil does exist.

But in the sexual abuse crisis, I see those instruments of the Devil not as the priest perpetrators–who had serious social and psychological problems–but the bishops, cardinals and popes who calmly and steadfastly who covered up for them, and let innocent children be hurt and betrayed in the process.   

“It was the devil who brought to light the sexual abuse of children that had taken place for decades?” an NCR reader remarked. “So it is now the devil who brings to light that which was hidden? So who is the light and the truth?”