If abuse won't cost your job in the Church, what will?
Posted on Wednesday, August 11, 2010 at 02:15 PM
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This morning The Irish Catholic reported that the reluctantly offered resignations of Irish Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field have been rejected by Pope Benedict XVI.
The pair, who were both auxiliaries, were bishops during the period covered by the Murphy Comission (Bishop Ryan was in the diocese of Ferns and Bishop Field was in Dublin).
But instead of accepting their resignations the Pope has decided that Bishops Ryan and Fields will instead remain as Auxillary Bishops and will be assigned 'revised responsibilities within the diocese.'
Reassigning priests has led to a lot of trouble for the Church, but reassigning bishops is a whole new frontier. What are we to make of it?
Today an infuriated Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told the press: 'The two bishops said, when announcing their resignation, that they hoped to bring peace and reconciliation to the victims. The pope's callous decision has done the opposite.'
I can't imagine what it must be like for a group of gravely wronged lay people to lay siege to an organization as large as the Vatican's, especially when their campaign to have the Church accept it's responsibility results in high-handed and enraging dismissals like the one the Pope just delivered them this morning.
It must hurt them, beneath all their anger and outrage, it must genuinely hurt them - I mean, emotionally and in their souls. Because through his bewildering decision the Pope has diminished their suffering.
In their joint Christmas statement, when they originally announced their decisions to retire, Bishops Walsh and Field said they hoped their resignations would 'help to bring the peace and reconciliation of Jesus Christ to the victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. We again apologize to them.'
This morning the Pope made it clear they really didn't need to apologize for anything.
43 Comments
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WatchingMedia | Sep 07, 2010, 05:52 AM EDT
Pope Benedict is the best. God is surely watching over his Church. He only took over as Pope in 2005. Glad he is moving the trash out. Your bias and misquotes make you a poor reporter or getting your news from the rag - the New York Times.
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Carroll09 | Sep 05, 2010, 01:08 PM EDT
PhlutiePhan- as much as I liked Pope John Paul, he did not "charge like a bull" into the whole abuse issue, which was raging even during his pontificate. In fact, the man leading reform on this issue in the Vatican for several years was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger himself - he was the one who changed the law so as to include internet crimes against children, who facilitated a case by case waiving of the statute of limitations in abuse cases, who personally took charge of cases (and dismissed several priests from the clerical state) where individual bishops (though they had the power to deal with the cases themselves) had been dragging their heels. What the facts ACTAULLY show, and they're facts that Mr O'Doherty and the media generally won't face up to, is that no one has done as much as Pope Benedict to clear up the problem: yes the work is slow - frustratingly so- but it is a big problem, and the Pope has shown himself to be serious about cleaning up the Church.
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PhlutiePhan | Aug 18, 2010, 12:02 PM EDT
This issue was not handled well by Benedict. JPII would have charged "like a bull".
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Colliegirl | Aug 15, 2010, 05:53 PM EDT
I don't know how the bishops are used in Ireland. In the US I think it would be quite possible that an auxillary bishop would have no knowledge of or authority over this sort of thing even if it occurred while he was in office.
In that case, the pope is correct that those men have nothing to apologize for. In any case, the charism of infallibility only protects the church from the possibility of the pope proclaiming an erroneous doctrine. It doesn't mean he's unable to do something that is unwise or even personally sinful. Personally, I think this present is wise and probably not guilty of deliberate sin.
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Carroll09 | Aug 15, 2010, 04:34 PM EDT
Infallibility of the Pope when teaching on matters of faith and morals to the Universal Church has been held since Apostolic times...where did the Apostles get that idea from? CHRIST...when He said 1) to the first Pope, Peter: "you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." [Matthew 16], and 2) "When He comes, the Spirit of Truth, He will guide you to all truth" [John 16:13]...Not to mention that Christ thrice commanded to feed His "sheep" - to feed the flock under the guidance of the Holy Spirit which He had promised to send to be with the Church to the "end of the age" [Matthew 28:20].
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jacersisityourself | Aug 15, 2010, 03:17 PM EDT
LITTLEGOAT, pls get your facts right. The Pope did not declare himself infallible. By a majority vote, the bishops attending the Ecumenical Vatican Council 1869-1870 (called Vatican Council I since the 2nd one was held in the 1960's) declared the papacy to be infallible only when he speaks ‘ex cathedra’. The Council merely declared something that was widely believed since first discussed at another Council of the world's bishops in the 3rd century AD. Only one Pope since 1870 has declared an infallible teaching, Pius XII in 1950 when speaking about the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven. Ironically, today August 15th, is the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady and it is celebrated not only by the Roman Catholic Church all over the world but also by the Orthodox Churches on this very day. Saying that a pope is setting himself up above God is also false. We Catholics believe that the Pope is guided by God through the Holy Spirit of Wisdom when utter teachings. In other words, every Pope is always subservient to God’s wisdom.
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GeorgeDillon | Aug 15, 2010, 03:00 PM EDT
It's interesting to see how many of the Irish are adopting the Paisleyite language of hate and prejudice. 30 years ago they would have laughed his Bible Belt demagogery, now they parrot it. The Irish have no moral tenets or precepts or deeply-felt beliefs. For a few years they bought into the belief that Money was GOD, but now they have no money, and no God. They have nothing by which to direct their actions. They're ruled by crooks and gangsters, but they haven't the guts to shake them off and do away with them. They're a pretty contemptible lot, aren't they? Snivellling and spineless. Find some backbone, you idiots!
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WoundedKnee | Aug 15, 2010, 02:26 PM EDT
The Irish people who are screaming loudest now should ask themselves: How come I (or my parents) didn't raise my voice at the time this stuff was going on? Irish people knew full well that places like the resideential schools were hell-holes, yet they kept their mouths shut The grade school teachers were in a majority of cases lay (and militant trade union members!!!), yet they equalled or surpassed the clergy in their brutality. I remember an old-timer who had in his working years delivered bread and milk to one of those places telling me how he knew full well that evil and fear stalked the insatitution. When I asked him how come he didn't do something he said "Sure we were all afraid". Maybe the Irish are just as spineless and worthless as their clergy? At any rate, that's my impression of the Irish today, they have as much fighting spirit as a slug, so I guess that's how their parents and grandparents were too.
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LITTLEGOAT | Aug 15, 2010, 09:21 AM EDT
i read that in 1869 the then pope declared he was infallible thus setting himself and future popes up above god. the reasons this was done is horrible but this truth was not taught me in 12 years of catholic schooling so many coverups the worst is not protecting children absolutely contrary to jesus christ.
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Carroll09 | Aug 15, 2010, 05:16 AM EDT
You are still ignoring what the report ACTUALLY says. It is clear that the situation was NOT THE SAME through the whole period investigated by the Commission. Barbara Blaine talks of salt being rubbed in the wounds of victims - firstly she is wrong to say the two bishops were "complicit" (the report does not agree); secondly, ALLOWING those who were not condemned in the Murphy Report to be punished should be what rubbed salt in the wounds of victims. Ms Blaine does not give the impression that she is looking for justice. It sounds more like she wants a few Catholic heads on plates.
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hollabackgurl | Aug 14, 2010, 07:25 PM EDT
They were auxiliary bishops in Dublin when the Murphy Commission found that sexual abuse of boys was "endemic,"and that the perpetrators had been protected by the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy. They resigned at the urging of Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who demanded that ~some~ accountability be shown in the wake of the poor judgment and oversight detailed in the devastating Murphy report on clerical sexual assault and abuse, which endured for decades. Abuse survivors called on Bishop Walsh to resign not because of the way he handled individual cases but but because has was “part of the regime that facilitated abusing priests to carry on abusing and did nothing to stop it or expose it." Bishop Field said he accepted everything in the Murphy report and defended his own decisions and inaction by explaining that he did not have "all the facts" due to a "deficit of the sharing of information in Archbishop's House." Reacting to Archbishop Martin's announcement, Barbara Blaine, president and founder of the U.S.-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement saying, "By rejecting the resignations of two complicit Irish bishops, the pope is rubbing more salt into the already deep and still fresh wounds of thousands of child sex abuse victims and millions of betrayed Catholics.
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Carroll09 | Aug 14, 2010, 05:27 PM EDT
Hollabackgurl- Clearly they are guilty in your mind,but in justice they are not guilty.You are refusing to look at the facts and are continually spinning the story that Walsh and Field were enabling abusers to continue their crimes. READ THE MURPHY REPORT instead of giving us the report according to hollabackgurl-it simply doesn't agree with you. In Murphy 1.22 there is a list of auxiliary bishops whom Murphy found knew for many years of the complaints of abuse -Bishops Walsh and Field do not feature on this list. In Murphy 1.47, Judge Murphy lists the auxiliary bishops who "dealt particularly badly with complaints" and there is NO MENTION of Bishops Walsh or Field. You say they were "part of the culture of abuse and coverup in the Irish Church" as if this "culture" was the same for the period investigated by the Murphy Commission- however, the report is clear that "in the mid 1990's, light began to be shone on the scandal and the coverup" [Murphy Report, 1.113].
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hollabackgurl | Aug 14, 2010, 11:16 AM EDT
People who enable abusers with the knowledge they'll reoffend are culpable and should resign. Enabling abuse is as bad as the abuse itself. To suggest that it isn't, or to split hairs about their degrees of culpabilty is reprehensible. These men were part of the culture of abuse and coverup in the Irish church. They are as guilty in my mind.
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specksmom | Aug 14, 2010, 10:04 AM EDT
Why does anyone continue to have faith in the Catholic Church? Why are they even still in business?? The abusers should be behind bars and their twisted ways should be put to an end. If they can't revise and join the rest of the 21st century, then let the people show them what's right. Take a stand.
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