Tuesday, November 27, 2018

"Scapegoating Gay Priests and Pining for a World in Which Most Catholics Agree with Church Teaching on Birth Control Is No Way to Confront the Abuse Crisis"



John Gehring, "Baltimore Flop":

Scapegoating gay priests and pining for a world in which most Catholics agree with church teaching on birth control is no way to confront the abuse crisis. Bishops would be far better served by clear-eyed discernment. Pope Francis, who has shown his own blind spots when it comes to responding effectively to the abuse crisis, is right to stay the course, seeking to dismantle a clerical culture he describes as arising from "an elitist and exclusivist vision of vocation."




Catholic Church leaders in Los Angeles for years shuffled predator priests into non-English-speaking immigrant communities. That pattern was revealed in personnel documents released in a decades-old legal settlement between victims of child sex abuse by Catholic priests and the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.



The Associated Press reported earlier this year that the Vatican has known for decades about the problem of priests and bishops preying on nuns, but has done next to nothing to stop it. 



In June, police in the southern Indian state of Kerala registered a case against the bishop of Roman Catholic Diocese of Jalandhar, in the northern state of Punjab. 
A nun had alleged that the bishop, Franko Mulakkal, had raped her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016 at a convent in Kerala. 
The nun is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation based in Jalandhar. 
The bishop was arrested but then released from prison on October 15 on bail on the condition that he presents himself in the police station once every fortnight. 
Five nuns of the same congregation have come out in support of the complainant. Six of them live in a convent in Kerala, under police protection.



[C]hurch teaching is not simply about "intrinsic disorders" and same-sex marriage, but also about making those who feel excluded to feel included. Church teaching is love for all people, and that doesn't mean a love that simply repeats a few lines in the Catechism over and over. We don't treat other groups without considering their lived experiences. Neither did Jesus. 
Church teaching cannot and should not be reduced to a few lines in the Catechism, with no reference to Jesus's ministry of love, mercy and compassion, especially to those who feel excluded in any way.

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