"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"

It needs to be said again: the call of some Catholic pastoral leaders and of some sectors of the church for "purification" & acts of penance (not to mention, showy reactionary piety) in response to the abuse crisis is embedded in analysis targeting queer people. /1

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

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."

Hovering behind the term "purification" as this sector of the Catholic church mounts its showy reactionary acts of piety as the solution to the abuse crisis is the claim that gay priests are responsible for the abuse crisis. /2

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

Adam Schrank: "Immigrant Communities Were The 'Geographic Solution' To Predator Priests": 

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.

And the church needs to be "purified" of queer folks and those who love queer folks in order to be set back on the path God intends for it….

This is ugly diversionary rhetoric that does not acknowledge the bishops' own responsibility for the abuse cover-up. /3

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

Nicole Winfield, "Global Catholic nuns urge reporting of sex abuse to police":

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. 

The powerful voices in the mainstream Catholic media using this language of purification and penance need to recognize and acknowledge what they are actually promoting, when all is said and done, as they push the language of purification and penance — /4

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

Raksha Kumar, "Protest against sexual abuse in Catholic church grows in India":

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.

while not talking about the abuse of power and clericalism that are at the very heart of the abuse crisis, and which call for a different analysis and different actions on the part of the bishops than showy acts of reactionary piety. /5

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018

Father James Martin, "A friendly response to Cardinal Mueller and Bishop Strickland":

[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.

What the church needs to be purified of is something quite different than queer folks or those who love queer folks: it needs to be purified of the lust for power, domination, using others as objects and instruments in a cruel, depersonalizing way. That's what clericalism is. /6

— 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝙳. 𝙻𝚒𝚗𝚍𝚜𝚎𝚢 (@wdlindsy) November 25, 2018