Sunday, February 24, 2019

Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican: Valuable Commentary — "A Dishonest System Cannot Demand Honesty"



I have not read Frédéric Martel's explosive new book In the Closet of the Vatican, about which there has been a flurry of commentary since it was officially released this past week as the Vatican meeting on sex abuse began. So I'm not able to comment on the book itself. I do intend to read it soon. 

Friday, February 22, 2019

Belmont Abbey, Where I Met Waterloo as a Theologian, Back in News: Two Abbey Priests Who Served at the College Appear in List of Accused Priests — Footnote


Belmont Abbey, Where I Met Waterloo as a Theologian, Back in News: Two Abbey Priests Who Served at the College Appear in List of Accused Priests



Readers of this blog who have followed it for any length of time will know the story of how my career as a Catholic theologian and that of my now-husband Steve were destroyed by a Benedictine college in North Carolina, Belmont Abbey, with the active assistance of the diocese of Charlotte. The "About Me" section of Bilgrimage's home page contains a brief biographical statement with links to a number of postings providing details of that story. Please click them if you want further information about this story. A compendium is here.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

"Everything in This Spreading Crisis Revolves Around Structural Mendacity"; "Poland's Most Senior Nun Has Been Banned from Further Media Contact": Talking Abuse


 
Talking abuse, Catholic context and Southern Baptist context: good things I've been reading and want to share with you:

Monday, February 18, 2019

McCarrick Defrocked, Abuse Summit Convening, and NY Times Lets Gay Priests Speak: My Twitter Commentary



Like the man in the White House, I've been tweeting this morning — but what preoccupies my attention is perhaps quite different from what preoccupies his. Here's a selection of tweets from this morning that, to my way of thinking, tell a certain story when they're read together.

Friday, February 15, 2019

Stephanie Krehbiel on Religious Groups Facing Abuse Revelations: "Godly Men, Be Quiet"



I have written here in the past about Stephanie Krehbiel's important commentary on abuse in religious communities. If you click her name in the tags below this posting, the string of other posts in which I've featured or mentioned her will pop up. Stephanie is a scholar with a background in American studies and gender and sexuality studies. She's executive director and co-founder of Into Account, a group that provides resources and advocates for survivors of abuse as they seek accountability.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Preying on Teens"



The third installment in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation of abuse in Southern Baptist churches is out today. It's entitled "Preying on teens: More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes." An excerpt:

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Southern Baptist Abuse Report, Next Installment: "Offend, Then Repeat"



The next installment in the Houston Chronicle (and San Antonio Express-News) ground-breaking report on abuse within Southern Baptist churches and institutions has just come out. It's entitled "Offend, then repeat":

Monday, February 11, 2019

Houston Chronicle Invites Readers to Share Stories of Abuse in Southern Baptist Churches: My Commentary



Houston Chronicle is not playing, with its exhaustive investigation of abuse within Southern Baptist churches. On a page attached to its exposé report yesterday, the Chronicle invites readers to reply directly via an online form and share their own experiences of abuse in Southern Baptist churches with the Chronicle reporting team:

Sunday, February 10, 2019

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Remembering a Grandfather on the Anniversary of His Death: "Everything, in Time, Gets Lost"



As I've said here before, Daniel Mendelsohn's book The Lost is one of the most powerful books I've read in my long lifetime of voracious reading. I read it soon after it came out in 2006. It recounts the engrossing tale of Mendelsohn's years of searching for information about what happened to his relatives in Ukraine during the Nazi period. Mendelsohn’s obsession to find out the fates of his relatives began when he was a young teen, and continued into his adult life — and The Lost recounts the story of how, miraculously, he eventually discovered details about the final days of these relatives, their murder during the Holocaust.

Friday, February 8, 2019

Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock Updates List of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors



This is another footnote to my posting two days ago entitled "As Catholic Dioceses Release Lists of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors, Important Things to Watch for: The Case of Arkansas." In that posting, I told you that Father Bede Mitchell, OSB, of Subiaco Abbey in Arkansas, was listed by the Fort Worth diocese in its recent list of priests credibly accused of abuse of minors, but was not listed on the list of credibly accused priests released by the diocese of Little Rock last year.

Michael Iafrate on How Jurisdictional Mentality Protects Abusive Priests by Hiding Cross-Diocesan Connections in Lists of Abusive Priests



This is a follow-up/companion piece to what I posted two days ago about lists of priests credibly accused of abusing minors which are now being compiled and published by many Catholic dioceses* across the U.S. (and by some religious orders). As I noted in that posting, as more and more Catholic dioceses (and some religious communities) release names of priests credibly accused of abusing minors, it's important that we monitor those lists to spot "cross-pertinent" information that may be omitted from any given list. In many cases, priests named in one place have also had pastoral assignments in other places.

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Covington Catholic Pro-Life MAGA Boy Threatens Wide Legal Action v. Journalists and Dioceses as "Operation Stand Your Ground" Rolls Out on U.S. Campuses


 
And now there's this development in the story of the Covington Catholic pro-life MAGA boys, as Sarasi pointed out to us in a comment here yesterday: Carol Zimmerman writes,

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

As Catholic Dioceses Release Lists of Priests Credibly Accused of Abuse of Minors, Important Things to Watch for: The Case of Arkansas



As more and more U.S. Catholic dioceses — but not the diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina, which remains "one of the least transparent" dioceses in the nation — release names of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors, I am following those lists to see if I spot names of priests with connections to my diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm doing this, in part, because I think it's important that we inform ourselves of what's happening in our own back yard as we talk about bigger problems that manifest themselves in more than one place in the world. I also want to note that others who are monitoring these lists have been very generous in pointing me to important Arkansas-themed information in them: this is not a project I'm undertaking all on my own, but a collaborative one.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Covington Catholic Pro-Life MAGA Boys: A Canadian Catholic Educator's Perspective

Before we let the discussion of the Covington Catholic pro-life MAGA boys recede forever as new brouhahas (the latest in the U.S.: Virginia governor Ralph Northam's racist pictures from back when, and his disgraceful reaction to their discovery), I wanted to share some valuable commentary a reader of Bilgrimage sent me soon after the Covington Catholic pro-life MAGA boys' story broke. I've been exchanging emails with this good reader of this blog, and he has sent me several pieces of commentary that I'm weaving together here, with his permission, as a guest posting. Part of what makes the commentary valuable is that this is a Canadian reader of Bilgrimage, offering one Canadian Catholic's perspective on this story.