"Pope John Paul II Was Warned about Allegations of Sexual Impropriety by Theodore McCarrick, but Chose to Promote Him": My Response

Joshua McElwee on Twitter

Some headlines today:

Benedict Undercuts Francis on Abuse Narrative: The 1960s Made Us Do It

Pope Benedict's letter from his hideout blames the sexual revolution in the '60s for crimes against children committed on his watch. Code: women's liberation is to blame.https://t.co/gOhvNHK737

— Miriam Duignan (@MiriamTDuignan) April 11, 2019

Pope Benedict has written an astonishing letter on the abuse situation, which he calls a set of "notes" on this topic. Here’s my summary of his notes:

Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican: Concluding Remarks About Why This Book Matters — The Extensive Damage Done by a System "Perverted Since the Outset"

I've now finished reading Frédéric Martel's In the Closet of the Vatican, and want to share some concluding thoughts about the book. Two interrelated points strike me as I think about the book as a whole. The first is that the book's importance lies in how it moves what has been far too much a parochial Catholic conversation into the public sphere. The second, and related, insight is that this move is entirely necessary if the Catholic church wishes to regain any measure of moral credibility or pastoral or theological relevance following the abuse revelations.

Frédéric Martel on the Tragedy That Is the Pastoral Career of Joseph Ratzinger — A Tragedy for the Entire Church

From Frédéric Martel, In the Closet of the Vatican, on the tragedy of Joseph Ratzinger's (Benedict XVI's) pastoral career:

Two More Valuable Resources re: Opus Dei: Betty Clermont's and Penny Lernoux's Books

I'd like to add two valuable resources to the primer of books and articles about Opus Dei I posted this past weekend. That primer was not intended by any means to be an exhaustive list of the wealth of good commentary on Opus Dei that one can easily find by a Google search or a conventional search of library resources. It was, in fact, a recycling of something I had shared in the past, written for a specific purpose at that time. Because of its contextual nature, it missed some resources I did not think to share, but now want to recommend, after a good comment by Betty Clermont spurred my memory of these items:

Commentary on U.S. Bishops' Meeting: "The Moral Credibility of Catholic Bishops in the United States Is in Tatters"

Barry Blitt's "Welcome to Congress" cover for New Yorker, 9 November 2018

Now if a knock-off cover could only be produced, showing all those whited-out men in suits as the Catholic bishops at their latest meeting….

On the "Light Handed" St. John Paul the Great and the "Mild" Benedict: Anti-Francis Catholic Right and "Dinesh DeSouza School of Church History"

Lessons from the 14th Amendment: Every society is built on foundation myths, affirming the righteousness of the National project. But the stories with real power to redeem the National project are told by people left out (or on the margins) of the country’s foundation narrative.

— aderson francois 🇭🇹 14A (@abfrancois) July 27, 2018

Paul Moses, "Tackling the Wrong Problem: Pope Benedict XVI’s Removal of Bishop William Morris":

More Initial Impressions of Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report: "They Hid It All"

More first impressions:

Initial Impressions of Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report: "They Hid It All"

I have not yet read the Pennsylvania grand jury report. I am reading news coverage now. Here are some initial top-of-the-head responses:

Failure of Catholic Progressives to Speak Out for Years Now About LGBTQ Humanity Undercuts Catholic Witness vs. Muslim Ban

From 1986 forward, when Cardinal Ratzinger issued his infamous "Hallowe'en document" defining gay people as intrinsically disordered, there has been a silent, steady purge of LGBTQ people from the Catholic church. Catholic pastoral organizations ministering to LGBTQ people were ruthlessly excluded from Catholic parishes and institutions as a direct result of Ratzinger's orders. In some cases, including in my own city, all members of those organizations then left the Catholic church in a mass exodus and became Episcopalian.

Some Resources for Your Consideration: Live Streaming of Father James Martin's Address on LGBTQ Issues in Catholic Context Today, Etc.

I'd like to draw your attention today to some noteworthy (and time-sensitive) resources that may interest many Bilgrimage readers. First, the New Ways Ministry blog Bondings 2.0 has announced this morning that it will be live-streaming Father James Martin's major address about gay* rights and gay people in the Catholic church as he receives New Ways' Bridge Building award today.

Where Have All the Christian Intellectuals Gone? (Does Anyone Remember John Paul's and Ratzinger's Purge of Catholic Theologians?)

It's a thing now among journalists and religion commentators to ask what has happened to the public intellectuals of the churches in the past few decades — as Catholic commentator E.J. Dionne does in this Commonweal essay. Where have they gone? Why are they not with us any longer — the Niebuhrs (or, as Fred Clark points out, the Martin Luther Kings who never get mentioned in this discussion, and isn't that curious, and noteworthy)?

"They Put Us in Closets and Do All They Can to Keep Us There": More on the Catholic Erasure of LGBTQ People from the Narrative About Orlando

"Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy takes the rest of the week." - Alice Walker

— Broderick Greer (@BroderickGreer) June 15, 2016

And now some more resources that focus specifically on the erasure by top Catholic pastoral leaders of queer people from an act of mass murder of queer people:

Recommended: Joe Biden on LGBT Rights, Catherine Wallace on Gay Marriage and Anglican Anxiety, Patricia Miller on What Pope Benedict Knew When

God bless Joe Biden (the section I've transcribed from his recent remarks at the World Economic Forum begins at about the 1.55 mark):

Quote for Day: Alexander Stille on What Pope Benedict Knew About Abuse in the Catholic Church

Alexander Stille in The New Yorker yesterday, commenting on the disclosure by a German lawyer that 231 boys were abused in the Regensburg cathedral choir over several decades, with beatings, food deprivation, and rape — a choir directed by Pope Benedict XVI's brother Georg Ratzinger from 1964 to 1994:

The Telenovela Continues: Gay Vatican Official Comes Out and Is Sacked in Advance of Synod on the Family

OMG. Did someone say head-turners? (Yes, I'm between popcorn runs, and very glad I bought in a big new supply of popcorn today, because it looks like the telenovela is only going to get, well, more hilarious and dramatic, steamier and more engrossing in the build-up to the Synod on the Family.)

Remembering John McNeill, As Doors Slam Shut on Thousands at World Meeting of Families

As several of you have noted in comments here in the past few days, on the day on which Pope Francis arrived in the U.S., noted theologian and former Jesuit priest John McNeill died at the age of 90, with his partner of 46 years, Charles Chiarelli, at his side. Many of you will know quite a bit about John McNeill, so I don't think it's necessary for me to say more about his life than to remind readers that he was expelled from the Jesuits in 1987 when he refused to stop his ministry to LGBT people, and to cease his theological work in the area of sexual ethics. He attracted the animosity of Pope John Paul II and that pope's theological watchdog Cardinal Ratzinger, later Benedict XVI, and was ordered by Ratzinger to choose between his ministry to LGBT persons and his Jesuit vocation.

As Francis Comes to U.S., I Remember JPII's Visit to My University in 1987 — When the Ceiling Fell

As the current pope comes to the U.S., how can I ever forget the visit of another previous rock-star pope, John Paul II, to the U.S.? When, as he was doing his thing at Xavier University in New Orleans, where I was teaching theology, the ceiling in my office fell down. In just the same way that he and his right-hand man, Cardinal Ratzinger, fell down on one theologian after another, over and over, throughout JPII's long papal reign. As I wrote in 2011, remembering this papal visit:

Gabriel Daly on Irish Vote as "Caring for a Wounded Minority Who Were Strangers in Their Own Community": Contrasting Irish and American Catholic Values

Catholic theologian (and priest) Gabriel Daly commenting in The Tablet on the deeply Catholic theological underpinnings of the recent yes vote for LGBT equality in Ireland: 

El Salvador Martyrs: Valuable Educational Resources Now Coming Online