Raw sewage

Austin Ruse titles it The Fetid Sea in Which They Swim.

Ruse documents and brings to light what he calls the gaying of the Church which the McCarrick scandal has now made more 'believable' if you will.  I say it that way since powerful voices, like McCarrick and Fr. Martin have always dismissed as homophobia any report that the sexual abuse scandals were homosexual in nature.  I myself have been strongly criticized whenever I wrote about the inappropriate lgbtq outreach conducted by some parishes, including participation in gay pride events, and so on.

Now we are forced to look at the raw sewage that has risen to the top of an already polluted sea of immorality and corruption - something Laudato si never touched upon.

Cardinal McCarrick’s crimes are at least something of a gift since no one can claim this was merely pedophilia. It was homosexual predation like practically all the others.

If you wonder how a Prince of the Church spent decades sexually assaulting boys and young men not only with impunity but with high honors and acclaim, look no further than this gaying of the Church. An authority on that is one Joseph Sciambra who has painstakingly chronicled this fetid sea in which the likes of Cardinal McCarrick swim.

When he was just beginning his gay life many years ago, Sciambra went to Catholic priests who did not try to dissuade him but rather confirmed him in his disordered desires. This helped to set Sciambra on years of sexual degradation. Nothing has changed since those days. In fact, according to Sciambra, they have gotten worse. There are now priests openly promoting the gay lifestyle, usually under the guise of gay-friendly outreach at the parish level. - Crisis

I'm not a Crisis subscriber, but Austin Ruse's article lays it out quite bluntly.  It's literally sickening to read, and I am amazed at how Church leaders have deceived and manipulated Catholics over the decades.  It doesn't shake my faith - because my faith is in Christ, but it makes me sad to have lost respect for that segment of clergy who have taken advantage of ordinary Catholics.


Everyone must admit that the real problem of clergy sexual abuse ...


Fr. Regis Scanlon makes a great contribution to the discussion in his article, Clergy Abuse: We finally know the  problem ...

...[N]ow that everyone must admit that the real problem of clergy sexual abuse is homosexuality and has witnessed the impotency of the Church’s past regulation concerning homosexuals entering seminaries and religious life, the Church must up date the past regulations regarding these matters.

According to the Congregation for Catholic Education’s Nov. 2005 Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called “gay culture.”

This directive is good but it does not go far enough. Ruling out “deep seated homosexual tendencies” is not sufficient to protect our young men from clergy sexual abuse. The past epidemic of clergy homosexual predation on the young is evidence of this. 

A person’s sexuality lies at the center of their identity and is, therefore, always “deeply” related to the person. So, in reality, there is really no such thing as a “shallow seated homosexual tendency” or a so-called slight homosexual tendency or one not so “deeply seated.” Every homosexual tendency is “deeply seated’ and a danger to the young. Even though a priest may think that he has overcome not so “deeply seated homosexual past tendencies, “these tendencies can be fanned into flames in an instant when a priest and young man are together in a private and secluded place, like a confessional, discussing the young man’s problems with masturbation or some other sexual difficulty. 

Is it really necessary to put these young men at risk just to satisfy the politically correct notion that we must consider homosexuals for the priesthood for the sake of justice? - Fr. Scanlon

It seems to me the reason these instruction have never been followed is because many of the clergy/hierarchy are homosexual or have friends and colleagues who are, while religious houses and oratories have been established as 'safe havens' for them - in some cases to ostensibly 'minister' to the fallen and 'rehabilitate them'.  One can't deny Christ may be present and inspired these apostolates, but there is a tendency to 'cover' for those who abused their position of 'power' and/or lived double lives.  The subject is too complicated to get into here.

Is it really necessary to put the faithful at risk by making these men bishops and cardinals?

Finally, I want to mention Magister's article, McCarrick and His Proteges.

It's truly creepy to think a Cardinal came through the Legion under Maciel and then became a close protege of McCarrick and climbed the ladder to Cardinal, and he never knew anything about their homosexual proclivities much less their sexual antics?

After leaving the Legion, Farrell was incardinated as a priest of the archdiocese of Washington. And at the end of 2001 he became auxiliary bishop there, when McCarrick had been archbishop for a year.

McCarrick’s promotion as archbishop of the capital of the United States - at the summit of an ascent that had seen him become auxiliary of New York, then bishop of Metuchen, and then archbishop of Newark - had already prompted serious objections back then, motivated precisely by what had already leaked out about his insatiable sexual practices. The objections made it all the way to Rome. But the appointment moved forward all the same, and the following year McCarrick was also made a cardinal.

But the appointment of the Irishman Farrell as his auxiliary caused astonishment too. His previous militancy among the Legionaries of Christ was certainly not set down in his favor, seeing what was starting to leak out about the double life of its founder, Maciel, and about the complicity or the culpable silence of many around him. But by this time McCarrick was a force to be reckoned with, in the upper echelon of the American hierarchy and not only there. He wanted Farrell there with him and he got him, ordaining him bishop personally. And he also wanted him to live in the same apartment with him in Washington, not in the bishop’s residence but on the fourth floor of a former orphanage, conveniently renovated. Once again, it appears implausible that Farrell knew nothing about the ongoing casual sexual adventures of his patron. - Sandro Magister

For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

It smells and looks raw sewage to me - polluting the waters which should be flowing out of the Church to refresh and give life to every sort of living creature?  Laudato si almost seems a very bad irony in contrast.

The oceans are the common heritage of the human family. Only with a deep sense of humility, wonder and gratitude can we rightly speak of the ocean as “ours”. To care for this common inheritance necessarily involves rejecting cynical or indifferent ways of acting. We cannot pretend to ignore the problems of ocean pollution resulting, for example, from plastic and micro-plastics that enter the food chain and cause grave consequences for the health of marine and human life. Nor can we remain indifferent before the loss of coral reefs, essential places for the survival of marine biodiversity and the health of the oceans, as we witness a marvellous marine world being transformed into an underwater cemetery, bereft of colour and life (cf. Laudato Si’, 41).

Blood and water flowing from the side of Christ

I trust in you.

Song for this post here.