Abandoned_Altars

Behind the mask

I had a rather peculiar feeling when reading how shocked and dismayed Pope Benedict XVI said he was over the report on Irish abuse.  I was reminded in fact of a scene from the classic film Casablanca (1942). You know the one — the refugees in the bar beat the Germans in the “Battle of the Anthems” and so the head Nazi, the evil Maj. Strasser, orders the corrupt French cop Capt. Renault to shut the place down.

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds?
Capt. Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
[a croupier hands Renault a pile of money]
Croupier: Your winnings, sir.
Capt. Renault: [sotto voce] Oh, thank you very much.
[aloud]
Capt. Renault: Everybody out at once!

Yes, caught between admitting that abuse was due in large part to the Vatican’s culture of secrecy and cover-up which he himself has restored and having to do something about it, the Supreme Pontiff’s response of “outrage, betrayal, and shame” is predictable. Since, however, as the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , Ratzinger is more likely outraged by the revelations of abuse rather than its actual happening.

For if anybody knew what was going on it was him. And if the Grand Inquisitor didn’t know, that in itself is a major scandal!

But rather than confess any faults of God’s Holy Church, he places the blame squarely on the perpetrators and the bishops who enabled them. Like Capt. Renault, the Holy See profits from the cover-up and also by the abuse.

Let’s face it: Abuse, or even homosexual acting out with their peers keeps some of the remaining clergy — mainly men who cannot survive in the “real world”, content.  The cover-up is necessary to keep a lid on things and the papal hands as white and unblemished as his robes. And the corruption in the sacred premises is every bit as seedy and degenerate as that in a refugee hellhole.

Comments(1)

Fr. Sanchez -- then and now

He’s back. They say criminals always return to the scene of the crime; bad pennies always show up again.

So perhaps it was inevitable that the person of Robert Fortune Sanchez, the former Archbishop of Santa Fe disgraced by his own admitted abuse of at least five women along with gross negligence in his incompetent handling of the clergy abuse scandals, has once again shown up in his New Mexican homeland.

Only now, he’s no longer a prelate, but a simple monk — a Franciscan friar, to be exact.

According to the website of the Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the former archbishop has been a friar for two years now, and is celebrating his fiftieth anniversary as a Roman Catholic priest with his Franciscan brothers. (UPDATE: Link has been reset to Province’s homepage, as the page about the jubilee has been removed. Nice to know they’re paying attention!)

He has so much to celebrate, after all. What a record. During his nineteen years as archbishop, hundreds of New Mexico children were sexually abused by his priests, while he did virtually nothing to stop them. Nor did the chief shepherd of the community minister at all to victims and their families and parishes hurt by these monsters.

(more…)

Comments Off

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been doing a lot of historical research for a book about the history of sex and the clergy. Every time I think it’s just about done, something else drops into my lap that simply must be included. This amazing tale, for instance. It’s the latest, but I doubt the last…

One of the most spectacular cases of all time involved a school for poor girls run by nuns in Florence as a prostitution ring and sex cult. The sisters’ highborn and well-educated confessor, Canon Pandolfo Ricasoli, held the ancient heresy that all things are permitted to the pure. The official record says that he taught “that all carnal acts between men and women are not only allowed, but meritorious, if one keeps his mind united with God.” He claimed Christ with the Magdalen, the Virgin with Saint John, all performed these so-called “exercises of purity” together.

(more…)

Comments Off