Abandoned_Altars

Incorruptible

Being pretty much a hermit, it takes a lot to pry me out of my cave. Last night, I was dragged by my sister to see her husband in the opening night of a play, called “Incorruptible“, written by Michael Hollinger, put on by a local company. I went largely out of politeness, but they thought it was right up my alley, and yowie wowie, they could not have been more right.

Incorruptible is a comedy about a monastery in 13th Century France that’s about to go under. The bones of their patroness saint have stopped working miracles and so the pilgrims have stopped coming; desperate measures are called for. Very funny as well as surprisingly historically accurate about the trafficking of fraudulent holy relics.

I had a great time. I’d forgotten how much fun local live theatre can be; actually enjoyable to be with other humans for once! All the actors are excellent, and the dialog is fast-paced and witty. Scariest nun I’ve ever seen too, and that’s saying something! (And yet it was written by a Quaker.) For me, though, not a bad start to the holiday season. In any case, it sure beat the hell out of yet another production of The Nutcracker.

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Blessing or curse?

Here they are, two headlines next to each other this morning on ZENIT, the official Vatican newsfeed.

Benedict XVI Defends Young Migrants
Encourages Christians to Aid Children and Youth

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI is appealing to Christians to reach out to migrants and refugees, especially children and adolescents, and to raise awareness of their plight….

and this:

Irish Prelates Lament Report on Child Abuse
Say No Apology Is Sufficient

DUBLIN, Ireland, NOV. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- In response to the publication of a report about sexual abuse of children by clergy, the archbishop of Dublin is stating that “no apology is sufficient.”..

The intellectual disconnect revealed here is astonishing in its audacity, truly overwhelming. It goes soars beyond denial, leaps past hypocrisy and lands squarely in the briarpatch of pathological, institutionalized schizophrenia. It would be funny if it were not so scary.

This is pure madness! The Roman Catholic hierarchy condemned by the Irish Government for covering up sex abuse for over 60 years is no different in Ireland than it is anywhere else — all the lying archbishops, deceiving bishops, and enabling monsignors fingered in the report were picked, evaluated, promoted and in short,  given their jobs by Rome, same as everywhere. These men are cut from the identical cloth as the rulers of the Church universal in every nation on the planet, and thus, acted no differently. Prelates in America, Canada, Austria, Australia and elsewhere have acted exactly the same.

This is a Church with no moral leg to stand on. And yet, its fearless leader, Pope Benedict XVI, who himself has done so much to reinstate the coverup, dares harangue the world about child abuse!

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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.

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