Text 4171, 140 rader
Skriven 2009-04-05 20:54:42 av Ross Sauer (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Catholic double standard
================================
Remember the Brazilian bishop who excommunicated doctors and a child's
mother who saved a child's life, a 9-year old girl made pregant?
While letting the rapist off the hook?
And the Vatican backed up the bishop?

Seems a Chicago bishop has the same double standards. Only worse.

"Christians don't molest kids." -Tim Richardson

Cardinal George of Chicago has a soft spot for pedophile priests - and
is not embarrassed by letting them stay in his mansion or on the job,
but he is, in brazen hypocrisy, embarrassed that the President of the
United States will be the Notre Dame commencement speaker.

Now that's the kind of thing that not only gives religious self-
righteousness a bad name, it is a frightening disregard of the impact of
priests who sexually abuse children.

Is BuzzFlash exaggerating?

Hardly not.

Read this long excerpt from Beliefnet.com about objections to Cardinal
George becoming the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in
2007:

The problem is that George shows little indication of having
internalized the lessons of the scandal. He displays a stunning
insensitivity to the church's failures. And twice since the 2002
conference in Dallas that adopted the youth protection charter, George
has flouted the church's supposed zero-tolerance attitude in his
handling of abusive priests.
The first instance involves Cardinal George's allowing a convicted
pederast priest -- he'd pled guilty, and received a suspended sentence
-- to stay at his mansion during monthly visits to Chicago. When this 
ongoing hospitality was reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, the cardinal
bristled.

When Sun-Times reporter Cathleen Falsani asked George why he had allowed
Martin to stay in his official residence after his misdeeds had become
known, and why the priest was still working for the archdiocese as a
consultant, George did not apologize but defended his colleague. "Are we
saying that people with any kind of question in their past are not
employable?" he responded.
More:

"When I read the Sun-Times," said former Rep. Leon Panetta [now head of
the CIA], a California Democrat who served on the National Review Board
[appointed by the bishops to assess the fallout from the abuse scandal,
and to recommend reforms] and was one of those who had met with George
that week, "it confirmed for me what is at the heart of this [pedophile
priest] problem -- the [Catholic] hierarchy's failure to understand the
seriousness of the crisis."
Members of the National Review Board made a second trip to Chicago
nearly a year later to consult with the cardinal. George celebrated Mass
for them, but then, according to three sources present at the meeting,
he issued a warning over coffee and doughnuts: "You will be the downfall
of the church!".
The second case involves the 2005 matter of Father Daniel McCormack,
whom George allowed to remain in school ministry, teaching and coaching
kids, after his own archdiocesan review board recommended removal
following a mother's charge that McCormack had molested her 8-year-old
son. And then:

In January 2006, McCormack was arrested on charges of sexually abusing
another boy at the school. When asked about it, the cardinal,
incredulously, said he had taken no action because he had had no
information from law enforcement. McCormack has since pleaded guilty and
gone to jail.
The archdiocese [take note] did take action against Barbara Westrick,
the school's principal, who had called the police after she learned of
the complaint against the priest. She was fired in June. Although the
archdiocese denies it, it seems likely that her criticisms of the
church's response cost her her job.
It is nothing short of stunning that the victims of these clericalist
attitudes have been Catholic children and Catholic families -- but some
bishops, acting like tribal chieftains, try to blame those outside the
Church for their problems.

Among cardinals who were slow in responding to allegations of rampant
child abuse in the priesthood, Cardinal George was probably in the
middle. He did what he was compelled to do by outside forces, but
nothing more. And his true feelings that the child abuse issues by
priests were being "used" to defame the collegial priesthood are
exemplified by the incidents cited above. After all, he not only let a
self-confessed pedophile priest stay at the Chicago Archdiocese mansion
on the Gold Coast and be retained as a "consultant," Cardinal George
"bristled" that anyone should think it inappropriate.

So fast forward to 2009.

According to all the Chicago newspapers, "Cardinal George rips ND for
inviting Obama" (as the Chicago Southtown Economist headlined):

Cardinal Francis George called the University of Notre Dame's decision
to invite President Barack Obama to speak at its commencement an
"extreme embarrassment" to Catholics.

"It is clear that Notre Dame didn't understand what it means to be
Catholic when they issued this invitation," said George, who made his
remarks at a conference Sunday hosted by the Chicago Archdiocese's
Respect Life office in Rosemont.

In a video of George's speech posted Wednesday on lifesitenews.com,
George calls Notre Dame "the flagship Catholic university" and said that
it has "brought extreme embarrassment to many, many people who are
Catholic."

So, it is not an embarrassment to host and lodge pedophile priests and
let others continue to have contact with children, but it is an
embarrassment to have the President of the United States speak at the
flagship Catholic University? These are warped priorities that are as
destructive to victims of priest sex abuse as they are an insult to the
Presidency.

Fortunately, Notre Dame is not succumbing to Cardinal George's tolerance
for pedophiles and intolerance for such life-saving research as stem-
cell research. To Notre Dame's credit as a leading place of higher
learning, it is not backing down: "Notre Dame's president, the Rev. John
Jenkins, previously said the university does not condone all of the
president's policies, but it's valuable to engage in conversation and
there are no plans to rescind the invitation."

Clearly, there are many fine priests committed to the teachings of
Christ, but Cardinal George sullies them by - shall we say - being as
chummy with pedophile priests as if they had just been guilty of unpaid
parking tickets.

Many young people sexually abused by priests never fully recover, and
their families experience the dreadful pain of betrayal and coping with
the after effects.

Cardinal George should spend more time dealing with these victims than
dishonoring the President of the United States and the prestigious
tradition of Notre Dame.

http://buzzflash.com/articles/node/8137

--- Xnews/5.04.25
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