Cardinal Dolan Questioned Before Conclave

Edit: in fine agitprop fashion, the media enters the usual slurs. If the occurrence of a crime, which happens in every other aspect of society at a greater rate than it happens within the Catholic Church, has happened on the watch of this Cardinal or that one, taints his career, perhaps that should go for the media as well?

The enemy is powerful and isn’t interested in anything less than complete subjugation of the Catholic Church to the world. It doesn’t matter that Cardinal Dolan has made conciliatory, if cowardly, gestures at St. Francis Xavier Parish in New York, the enemy only regards concessions as weakness. It doesn’t matter whether or not Cardinal Dolan has many positions which are inconsistent with a census Catholicus, or that he has given aid and comfort to the enemy’s political aims during political elections, he still represents the Catholic Faith, however humanly.

Cardinal Dolan, the archbishop of New York, has become the latest cardinal to be questioned over his handling of sex abuse by priests and victims in Ireland, US and Belgium.

Of the 116 cardinals who will gather beneath Michelangelo’s frescoed ceiling in the Sistine Chapel, several are embroiled in controversies connected to the Church’s systemic failure to tackle sex abuse against children by paedophile priests.

The question marks over the cardinals’ management of sex abuse cases are an embarrassment for the Holy See, just as Benedict prepares to resign the papacy next Thursday.

Link to Telegraph...

Someone else who really needs no introduction is Cardinal Mahony, who, despite his own moral challenges and failures in presenting the Catholic Faith throughout the years, is drawing support from his fellow Old Liberal Bishops, in this case, Cardinal Levada.

Levada Thinks Mahony should Vote for Pope

The former archbishop of San Francisco said Monday that Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has a rightful place among Vatican officials who will choose the next pope, even though Mahony has been battered in recent days by disclosures about his role in covering up clergy sex abuse.

The comments by Cardinal William Levada, a high-ranking Vatican official until recently, came in the wake of a grass-roots campaign to shame Mahony into refraining from participating because of his role protecting sexually abusive priests.

Mahony left for Rome over the weekend after recently released church documents showed he had covered up for other priests who raped and molested children.

Link to ABC News…. With breathtaking shamelessness, Cardinal Mahony writes on his personal blog, as the anti-Catholic ABC writes:

On Monday, Mahony took to social media and his own personal blog to write about persecution and forgiving one's enemies. He said he has a special prayer group for people who "cannot forgive me for my past hurts and offenses," including members of the media, attorneys, protesters and those who "hate and despise me.”

In order for forgiveness to be given, doesn’t there have to be penance as well as contrition?

St. Thomas Aquinas writes in the Summa:

I answer that, As stated above (Objection 2; 84, 10, ad 4), to repent is to deplore something one has done. Now it has been stated above (84, 9) that sorrow or sadness is twofold. First, it denotes a passion of the sensitive appetite, and in this sense penance is not a virtue, but a passion. Secondly, it denotes an act of the will, and in this way it implies choice, and if this be right, it must, of necessity, be an act of virtue. For it is stated in Ethic. ii, 6 that virtue is a habit of choosing according to right reason. Now it belongs to right reason than one should grieve for a proper object of grief as one ought to grieve, and for an end for which one ought to grieve. And this is observed in the penance of which we are speaking now; since the penitent assumes a moderated grief for his past sins, with the intention of removing them. Hence it is evident that the penance of which we are speaking now, is either a virtue or the act of a virtue.

Meanwhile, the German Bishops continue their assault on the Catholic Church in their anti-Roman trajectory by “sparking a debate” about the use of an abortifacient against rape.