Pope Francis with Cardinal Cupich
(Rome) The Vatican press office announced the appointment of the Organizing Committee for the Special Summit Against Sexual Abuse by Clerics, convened by Pope Francis for February 2019 - with more than a big surprise.
From 21.-24. February 2019, a summit meeting will take place in the Vatican, as has not yet happened in this way. Pope Francis is calling the leaders of all episcopal conferences in the world to take action against the sexual abuse of minors by clerics. The subject of the meeting is "The Protection of Minors in the Church".
Yesterday the names were published, who Pope Francis appointed members of the organizing committee for the special summit. There are no lack of surprises.
Surprise 1
Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston and representative of North America in the C9 Cardinal Council, is missing among the nominees. The Capuchin O'Malley has been the President of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission since 2014. The body, officially called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, was specially set up by Pope Francis to protect children and adolescents from sexual abuse and physical ill-treatment. Cardinal O'Malley, appointed by Pope Francis, is something of a government official on the subject. Nevertheless, he just misses the perhaps most important event in the fight against abuse.
The background to this seems to be a disruption of the trust relationship that has been dragging on since the beginning of the year.
Pope Francis with Cardinal O'Malley
At the end of January 2018, the US Cardinal's collapse over the dismissal of Pope Francis on abuse victims of the Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, because they had criticized the appointment of the Karadima Zöglings Msgr. Juan Barros Madrid as Bishop of Osorno. Francis subordinated them during his visit to Chile and again on the return flight to Rome "slander". His reasoning was that he had never been informed of any specific allegations against Barros. Had he received such, he would have acted.
Apart from the fact that Pope Francis is vindictive, the current personnel decision suggests that the Vatican fears that Cardinal O'Malley could not agree to the "solution" that he was aiming for in February. There is a reason for that.
Surprise 2
While excluding Cardinal O'Malley, another US Cardinal, Blaise Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, has been appointed to the Organizing Committee for the Abuse Summit. Cupich's senior position, as archbishop of the most important Catholic diocese in the US and as cardinal, is a creation of Pope Francis. He is considered the "man of the pope" in the American Bishops' Conference and spokesman for the progressive direction in the US Church.
The appointment of a senior US representative to the organizing committee stems from the fact that this local church is currently the most affected by the sexual abuse scandal. This is inextricably linked to the name of ex-Cardinal Theodore MrcCarrick, who had to vacate his seat in the Church senate at the end of July when even the New York Times reported on his gay double life and the sexual corruption of his own seminarians and priests.
US Cardinals appointed by Francis: Tobin, Farrell, Cupich attributed to the McCarrick group.
Cardinal Cupich is credited to the McCarrick Circle in the US Church. He therefore does not seem to be the most credible Church representative on abuse prevention. More credible representatives like Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, however, are consistently cut out by Pope Francis, because they have a more traditional understanding of the Church and do not belong to the progressive circles that want to promote Francis.
Cardinal Cupich, on the other hand, honored Cardinal McCarrick with a prize as an “exemplary bishop" in 2017. Cupich's appointment to the Organizing Committee underscores not only his closeness to Pope Francis but, more than anything else, his unwavering commitment to protect the McCarrick clique.
Cardinal Cupich promptly expressed his solidarity with the homophile Jesuit James Martin in the mentioned exchange for the program of the World Family Meeting.
Last but not least, Cupich’s nomination confirms what has been suspected in recent days of Pope Francis’ intervention. The Church leader had banned the US bishops shortly before the beginning of the autumn plenary session to take decisions against sexual abuse. The intervention is in many respects unusual and daring, for almost at the same time the French Bishops' Conference of Rome was able to make almost unanimous decisions.
The papal measure was directed against the majority of US bishops against whom Francis leads his private campaign as against US President Trump and overall "religious rights" in the US. It has been suggested by various sources that the McCarrick clique is afraid of an independent commission of inquiry and plans to remove bishops who are guilty of sexual offenses or failure to officiate. This refers to offenses not under state criminal law, but according to the stricter church law, which also includes homosexuality.
It became known that the Cardinals Cupich and Wuerl worked for weeks on an "alternative" solution. Instead of an independent commission, ecclesiastical hierarchs, especially the metropolitans, should be left to exercise their sovereignty in cases involving allegations against bishops - bishops such as McCarrick and Wuerl (see also The Homo Cardinals).
When the US bishops gathered in Baltimore last week announced that Pope Francis' "desire" to make no decisions was "emphatic", the President, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, could barely hide his bitterness. The mood among the bishops was described as "shock". Cardinal O'Malley responded, after all, as he soon realized, he was not only at risk as a diocesan bishop and as chairman of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission. He made a statement announcing that despite the papal gag, nothing would change about the "zero tolerance" against sexual abusers.
But that does not seem to be what you want on the top floors of the current Church leadership.
Agenda
Pope Francis justified his intervention against the US bishops with the special Summit on the same topic called by him anyway. But he did not say that to the French bishops. The non-appointment of Cardinal O'Malley and the appointment of Cardinal Cupich to the organizing committee for the special summit, therefore, suggests something. It comes close to a preliminary decision. For Cupich is not credible for a thorough cleansing of the Church, which many Catholics see as a necessary condition for renewal.
Other members of the Organizing Committee are, besides Cardinal Cupich, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, President of the Indian Bishops' Conference and representative of Asia in the C9 Cardinal Council; Archbishop Charles Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta and recently also Assistant Secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, responsible for the cases of abusers of abusers; as well as the German Jesuit Hans Zollner, President of the Child Protection Center of the Pontifical Gregorian University and member of the Pontifical Child Protection Commission (see Garden Goat - Pedophile Friend in the Center for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University).
According to a statement by the Vatican press office, the special summit will include the heads of the Catholic Eastern Churches, the "superiors" of the Vatican Secretariat of State, the Prefects of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Congregation of the Faith, Congregation of Religious, the Congregation of Clergy, Congregation of Bishops, the Dicastery of the Laity, Family and Life, the Presidents of the Episcopal Conferences and the Presidents of the Unions of the Superiors General of the Catholic Order of Women and Men.
The fight against sexual abuse, the rescue of the progressive and homophilic McCarrick clique and a paradigm shift in Catholic moral teaching through the recognition of homosexuality, equals a squaring of the circle - and this should also overtax Pope Francis.
Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Image: Vatican.va (screenshots)
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG
33 comments:
Tobin, Farrell, Cupich; Larry, Moe, and Curly.
Larry, Moe, and Curly were funny and harmless. Tobin, Farrell and Cupich are not.
One of these days not too far off, Francis is going to go suddenly and most unexpectedly the way of the late, great Bishop Morlino last week.
It'll be all over the news one fine morning, surprising us all.
But I guarantee you, Tobin,Cupich ,Farrell (Francis' three stooges) will not be all laughter and smiles then......especially when the new Pope appears...a guy with an agenda like Pope Pius X. He's be strongly to the right of Benedict XVI, but still won't outright condemn Vatican II.
He'll be a surprise Pope,someone no one expected. Maybe not even a Cardinal.
He'll have an agenda like Pius X, but he'll pick a papal name which has not been used in years, even centuries....perhaps an Innocent, or Martin, or a Pope Gregory XVI or XVII. It'll be a name that will break with the recent past which conjures up the unpleasant years post Vatican II.
It'll be back to being true Roman Catholics......and Tobin,Farrell, and Cupich will be out of jobs....because the new Pope will issue pink slips to hundreds of their kind. Clean house time.
Damian Malliapalli
A bit of a fantasy. The popes have the best of doctors. A good scify movie. We'll call it "The True Shoes of the Fisherman" with someone looking awefully close to Anthony Quinn?
The author of that book was a big-time We Are Church kind of guy.
From your words to God's ear!
Damian.I hope to God that you are right!I loath what i see in Bergoglio and he upsets me very much.Never in my 66 yrs have i felt such revulsion for a person like i do to Bergoglio.My morning prayers end with an Our Father for him but one that asks Bergoglio to repent of his ways and convert to the Catholic Faith!!Your comments are very insightful.
Thank you Philip Johnson,
I appreciate your words. I also like Gerald May's "From your words to God's ears!" That's actually an old Yiddish expression which even some in my Catholic family uses!
I truly do think that that will happen to Francis very soon. I don't know why, just a hunch/premonition that his time is very, very short (even if he doesn't know it yet). It'll he a HUGE surprise/shock in the Vatican and throw the whole place into panic and caos. One day Francis will be here, spouting his mouth off as usuall....the next day...GONE.
Who will be the next Pope? No one knows. But I do not think they will pick another Francis type or worse. So much bad has been born from the Francis pontificate that I think there will be a backlash against his agenda, his people, and Francis himself.
The next Pope might be less than 70......maybe a bit over. Of course if they go outaide the College of Cardinals for the new Pope, they may pick a good man who is much younger. And there are a few notables.
I think the next Pope will be a strong personality, both physically(like JPII), and intellectually( like Benedict XVI , Pius XII, etc.). He will be a determined leader, far to the right of Benedict XVI, but still not willing to condemn Vatican II. Though by his words and actions it will be clear that he does not approve of much of it.
He won't be a wimp like Benedict XVI. He will remove/replace all of Francis' people with breathtaking speed...not because he doesn't have the time to do the job, but rather he would want to hit the ground running. All the traditional Orders Francis ruined will be restored, Catholic traditions will be fostered the new Pope will very strongly suggest (almost force) every diocese to open every parish to the traditional Mass.....existing alongside the Novus ordo.
People like Tobin,Farrell and Cupich will be out in the cold, as will all those who hold like views. The Francis agenda will be trashed in a heartbeat.
And one of the first things the new Pope will do, with a passion that will surprise the media for months, is to sniff out all the pervert queers from the Vatican, and dioceses and either retire them or laicize them all.
Some might call my preditions a fantasy from an over-zealous imagination....but lets hope that in 9 months to a year, we will have cause to celebrate than one infamous Pope is gone, and we nave a new one who at the very least...is a good Catholic, strongly supportive of Catholic traditions of our Faith.
Damian Malliapalli
Bravo, the chorus from the entire cast of "The Keystone Kops - the Musical."
Interesting discussion.
I hope you folks are right, but...
...seriously, PF has selected 1/2 the voting Cardinals and the other half is more or less made up of guys that voted for HIM. Any normal human assessment of events indicates we are in for 20-30 more years of this till the homosexual-permeated or allied prelature burns itself out {prelates over-50...at least...}.
How else will the condition of the Church prompt Jesus to ask if there will be any faith left when the Son of Man returns?
Here's hoping what we all ask for the Catholic Church in the very near future....to be rid of Francis and have a Catholic Pope comes true.
For Gerald May----
I asked my neighbors who are Orthodox (but not strictly Hasidic) Jews for the accurate Yiddish translation for " from your words to God's ears, and their translation is " Fun zayn moyl, in Got's oyer."...."from your mouth to God's ear.
Damian Malliapalli
Damian, thank you. I was not aware of the Jewish-Yiddish origins of the phrase. One of the many culturally enriching contributions to Western civilization of the Jewish people.
According to the editorial slant of this site, the Jews are a Christ killers, nefarious people, reprobates, lost cause and damned to Hell.
Congratulations on breaking ranks, Gerald.
Only with Divine Intervention Damien. To us lowly laity on the ground, it doesn't look like a possibility with all the lavender mafia Bishops Francis has appointed that will vote in the next Conclave, but......God may indeed have 'other plans'. We can only pray that He does!
I think he does, TLM! I have friends in Italy, like I think I wrote here before. When they can, they write about various things, but always also about Rome, and how the people think about Francis.
In brief, THEY HATE HIM. Literally. And they hate his Vatican stooges as well. My friends tell me that many,many in Italy have stopped going to Mass since Francis and his scandals. Many want Benedict back. The seminaries are emptying out just like during the plague of Vatican II reforms (1965-72). NONE of the Roman motherhouses of nuns have any vocations, except for the very few who have remained traditional. There were before Vatican II close to 600 convents in Rome alone, not to mention close to 300 monasteries/friaries for men, and 500 Churches. EXCEPT for the most traditional, they are either empty, or almost empty. Vocations for the liberal Orders, few before Francis, are now non-existant.
People are going to the SSPX to be priests,brothers,nuns, or to other traditional groups.
One of my friends is a young nun, who write that this year they had 22 professions in her Order, 8 final, 14 Junior professions. They also have 13 novices and 19 postulants (although in honesty I have to say that 6 of the postulant class are non-Italians, even though it's an Italian Order).
Still, they have more in training in their motherhouse that the 3 liberal Orders who have similar motherhouses nearby have had in 50 years. The Daughters of Saint Paul (once a good group), have gone habitless in Italy, and had 1 profession this year....a girl from India. Their place used to be packed. It's dried up. Same for mostly all. Increased declines since Francis.
The people of Rome know the kind of Church Francis has brought them, and they hate it. The Cardinals in the Vatican know he and his agenda and his people are hated and mocked. I don't think this group would be stupid enough to elect another man with similar or worse views.
Even though Francis created 1/3 of the Cardinals, not all of them are radical liberals, or approve of his agenda. The Americans are, but not all of the rest are. So I think we'll see a Catholic next time.....and have pleasant surprises from him along the same style of Benedict XVI. He might be a Gregory or Innocent or Martin or even a Pius or a Benedict....but no more John Pauls', or Francis II. or Pauls or Johns.
Damian Malliapalli
Damian Malliapalli
The growth in the number of recruits to traditional religious orders and societies of priests simply points to the rapid acceleration in recent times in the large numbers of Trads/ultra conservatives who have been closet schismatics now coming out and publicly nailing their flag to the Lefebvrist staff. They make a lot of noise for their overall miniscule numbers but even that cacophony will fade away as they lapse further into entropy, rigidity and hopelessness. Schism condemns them to oblivion.
It's impossible for a Catholic to be anti-semitic as Christ and most of the Apostles were Jews. But, where exactly has Tancred's editorial responses called the Jews "Christ killers, nefarious, reprobates, a lost cause damned to hell." Just another cheap traditionalist straw man animated by enmity toward orthodoxy. The Church has always prayed for their conversion. No where is it in the deposit of faith that the Jewish religion is salvific in and of its self for that would betray the many Jewish converts to Catholicism, such as the philosopher Mortimer Adler, Petrus Alphonsi physician of King Alphonso Spain, Giovanni Guida Gina Battista officer to the king of Poland, Herman Cohen the Jewish musician and Carmel it friar, Pablo Christiani Spanish Dominican, to name just a few of too numerous throughout history to number. Personally I have also met a SSPX priest who said that both him and his Jewish brother were Catholic converts. However, of course you would consign them to the 9th circle of the inferno.
Peter W ( or Gabriel, or the other names that speak with the same voice), I think can't be converted to rational thinking with his eyes open to the disaster that is our present, and assign blame to the proper person and group(s) that have wrecked the Church and continue to do so...the rad liberal/progressivist neo-communist. Vatican II cheerleaders for whom Francis is their standard bearer-hero-demigod, etc.
He is among that aged group, who when presented with the stats alone , for the Church before Vatican II (1958 and previous), compared to those for 1965 to present, still comdemns those before the Council and proclaims those after as "a New Springtime".
It's like the little girl who is told by their mother, "Don't put your hand near the fire or you'll get burned". But the little girl doesn't listen and keeps doing it until there's a disaster because "it was fun".
The state of the Church post 2013 Francis is like that. They'll keep it up and up, rack up scandal after scandal etc, until there's nothing left. If it wasn't so pathetic, it would be funny.
Damian Malliapalli
The Traditional orders are the only ones showing growth, unless they are unjustly suppressed by the Vatican canons of chas and autonomous conscience. If I had a dollar for every former Novus Ordo Catholic college age student I've encountered in secular academia, I would be a millionaire. The young are leaving in droves.
Trad/Alt Catholicism, particularly in the US, is already well advanced into Schism especially among the neocons in the Acton, Napa Institutes whose voices are First Things, EWTN, NCRegister, the sodomite Voris, Lifesite, the Remnant, the clericus vagus Zuhlsdorf, the convert parson Longenecker, Hunwicke the latin teacher etc. Tancred's blog as well as a few others, is a minor echo chamber.
What is common to them is a rejection of the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church dating back to the description of the common life of the Christian Community in Jerusalem documented in the Acts of the Apostles, the Social encyclicals from Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum to the present. The Trad/Alt Right catholic rump also rejects the key non-negotiable magisterial documents of the Second Vatican Council: large portions of Lumen Gentium, Gaudium et Spes, Sacrosanctum Concilium as well as total rejection of Dignitatis Humanae Nostrae, Nostra Aetatae as well as the magisterial application of these documents in the life of the Catholic Church.
The Alt Right US Catholicism has opted to created a fictional exceptive clause on its own set of comfortable self-reinforcing and self-massaging idolatrous ideologies. If you have any wits at all, the hopefuls at the episcopal level have abandoned you because you are too much 'on the nose' to risk their four star accommodation, meal tickets and first class air travel.
Time's running out chaps. The lunatic Lefebvre should be an example of not cutting your nose off to spite your face.
Gaybriel,
Take a sedative, then a deep breath, and tell us which doctrines of the Church as founded by Christ the bogeymen of your fevered mind are in schism with.
And this "alt right" Catholicism is yet another figment emanating from your rapidly aging grey matter. Where does one find this "alt right" Catholicism, and who are its theologians?
You, for one, are one on the small pimple on the rump of the ultra right of Catholicism and it has no theologians who could sustain an argument in the Academy. The luminaries held up by the Trad/Alt Conservatives such as De Mattei are light weight hacks who are more skilled at gossip and innuendo than sustained rational argument. You would know all about that from the vacuous nonsense you trot out.
And BTW, who is Gaybriel?
"They make a lot of noise for their overall miniscule numbers"
Speaking of miniscule numbers:
Less than 1% of French Millennial Catholics attend Mass.
58 French dioceses had no ordinations this year.
Sunday Mass attendance in Belgium would now struggle to fill two soccer stadia.
The Diocese of Trier is in the process of consolidating from 951 parishes to 35.
Five decades after the Dutch Catechism, the Cardinal Archbishop of Utrecht has announced that his archdiocese will have to reduce its 280 parishes down to only 15.
No, there are not huge numbers of traditionalists. But large parts of Europe are reaching a point where active membership attending the new rites has become "miniscule" as well.
Welcome to the club, Peter.
European Catholicism following Vatican II is purging itself of the last vestiges of monarchical episcopal rule, a priest ridden culture long infected by Jansenism and clerical elitism. Some call that reform but a better description is evolution. European Catholics as well as those in other parts of the Western world have been going through this process over recent centuries and it has picked up momentum following the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and the renewal agendas that were applied by the Council's 2800 bishops. For the most part, those Catholics who have walked away from the decaying institutional Church have not lost their faith in Jesus Christ. The point is, they no longer see Christ in the Church that claims to be his 'Mystical Body.'
I think you and like minded thinkers should seriously consider the enormous damage that has been inflicted on the People of God by the scandalous behavior of Popes, bishops, priests and religious over centuries of covering up child sexual abuse and enabling its continuation.
The leadership of the Catholic Church, lib or conservative, has lost its way and forfeited its claim to moral credibility. It may never recover and I hope it doesn't in its present form. Furthermore, backward looking ecclesiology, theological and liturgical antiquarianism, nostalgia and a hankering by the Trad remnant for a Pius V church is not a solution but a symptom of the Church embedded in the 'bella figura' court culture of the now rejected European ruling classes. The American equivalent of this is the uberCatholic neocon brigade led by the Napa and Acton Institutes, Legatus and their electronic mouth pieces such as Weigel's First Things, Lifesite, EWTN, The Remnant, NCRegister, Voris and others.
Peter,
European Catholicism following Vatican II is purging itself of the last vestiges of monarchical episcopal rule, a priest ridden culture long infected by Jansenism and clerical elitism.
1. Apparently, it's also purging itself of any breathing followers.
But you seem to have an answer for this, too. Remarkably, you assert that the millions of baptized Catholics who no longer darken Church doors "have not lost their faith in Jesus Christ." Not only must have you have remarkable mind-reading skills, you have even divined that they lie to pollsters, en masse. A survey by La Croix just a few months ago indicated that only 41% of French people 30 and under would even describe themselves as "Catholic," and only 18% were even "certain" that God exists, let alone advert to whether he *might* be the Christian God.[1] Your Anonymous Christians really put in some serious overtime in achieving their anonymity, Peter.
Perhaps we are all Anonymous Egyptian Polytheists. That which is dead may never die!
2. "Jansenism." :sigh: Jansenism was already a ghost even when Dom Gueranger was hunting it out in the dark corners of Orleanist France. Just a kindly reminder that not every instance of moral rigorism is an instance of Jansenism on the hoof.
3. You are welcome to your belief that traditionalism is a dead end with little popular appeal. Time will tell the story there. But here is something we already know: we know that people quite viscerally opposed to traditionalism in any form have had full control of the hierarchies in these countries (and even, for all practical purposes, in Rome, too) for over 50 years, able to implement *their* ecclesiological and liturgical visions 'without let or hindrance,' and we have seen the results. An empty church is an empty church. An empty convent is an empty convent. A seminary turned into car park is a seminary turned into a car park.
And somehow, I can't help but feel that - whatever else was true of them - most Fathers of Vatican II were not voting for all these empty buildings and a future where less than one 1 in 5 young French people are even sure that a Supreme Being exists.
[1] Link: https://www.la-croix.com/Religion/Catholicisme/France/Dieu-existe-majorite-jeunes-Francais-2018-03-23-1200925742
Read what I said, not what you think I said or any variable thereof.
Hello Peter,
I directly engaged what you said.
There are so many bizarre or polemical claims in that post. But this one really is the most amazing: "For the most part, those Catholics who have walked away from the decaying institutional Church have not lost their faith in Jesus Christ."
This is simply untenable. Most of these Catholics live as if God did not exist. It's self-delusion (and self-justifying) to conscript them into being in any tangible connection with the faith beyond their baptism. Their children, if they have any, won't even be baptized. The Catholic Church and Jesus Christ are about as relevant to them as Baal worship. And this is where we are, 53 years after the end of the Council John Paul II described as "a New Pentecost."
These are post-Christian societies coming into being, not societies where the faith is merely being lived in a new way.
P.S. It may have escaped your notice, but the vast majority of traditional Catholics are far better characterized (if anything) as paleo-cons, not neo-cons.
George Weigel and company invariably have little patience for the Traditional Mass.
It would not surprise me in the least if a substantial number of the 1570 'paleos' consider you to be a person of considerable wisdom and intellectual tonnage. In fact when challenge on substantial issues you simply flop back into the default position of asserting, emoting and confusing your own corrupt syllogisms with the truth. You have been very poorly catechised in the first place and furthermore, demonstrate little or no insight into the actual faith and moral status of the multitude of Catholics you so contemptuous dismiss. Read the Gospels and you might discover that those you despise are the stuff of the Kingdom of God which you confuse with the pre-1918 European royalty or, if your are from the US, with Monroe doctrine Republicanism.
Upvotes for your posts, Athelstane, but debating with 'Peter' is like trying to juggle a blancmange. Anyone who seriously thinks that the haemorrhaging in the Church for the last five decades is not devastation but evolution has got it real bad. At this rate, in a generation Peter's evolution will see a Church consisting solely of a couple of octogenarian priests and three ex-nuns reminiscing about rainbow vestments, the group hug of peace and the day they left the altar rails down the dump. Peter's disdainful (and seemingly inexhaustible) stream of consciousness for anyone who takes their faith even half-seriously has him operating under the delusion that trad catholics are all capitalist crypto-fascists itching for the return of drivers being shot for not making the trains run on time. Reading his posts, I'd be surprised if Peter says a daily rosary so at the moment, I fear he may be beyond help...of the human variety.
Hello Peter,
If you actually engage with any of my posts, we might even have a real dialogue.
...demonstrate little or no insight into the actual faith and moral status of the multitude of Catholics you so contemptuous dismiss
I don't need to read minds - I don't possess your power in that regard (thank God). I settle for hard data. And the data are really not that hard to come by. It's not in my power to judge them, only to describe them.
We are dealing with populations where every possible measure of faith or moral behavior indicates a mass defection from the Catholic (or any Christian) faith. The burden of proof lies necessarily on the one claiming that the data do not reflect the reality of their beliefs. And you have not even attempted to meet that burden, Peter.
But I'm quite open to hearing what you've got if you decide to try.
What, Athelstane, is the hard data you rely on to make your assessments about Catholic participation in, disaffiliation and/or total withdrawal from Church life?
My views are informed by reports done by credible organizations such as Pew Research. Work the Pew carried out in both the US and Europe in 2017 while clearly showing the constant and increasing levels of disaffiliation by both Catholics and Protestants, also indicate that even those who classify as 'Nones' are by no means overwhelmingly people who definitively close off their options. What is coming up from research done by Pew and National Pastoral research offices in various European, Latin American and English speaking countries is that large numbers of Catholics have either drifted or have consciously chosen to disaffiliate because the institutional Church has ceased to attract and hold them. This research is often supported by parallel findings in work done independently by priests, religious groups and lay groups.
Increasingly those who have walked away claim that there is little reason for them to continue to participate in a community in which they see very little sign of Jesus Christ or his Gospel. The cover up of clerical and religious child sexual abuse by the highest authorities in the Catholic Church is a case in point. The culture of secrecy and protection of the clerical state at the expense of the human and baptismal dignity of innocent and vulnerable people strikes at the very heart of Christ's clear teaching about scandalizing the young.
Catholics are walking away from a hypocritical organization that has forfeited its moral authority and profoundly failed the very people entrusted to its care. Surveys done by the organizations referred to show that it not Jesus Christ people are abandoning. Rather, it is the institution that has chosen to become an end in itself rather than Christ.
As for not reading other's minds or making judgements about people and their actions, that's clearly you pitch to your supporter and fan in the peanut gallery. What is one to make about 'skull ticklers' at Assisi if not a thoroughly predictable doctrinaire throw away line by someone rubbishing Ecumenical prayer and conversation the goal of which is to bring about unity.
Gaybriel's a person of considerable wisdom and intellectual tonnage? HARHARHARHAR!!! He can't even answer a straight question, much less engage in an honest discussion.
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