Fr. Corapi is not fit for priestly ministry, SOLT declares

There are many saddened Catholics today, as a press release is issued by Rev. Gerard Sheehan, of the Society of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity (SOLT), Fr. Corapi's community. SOLT claims that Fr. Corapi, while inspiring countless numbers of Christians (whom Fr. Corapi now calls his "fans"), is now misleading them. The blunt press release continues with a very detailed account of Fr. Corapi's dealings, and detailed explanation of the investigation findings.

Rev. Sheehan states: "While SOLT does not typically comment publicly on personnel matters, it recognizes that Father John Corapi, through his ministry, has inspired thousands of faithful Catholics, many of whom continue to express their support of him. SOLT also recognizes that Father Corapi is now misleading these individuals through his false statements and characterizations. It is for these Catholics that SOLT, by means of this announcement, seeks to set the record straight."

It calls for Fr. Corapi to surrender his possessions, who "holds legal title to over $1 million in real estate, numerous luxury vehicles, motorcycles, an ATV, a boat dock, and several motor boats, which is a serious violation of his promise of poverty as a perpetually professed member of the society," and return to the community. Unfortunately, Fr. Corapi resigned from the community in June, with the issuance of his first statement as the "Black Sheepdog."

The final blow states: "SOLT’s prior direction to Fr. John Corapi not to engage in any preaching or teaching, the celebration of the sacraments or other public ministry continues. Catholics should understand that SOLT does not consider Fr. John Corapi as fit for ministry."

Many bloggers, and plain old observers, knew something was not quite right, when Fr. Corapi came out publicly endorsing his "brand." Claiming his innocence, but still giving information in dribs and drabs, left the faithful confused and unclear. This press release makes many things clear. His many "fans" will await his statement.

Gerard Nadal, MD, in his blog post, calls this update of events "nothing short of tragic," and invites the faithful to continue in a Divine Mercy Novena for Fr. Corapi. The faithful continues to receive signs that our priests, who are always in need of our prayers, need our prayers now more than ever. The more of a celebrity status, the more vulnerable the priest can be to attack by forces which lead them into temptation. Remember, that each Thursday is the commemoration of the priesthood, and to offer your Holy Communions especially on that day for our priests.

St. John Vianney, pray for our priests!

Read the entire press release here.

Homecoming: Healing From Abuse

This moving essay describes the journey of a Catholic who suffered abuse in childhood. Instead of turning his back on the one place where he could find healing and peace, grace urged him forward. How refreshing to see a truly faithful Catholic long for Jesus, and realize that if he turns his back on the Church, he turns his back on the One who can ease his suffering, and receive healing through His Sacraments.

Justice for the Abused?

by Michael Brendan Dougherty

Sitting in the pew for Mass at St. Mary's in Norwalk, Connecticut, I was offended. After the deacon chanted "Ite Missa est," our pastor took to the lectern to inform us that Connecticut was considering a revision of their laws that would retroactively eliminate the statute of limitations for prosecuting sexual abuse of minors, currently 30 years, the longest in the nation. Our priest was going to ask us to vigorously oppose the law.

"Let justice be done!" I thought of shouting back at him. I'm sick of the Church hiding these creeps under their mitres. And I was not alone: Andrew Sullivan and Kim Stagliano of the Huffington Post were both horrified upon hearing that the bishops in Connecticut oppose this law. But as I later discovered, the Church in Connecticut is right to oppose this bill. It discriminates against the Church and does little for the great bulk of victims of pedophilia.

When the bill, HB-5473, was approved by the judiciary committee, its sponsor, representative Beth Bye, said, "Today was a victory for the victims of child sexual abuse in Connecticut . . . . I think it was a spirited debate, and in the end, given the very serious nature of these crimes, legislators voted on the side of allowing the victims to have access to the courts."

This is a lie. Most victims of sexual assault during childhood in Connecticut will not have access to the courts, because their tormentors were public school teachers who are exempt from the new law. Connecticut law simply forbids childhood sexual abuse claims against foster care facilities, juvenile detention facilities, public schools, and other government entities.

In the past 18 years, only three Catholic priests in Connecticut are alleged to have committed sexual abuse against a minor. In this same time span, 112 Connecticut school teachers have lost their license because of sexual misconduct with students.

Even in the past year, nine foster parents in Connecticut have been charged with sexual abuse. Foster parents receive a stipend from the state. But their victims cannot sue the state that placed them in their abusers hands.

There are currently no figures for abuse in Connecticut's juvenile detention facilities, but a U.S. Department of Justice study issued in January found that just over one in ten youth (2,370 teenagers) in state juvenile facilities nationwide reported an incident of sexual victimization during the previous year.

Notably, all three of the legal experts giving testimony in support of the bill are currently involved in litigation against the Catholic Church. And the Church is the largest non-public institution in the state.

The legislation was tailored to deal with the notorious case of Dr. George Reardon, a physician at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, who abused hundreds of children from the 1960s through the 1990s. Reardon died in 1998, but in 2007 more than 50,000 slides and 100 movie reels of children were discovered in his former home.

Connecticut's legislature is developing a strange habit of attacking the Catholic Church. Last year the state senate attempted to pass HB-1098, which would have restructured the boards of each Catholic parish, depriving the bishop and pastors of any administrative, financial, or legal power over their parishes. It would have mandated that Catholic parishes govern themselves like Congregationalists. The bill's own language applied only to the Catholic Church. Bill 1098's sponsors were two senators who also supported an effort to legalize same-sex marriage in Connecticut, which the Church had vigorously opposed that year. The current effort has stalled in a legislature coping with a desperate financial crisis. But Rep. Michael Lawlor hopes to reintroduce the bill lifting the statute of limitations next year under a new governor.

Ironically, the basis of Connecticut's exemption for state employees, a principle called "sovereign immunity," finds original legal roots in a Catholic source: a letter of Pope Gelasius I, Duo Sunt, aiming to settle relations between Church and State in the fifth century. Perhaps Connecticut should be reminded of an older Christian principle: "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye."

What Went Wrong

By George Weigel NEWSWEEK

Published Apr 3, 2010
From the magazine issue dated Apr 12, 2010

Throughout what U.S. Catholics called the "Long Lent" of 2002, when every week seemed to bring revelations of clerical sexual abuse and its mishandling by the church's bishops, some observers suggested that this crisis was the byproduct of some distinctive features of Catholic life: a celibate priesthood, a church governed by male bishops, a demanding sexual ethic. "Modernize" the church by changing all that, they argued, and these horrible problems would abate, even disappear.

Sexual abuse is indeed horrible, but there is no empirical evidence that it is a uniquely, predominantly, or even strikingly Catholic problem. The sexual abuse of the young is a global plague. In the United States, some 40 to 60 percent of such abuse takes place within families—often at the hands of live-in boyfriends or the second (or third, or fourth) husband of a child's mother; those cases have nothing to do with celibacy. The case of a married Wilmington, Dela., pediatrician charged with 471 counts of sexual abuse in February has nothing to do with celibacy. Neither did the 290,000 cases of sexual abuse in American public schools between 1991 and 2000, estimated by Charol Shakeshaft of Virginia Commonwealth University. And given the significant level of abuse problems in Christian denominations with married clergy, it's hard to accept the notion that marriage is somehow a barrier against sexually abusive clergy. (Indeed, the idea of reducing marriage to an abuse-prevention program ought to be repulsive.) Sexual abusers throughout the world are overwhelmingly noncelibates.

Too many of the church's bishops failed to grasp the drastic measures required to address the sexual abuse of the young—that's obvious, and has been admitted by the bishops of the United States and two popes. Yet it is hard to see what these failures had to do with gender. Like others, many bishops had a misplaced faith in the power of psychiatrists and psychologists to "fix" sexual predators, thinking these men could be "cured" and quietly returned to ministry without damaging the church's reputation. In his recent scathing letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI denounced bishops who were more concerned with protecting the church's image than with protecting vulnerable young people. It's a critique that was applicable decades ago in the United States—but the same criticism can be made of teachers-union leaders and state legislators today who ignore or try to bury reports of sexual abuse in America's public schools.

So, yes, aspects of clerical culture in the U.S. and elsewhere contributed to the problem, but that same deplorable circle-the-wagons instinct has warped the response to this plague in other sectors of society. The difference is that the Catholic Church in America has taken more rigorous action since 2002 to protect the young people in its care than any other similarly situated institution, to the point where the church is likely America's safest environment for young people.

There may be a grain of truth in the suggestion that women's perspectives on these issues would have helped mitigate the Catholic crisis of clerical sexual abuse and episcopal misgovernance: in the past the male clerical culture of Catholicism seems to have blunted in some Catholic clergy a natural and instinctive revulsion at the sexual abuse of the young—a revulsion, it is suggested, that a woman would immediately feel and act upon. But the sad, further truth is that there are no gender guarantees when it comes to sexual abuse: the physical and sexual abuse of young Irish girls in "Magdalene Asylums" decades ago was committed by religious sisters.

Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the U.S. church's handling of abuse and misgovernance since 2002 has been immensely strengthened by the insight and professional expertise of many women—just as we also ought to recognize that laywomen, single and married, are usually the teachers who make today's Catholic schools safe and successful. Moreover, women are the great majority of the volunteers and paid staff who make Catholic parishes both safe and vital. The notion that women don't have anything to do with how the Catholic Church operates confuses the Catholic Church with the higher altitudes of "the Vatican," and ignores how Catholic life is actually lived in America and Europe.

As for doctrine: what ought to be obvious about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is that these grave sins and crimes were acts of infidelity, denials of the truths the church teaches. A priest who takes seriously the vows of his ordination is not a sexual abuser or predator. And if a bishop takes seriously his ordination oath to shepherd the Lord's flock, he will always put the safety of the Master's little ones ahead of concerns about public scandal. Catholic Lite is not the answer to what has essentially been a crisis of fidelity.

Since 2002, with strong support from then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (and from him still as Benedict XVI), the Catholic Church in America has developed and enforced policies and procedures to ensure the safety of the young that offer an important model for the world church. There were only six credible reports of sexual abuse of the young in the U.S. church last year. And while that is six too many in a church that ought to hold itself to the highest standards, it is nonetheless remarkable in a community of 68 million people.

What is essential throughout the world, however, is that the church become more Catholic, not less. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" proposed an understanding of faithful and fruitful human love as an icon of God's inner life. That vision is far nobler, far more compelling, and far more humane than the sex-as-contact-sport teaching of the sexual revolution, the principal victims of which seem to be vulnerable young people. Those who are genuinely committed to the protection of the young might ponder whether Catholicism really needs to become Catholic Lite—or whether the Augean stables of present-day culture need a radical cleansing.

Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center, is the author of The Courage To Be Catholic: Crisis, Reform, and the Future of The Church (Basic Books).


Find this article at http://www.newsweek.com/id/235885
© 2010

Gay Cover Up

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on two news stories released today by the Associated Press:

One of the AP stories on priestly sexual abuse admits that "The overwhelming majority of the victims were adolescents. That means very few guilty priests were pedophiles, a term mental health professionals reserve for those who target pre-pubescent children." Fine. But then it says something which is positively remarkable: "Even though about 80 percent of victims were boys, the John Jay researchers and other experts on sex offenders say it does not mean the perpetrators were gay." So what would they be? Heterosexual?

The AP article relied on the extraordinary remark by Margaret Smith, a professor who worked on the John Jay study. She said that while Donohue "quoted the study's data correctly," I nonetheless "drew an unwarranted conclusion." What? That most of the molesters have been gay? Here is what she said: "The majority of the abusive acts were homosexual in nature. That participation in homosexual acts is not the same as sexual identity as a gay man." So if two men sodomize each other, no one really knows if this qualifies as gay sex. Now I must admit that when I was studying for my doctorate in sociology at NYU, they never taught me such logic.

Both AP stories say the reason why there were so many male victims is because the priests did not have access to girls as altar servers. Nonsense. There have been girl altar servers in some U.S. dioceses since 1983, and almost everywhere since 1994. The statistics actually show that the more priests have access to girls, the less likely it is for girls to be abused.

Here's the tally. As reported in 2004, between 1950 and 2002, 81 percent of the victims were male; in 2005, it stayed the same; in 2006, it dropped to 80 percent; in 2007, it climbed to 82 percent; in 2008, it jumped to 84 percent; and in 2009, it stayed at 84 percent.

In other words, even though priests have less access to males, homosexual priests are molesting them at a higher rate. It's time to end the gay cover-up once and for all.

New York Times' Irresponsible Reporting

Concerning the Archdiocese of Milwaukee sex abuse reporting.

The former judicial vicar of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee at the time of the trial, Fr. Thomas Brundage, has made a statement regarding the inaccuracy of the NYT's reporting.

According to his statement, he was “liberally and often inaccurately quoted in the New York Times and in more than 100 other newspapers and on-line periodicals.”

Fr. Brundage continues:

“As I have found that the reporting on this issue has been inaccurate and poor in terms of the facts, I am also writing out of a sense of duty to the truth,” he continued. “The fact that I presided over this trial and have never once been contacted by any news organization for comment speaks for itself."