By CHRISTOPHER MANION
For years what was obvious to many was denied by prelates who knew the truth. How many? They know, we don’t. But we do know that they spent billions in secret settlements with victims of criminal homosexual child abuse. They paid those settlements with contributions from the faithful.
At their 2002 meeting in Dallas, bishops were given the golden opportunity to have a cleansing truth-telling. During the proceedings, Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz of Lincoln, Neb., offered a motion to investigate the causes of the sex abuse and cover-up scandals. Such an investigation would have quickly revealed the cause and effect — rampant homosexuality, kept secret instead of admitted and expunged, and the immeasurably catastrophic damage done to the Church.
Well, that’s not what the bishops had in mind. So when Bishop Bruskewitz made his motion, not one of his colleagues would second his motion. At the time, the prevailing interpretation was that “they didn’t really want to know.” Today it is clear that yes, they knew, full well, but they didn’t want us to know.
Over 150 bishops knew that over eighty percent of the abuse crimes were committed by homosexuals, because they had themselves covered up for the abusers.
Two of favorite phrases recurring in the politisphere today go like this: “If only they listened to me,” and “I told you so!”
Well. The Wanderer did tell them so and they didn’t listen to us — at least, they pretended not to listen, as they continued to cover up, pay off, and tighten the circle of the wagons as their defenders railed at “greedy plaintiff lawyers” and “a hostile media.” To put it bluntly, we told them and they blew us off.
“So here we are,” to paraphrase T.S. Eliot’s “East Coker.” Faced with the disaster that confronts us, the question arises, stated not only by Vladimir Lenin but also Thomas Aquinas: What is to be done?
“Uncle Ted” McCarrick was cardinal archbishop of Washington when he attended that Dallas meeting. He knew. And countless other bishops knew as well. Today it is clear from the testimony of several of his victims that Uncle Ted offered them his support for advancement in the Church’s hierarchy if they agreed to be compliant with his sexual overtures.
Sexual advances, hierarchical advancement. How many prelates today owe their positions to Uncle Ted’s support?
Affirmative Action For Homosexuals?
“Simony is usually defined as ‘a deliberate intention of buying or selling for a temporal price such things as are spiritual or annexed unto spirituals.’ While this definition only speaks of purchase and sale, any exchange of spiritual for temporal things is simoniacal” — Catholic Encyclopedia (1911).
Objectively, the exchange of a temporal price (sex) for a spiritual good (promotion in the hierarchy) constitutes simony. Cardinal McCarrick held powerful offices in seminaries and chanceries for so many years that only he and his consorts know how many were the promotions bestowed upon them in exchange for sex and silence.
“Chris, if they’ve committed one crime, they’ve committed another one,” Sheriff Lynn Armentrout told me years ago. “Always call us, right away.”
Well, no bishop called out the simoniacs. And sure enough, the rot spread.
As if that weren’t enough, today we confront the threatening specter of another version of simony.
One of the consecrated tasks of a bishop is to exercise his authority under canon law, which permits him to use an array of prohibitions, censures, and penalties to those who publicly persist in manifest, grave sin.
So the question arises. In fact, Cardinal McCarrick raised it,
Address of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick to the Plenary Assembly of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, October 17, 2006:
“Cardinal Avery Dulles made this same point in a recent interview: ‘The Church’s prime responsibility is to teach and to persuade. She tries to convince citizens to engage in the political process with a well-informed conscience.’ He also cautions that the imposition of penalties [on pro-abortion politicians] comes with some serious risks: . . . ‘the Church incurs a danger of alienating judges, legislators and public administrators whose good will is needed for other good programs, such as the support of Catholic education and the care of the poor. For all these reasons, the Church is reluctant to discipline politicians in a public way, even when it is clear that their positions are morally indefensible’.”
Objectively, if a bishop uses his consecrated spiritual power in exchange for monetary gain, that exchange constitutes simony. But what if a bishop agrees to refrain from using that power — again, for monetary gain?
If a bishop refuses to exercise his spiritual authority as required by canon law, and he reaps monetary gain in exchange for that refusal, does that also constitute simony? To be specific, is it merely due to cowardice in the face of unpopularity and the fear of attack that most bishops today fail in their consecrated obligation to apply canon law?
Or is it also the fact, as Uncle Ted points out above, that they’re afraid of losing their federal billions and becoming very, very unpopular?
Is It A Quid Pro Quo?
More from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
“The various temporal advantages which may be offered for a spiritual favour are, after Gregory the Great, usually divided in three classes. These are: (1) the munus a manu (material advantage), which comprises money, all movable and immovable property, and all rights appreciable in pecuniary value; (2) the munus a lingua (oral advantage) which includes oral commendation, public expressions of approval, moral support in high places; (3) the munus ab obsequio (homage) which consists in subserviency, the rendering of undue services, etc.”
Consider the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars our shepherds receive every year from the federal government. Regarding the silence of our shepherds on pro-abortion Catholic politicians, Cardinal McCarrick, deftly using Cardinal Dulles as his cut-out, makes it clear what is at stake: money.
Why risk “alienating judges, legislators and public administrators whose good will is needed” when we can just shut up about our generous friends and be done with it?
Consider next the popularity that our shepherds acquire with their federal paymasters when they flood Capitol Hill and badger the faithful with authoritative USCCB missives constantly advocating an expansion of the welfare state. Consider also how they have never, ever in their history, publicly opposed the federal taxpayer billions that their friend dole out to support “family planning” programs at home and abroad — programs that include contraceptives, abortifacients, and, under Democrat administrations, abortion, worldwide.
But my goodness, wouldn’t that risk losing all that money that goes to the bishops’ NGOs for “other good programs, such as the support of Catholic education and the care of the poor”?
What a sin against charity!
Our bishops are vocal on so many popular fantasies, and silent about so many truths. But their view is simple: They need the money.
Is it a quid pro quo? You decide.
Pray for our bishops.
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