A talk about the crisis within the Church

For my special presentation on our talkshow Straight from the Sky, we bring you the issue that has become viral in the Catholic clergy when His Excellency Carlo Maria Vigano, Titular Archbishop of Ulpiana and Apostolic Nuncio, wrote an 11-page exposé of Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C. Theodore McCarrick. This letter sought the resignation of Pope Francis because apparently he already knew about the problems of McCarrick, yet still allowed him a lot of leeway.

Allow me to get a quote from that letter by Archbishop Vigano who wrote: “Bishops and priests, abusing their authority, have committed horrendous crimes to the detriment of their faithful, minors, innocent victims, and young men eager to offer their lives to the Church, or by their silence have not prevented that such crimes continue to be perpetrated.

“To restore the beauty of holiness to the face of the Bride of Christ, which is terribly disfigured and by so many abominable crimes, and if we truly want to free the Church from the fetid swamp into which she has fallen, we must have the courage to tear down the culture of secrecy and publicly confess the truths we have kept hidden.

“We must tear down the conspiracy of silence with which bishops and priests have protected themselves at the expense of their faithful, a conspiracy of silence that in the eyes of the world risks making the Church look like a sect, a conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia. “Whatever you have said in the dark...shall be proclaimed from the housetops” (Lk. 12:3).” This is how honest Bishop Vigano was in his letter!

Mind you, we are now in the Year of the Clergy and Consecrated Life and this exposé is revealed to the media, and worse of all, the social media networks are questioning why the Vatican has remained silent on this issue? In fairness, last Thursday Pope Francis directed Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to investigate allegations by a West Virginia Bishop to allay fears that it wasn’t doing something about this problem. Mind you, call this an offshoot to what was happening in Hollywood’s Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment cases that went viral last year. But that’s Hollywood, which is part of their daily fare. Here we are talking about the clergy!

Since, I didn’t want to have as my guest a member of the Cebu Archdiocese as that person may not be able to answer many issues that have been brought forth, I called on my good friend, Dr. Rene Bullecer of Human Life International who is a layperson with ties to the Vatican. I openly told him what we would be talking about and he clearly wanted to say his piece. Mind you, while many of the Pope’s critics have asked him to resign, both Dr. Bullecer and I are not joining that call.

So watch this interesting discussion on what the issues are happening in the Vatican on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8 p.m. with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9 p.m. Monday and at 7 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday and Friday.

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At the Angelus on Sunday, August 12, 2018 Pope Francis said these words: “Everyone is guilty for the good he could have done and did not do...If we do not oppose evil, we tacitly feed it. We need to intervene where evil is spreading; for evil spreads where daring Christians who oppose evil with good are lacking.” Last Thursday, Pope Francis met with US Catholic Church leaders to discuss the sexual abuse crisis that has shamed the Church.

I understand that Cardinal McCarrick has resigned, becoming the first US cardinal to step down due to allegations of sexual abuse. He served as Washington’s archbishop from 2001 until his retirement at age 75 in 2006. Accusers said Cardinal McCarrick harassed two minors, as well as young adult seminarians. Actually there’s more to this case.

Mind you, many issues were misdirected to the priest’s issue of celibacy, but in truth, the bigger issue is about homosexuality within the clergy with so many top Vatican officials supporting the issue of homosexuality. This is totally wrong and should be stopped right away!

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.