Buffalo Diocese Announces More Parish Closings Across WNY

Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947

Do you want some coffee, Mr. Tulley?
Louis:[to Egon] Do I?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Yes, have some.
Louis:[to Janine] Yes, have some.

DOB wrote:

<quoted text>
You GET PAID FOR ALL THESE HOURS ON HERE ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

CLEARLY, OBVIOUSLY and INTERESTINGLY

THE CLERGY MUST BE VERY FRIGHTENED OF THIS BLOG...

ALL THE ENERGY USED TO DISRUPT IT IS AMAZING...

IT SHOWS THE OLD BOYS CLUB MUST BE PRETTY FRIGHTENED ABOUT SOMETHING.

THE LAITY WERE NOT TO KNOW ANY INSIDE INFO, MUCH LESS SHARE IT.

THE BLOG MUST BE A REAL THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF THOSE WHO HIDE BEHIND ROMAN COLLARS.

so did Fr Ted do his swan song at st adalberts today? will never be the same....they will not be able to keep under their thumbs as they have done for years. now he will be out on his own and mixing with a ton of other people.look out

An influential international Catholic organisation has written to Pope Benedict XVI calling on him to remove Irish bishops named as part of the cover-up of clerical child abuse in Dublin. The Voice of the Faithful has also challenged the pope to order an Ireland-wide inquiry covering every diocese to examine further cases of priests abusing children.

In the letter, the group says "accountability cannot be achieved while so many bishops and archbishops, who have knowingly over a considerable period of time permitted this tragedy to persist, continue in office".

The group, which also has branches in North America, Australasia and Europe, asks the pope to order an island-wide inquiry into each diocese. So far the church in Ireland has resisted demands for an investigation covering all 26 Catholic dioceses.

The Irish government commission has just released its report on the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, and sadly, it's what we've come to expect. Excerpt:

Clergy were able to molest hundreds of vulnerable children because of a "systemic, calculated perversion of power" that put their abusers above the law, the Irish government said.
The damning verdict on the conduct of church and secular authorities followed a three-year investigation into allegations of child abuse by priests in Dublin going back to the 1960s.

Investigators who were given access to 60,000 previous secret church files accused four Archbishops of Dublin of deliberately suppressing evidence of "widespread" abuse.

Archbishops John Charles McQuaid, Dermot Ryan and Kevin McNamara, who have all since died, and Cardinal Desmond Connell, who is retired, all refused to pass information to local police, the report said.

Evidence was kept inside a secret vault in the archbishop's Dublin residence, with suspect clerics moved between parishes to prevent the allegations being made public.

For their part, Gardai frequently ignored complaints from victims, effectively granting priests immunity from prosecution. The inquiry found that church authorities nurtured inappropriately close relations with senior police officers.

Got that? Even the police colluded with the Catholic hierarchy to shield its child-raping priests from accountability. More:

The inquiry, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, dismissed the claims of former bishops that they did not know sex abuse was a crime.
It concluded that the the church hierarchy was preoccupied with "the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets".

It added: "All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities."

That is the key point of the entire sex abuse scandal, in this country as well: the utter guilt of the bishops. The pederast priests were never more than a small minority (and, of course, this kind of cretin exists in every church); some at least (but not all) were driven by dark compulsions. This is, regrettably, part of our fallen humanity. What enraged me, and what I think is even more damnable than the crimes against children themselves, is the fact that bishops who were not driven by compulsions, and whose responsibility it was to protect the innocent from these predators, valued their own position more than the innocence of children, more than the protection of Catholic families, more than justice, and ultimately, more than Jesus Christ. And there has been, and will not be, justice coming from the Church against those men for what they did to Catholic children, Catholic families, and the Catholic faith -- all in the name of preserving their position. Cardinal Mahony is still in power in Los Angeles, for example. Cardinal Law, who was driven from office, landed in a cushy position at a Roman basilica, courtesy of Pope John Paul II. The clerical mafia, lavender and otherwise, looks out for its own, no matter what it costs to the integrity of the Catholic faith.

Where is the true repentance? Where? It doesn't exist, at least not that I can see. What's done can't be undone, but if these bishops were truly sorry, they should retire to a monastery or some ascetic place, and spend the rest of their lives in penance. Fat chance of that happening with most of these men

REGARDING BLOG ABUSE wrote:

<quoted text>
Same stuff over and over and over again. Kinda like this guy from Forget Paris

And that, dear one, is the exact shame of it all.

READ and WEEP wrote:

<quoted text>
And that, dear one, is the exact shame of it all.

There is something really wrong with him

East Side Reporter wrote:

so did Fr Ted do his swan song at st adalberts today? will never be the same....they will not be able to keep under their thumbs as they have done for years. now he will be out on his own and mixing with a ton of other people.look out

I've only met him a few times. He seems like a nice guy. What's wrong if he mixes with other people?

An Irish Interlude

It was a cool fall evening in the city that constantly grows in size —“because it’s always Dublin.” The light streaming from the pub windows created an island of warmth and welcome. Within, the usuals were in place. Connor the tale-teller stood leaning with his back to the bar, one arm resting on the rim, while the other held his pint aloft. A thin man in his mid-fifties, he had worn many hats in his industrious life — estate agent, salesman, amateur journalist — in all of which his ready wit and smooth tongue had served him well. As he began to speak, most eyes in the pub turned towards him.

“There was once an ancient people ruled by priests. And every year they would hold a great sacrifice out on the plain that spread before their chief city. The priests would select a calf, and slaughter it by slitting its throat, and then butcher it and roast it on a great fire. The people would then be served portions of it — a mout’ful or two at most for each of the lot of them.”

He paused to take a sip of his porter, licked his thin lips, and continued.

“But after many years, the priests grew lax in their duties, and as the population grew the people complained they were not being well served. They demanded a change, and the priests were only too happy to oblige — them havin’ grown weary of the task. And so they devised a way to accomplish the sacrifice with minimal burden to themselves.”

He paused again, this time to take a last long draught from the pint. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his skinny throat at each swallow. He then set the emptied pint on the bar, and with a demure gesture declined another. The denizens of the pub leaned expectantly closer.

“Now listen what I’m tellin’ you,” he continued.“The priests would sprinkle the calf with spirits, and set it alight with a torch, and shoo it off into the crowd of worshippers. And they’d each have a knife or a blade of some sort, and as the poor beast ran wild, they would poke and hack at it until it was dead, and then they’d cut off a bit and have their mout’ful of the sacrifice.”

“The sons of bitches,” a loud voice boomed from the far end of the pub. The crowd turned their attention from Connor to the large, stooped man seated at a table by himself. Before him were a handful of dead soldiers: five empty whiskey glasses.“The sons of bitches,” he intoned again. Suddenly aware that he had drawn the attention of the crowded pub, he raised his reddened eyes to gaze on them with a mixture of accusation and appeal.

“The priests and brothers — what they did to those children in their care. Hophni and Phinheas, I tell you, Hophni and Phinheas. And the bishops are as bad if not worse. An Eli every one of ’em, turnin’ a blind eye, and coverin’ up when they oughta’d rooted out the evil from their midst. There’ll be hell to pay, I tell you.”

The crowd shifted uneasily in the silence. Connor began slowly to make his way toward the door.

“It used to be said that Ireland was the old sow that ate her farrow,” the burly man continued. He clenched the edge of the table with his outstretched arms.“But it was never Ireland. It was the church; it was always the church. Damn them to hell. Damn them all to hell.”

Connor, by this time, was at the door and soon out on the quiet street. A light rain, more a mist than rain, was falling. The street-lamp opposite, with its rain-born halo, seemed to him to be held out in benediction.“Damn them all to hell,” he said, as he turned to walk into the darkness.

So where were the dirty deals done? It is impossible to believe that covering up for deviant priests was organised in casual conversation between the aristocrats of the Church, the senior policemen and the civil servants who colluded in hiding the scandal of clerical sex abuse from the public.
Of course, these people were meeting on State occasions, they mixed socially and on sporting occasions. But there was nothing casual about this cover-up. This was highly organised.
It is clear from the Murphy report that the cardinals, archbishops and the top echelons of the Catholic Church had access to the best legal, medical and financial advice when it came to dealing with a tsunami of deviants and paedophiles who were using the Church as a cloak for their horrible activities.
Their advisers took on the Church & General Insurance company from 1987 and ran rings around them. For a premium of about €50,000 a year they got about €50m to compensate the victims. You don't do that without corporate planning, and that corporate planning was done on a 'need to know' basis by churchmen and their friends in high places.
But it went deeper that that. There were 'connections'-- funny handshakes, meetings in dark corners. The tentacles of the Catholic Church reached far beyond the dark aisles of the archbishop's palace and into the corridors of power.
If this weren't Ireland we could say there was a Masonic-style ring operating at the highest echelons in the Church and the State. But there was serious planning involved in covering up the scandal, in moving deviant priests from one parish to the next, in sending them abroad, in organising secret compensation for their victims. And it is this cover-up that needs further investigation.
Many ordinary priests were themselves unaware of what was going at the highest level in the Church they worked for.
"We were told 'we have heard what you are saying and we will deal with it'," says Fr Brian D'Arcy, "that was shorthand for saying we will do nothing and it will all blow over."
But Fr D'Arcy was going to get the truth. The whole culture and structure of the Church was to protect its reputation, its majesty and its pomp.
The cynical leaders of the Catholic Church took a decision that how they were seen in the eyes of the faithful was more important than the innocence of children.
Priests were told not to ask the names of abusers when mothers came to complain; the priest offenders 'disappeared' on the orders of Church leaders, to new parishes where the abuse would start all over again. And they also used Jesuitical phrases and political answers to protect themselves, fooling themselves into thinking that they were telling the truth when they knew that it wasn't the 'real' truth.
"What I think is that the powers that be convinced themselves that the children would get over it and that by hiding this they were protecting the Church and the faithful from scandal -- they were protecting the image of the priesthood," says Fr D'Arcy.
"Some priests even believed that by going to confession they could change everything -- it might have changed things for the priest, but it does not change the damage done to the children or the abuse."
We now have all the evidence we need of a cover-up among senior churchmen and among senior figures in the State. The Church is not the only institution that should bear the brunt of public anger and revulsion: those who allowed it to continue are equally to blame.

READ THE TECHNIQUE USED BY THE CARDINAL TO EMPLOY "HALF - TRUTH" AND NOT "LIE" TO HIS DIOCESE.

IT SOUNDS ALL TOO FAMILIAR, DOESN'T IT?????

When Cardinal Desmond Connell lied to RTE, he did so carefully. He used a 17th-century variation on a 13th-century philosophical technique employed by the heavies from the Catholic Church elite. This enabled him to deceive RTE and the public while keeping a clear conscience. What a clever, learned man. How adeptly he used this ancient manoeuvre to protect his standing and power.

And how recognisable the technique is, to those of us familiar with the skills of modern politicians.

The Murphy report -- mercifully -- doesn't go into the relentless detail that was appropriately used when the Ryan report described the frightful abuse heaped on children. Some detail is unavoidable, but by now we are all so sickened by this squalid affair that a simple statement that abuse took place is usually sufficient to convey the dreadfulness.

Instead, the Murphy report emphasises the abuse of language, logic and conscience, by bishops, senior policemen and others, as they protected the abusers and thereby allowed the abuse to continue for years after it might have been stopped.

Each report serves us well. Ryan described the horror of what was done, how widespread it was and how it went on and on and on. Murphy describes the techniques of self-defence employed by powerful individuals, and a dominant institution, to try to protect and preserve that power and dominance.

And Murphy shows the role played by obsequious cheerleaders and facilitators -- and by a deferential Catholic laity. There is evidence of others for whom the law and the protection of children was paramount. Garda Finbarr Garland was less than a year on the force in 1983. By his own standards, he didn't do anything extraordinary. He simply did his job, thoroughly, when two boys complained of abuse by a priest. His immediate superiors, a sergeant and inspector, backed him without fuss.

It was the higher-ups who saw the law and the protection of children as a lesser cause than the protection of a powerful Church. The logic behind the cover-up was that the souls of the ignorant laity, and the proper direction of Irish society, were best left in the hands of a powerful, paternal Church. Anything that might reduce that power was bad. And if protecting the Church meant covering up widespread child abuse, so be it. And if that meant that abusers had to be moved on to fresh fields of abuse, so indeed be it.

In 1995, Cardinal Connell was in a dilemma -- young Andrew Madden was pursuing his abuser, Fr Ivan Payne, through the courts. Payne needed money to try to kill the case, so Connell gave it to him, from church funds. Questioned by Joe Little of RTE, Connell denied church funds were used for that purpose.

Happily, Cardinal Connell was familiar with the doctrine of "strict mental reservation". This allowed him to say one thing and mean another. Because God knew what was in his mind.

The report describes how Cardinal Connell told Andrew Madden "that when he was asked by journalists about the use of diocesan funds for the compensation of complainants of child sexual abuse, he... had responded that diocesan funds are not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds were not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense, he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past." Who's a clever boy?

Even by the lights of his own theology, Connell was lying.

The classic example of the doctrine of 'mental reservation' is this -- suppose a man is being hunted and you help conceal him but those eager to kill him demand that you tell them where he is. You may say, "He didn't come through here", thereby misleading them. But (and I bet Cardinal Connell gets a kick out of this), as you say this you covertly point your finger up your sleeve.

SO THIS IS THETECHNIQUE USED TO TELL HALF TRUTHS AND NOT FEEL YOU ARE LYING TO THE DIOCESE.

SOUND FAMILIAR??????????

When Cardinal Desmond Connell lied to RTE, he did so carefully. He used a 17th-century variation on a 13th-century philosophical technique employed by the heavies from the Catholic Church elite. This enabled him to deceive RTE and the public while keeping a clear conscience. What a clever, learned man. How adeptly he used this ancient manoeuvre to protect his standing and power.

And how recognisable the technique is, to those of us familiar with the skills of modern politicians.

The Murphy report -- mercifully -- doesn't go into the relentless detail that was appropriately used when the Ryan report described the frightful abuse heaped on children. Some detail is unavoidable, but by now we are all so sickened by this squalid affair that a simple statement that abuse took place is usually sufficient to convey the dreadfulness.

Instead, the Murphy report emphasises the abuse of language, logic and conscience, by bishops, senior policemen and others, as they protected the abusers and thereby allowed the abuse to continue for years after it might have been stopped.

Each report serves us well. Ryan described the horror of what was done, how widespread it was and how it went on and on and on. Murphy describes the techniques of self-defence employed by powerful individuals, and a dominant institution, to try to protect and preserve that power and dominance.

And Murphy shows the role played by obsequious cheerleaders and facilitators -- and by a deferential Catholic laity. There is evidence of others for whom the law and the protection of children was paramount. Garda Finbarr Garland was less than a year on the force in 1983. By his own standards, he didn't do anything extraordinary. He simply did his job, thoroughly, when two boys complained of abuse by a priest. His immediate superiors, a sergeant and inspector, backed him without fuss.

It was the higher-ups who saw the law and the protection of children as a lesser cause than the protection of a powerful Church. The logic behind the cover-up was that the souls of the ignorant laity, and the proper direction of Irish society, were best left in the hands of a powerful, paternal Church. Anything that might reduce that power was bad. And if protecting the Church meant covering up widespread child abuse, so be it. And if that meant that abusers had to be moved on to fresh fields of abuse, so indeed be it.

In 1995, Cardinal Connell was in a dilemma -- young Andrew Madden was pursuing his abuser, Fr Ivan Payne, through the courts. Payne needed money to try to kill the case, so Connell gave it to him, from church funds. Questioned by Joe Little of RTE, Connell denied church funds were used for that purpose.

Happily, Cardinal Connell was familiar with the doctrine of "strict mental reservation". This allowed him to say one thing and mean another. Because God knew what was in his mind.

The report describes how Cardinal Connell told Andrew Madden "that when he was asked by journalists about the use of diocesan funds for the compensation of complainants of child sexual abuse, he... had responded that diocesan funds are not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds were not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense, he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past." Who's a clever boy?

Even by the lights of his own theology, Connell was lying.

The classic example of the doctrine of 'mental reservation' is this -- suppose a man is being hunted and you help conceal him but those eager to kill him demand that you tell them where he is. You may say, "He didn't come through here", thereby misleading them. But (and I bet Cardinal Connell gets a kick out of this), as you say this you covertly point your finger up your sleeve.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/...

Anonymous wrote:

<quoted text>
I've only met him a few times. He seems like a nice guy. What's wrong if he mixes with other people?

Why did he come here "about 17 years ago from Poland?"

Isn't it interesting that grosz facilitated his coming here and now replaces grosz?

Somebody owe somebody a favor?

Typical pattern... sick, sick, sick

READ THIS FROM REUTERS:

A little too much so, I discovered shortly after getting into the front passenger seat when the priest — and he was wearing his clerical collar, so there could be no doubt — put his hand on my knee.

Suddenly, if I’d been headed to Galway, which I think I was, I decided getting off at the next little village was just grand, and so slipped out of the only awkward experience I’d had hitching around a half dozen European countries

http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2009/11/2...

THIS KIND OF STORY-TELLING IS NOT ONLY USED IN IRELAND BY THE PRIESTS/BISHOPS...

IT JUST SOUNDS ALL TOOOOOOOOO FAMILIAR:

The Catholic hierarchy of Ireland even had a secret weapon for dealing with those awkward moments when the parents of an abused child, or someone in authority, brought it to their attention that Father So-and-so was swimming naked in a pool with the altar boys.

Cardinal Desmond Connell said that while a priest could not tell a lie, he could knowingly leave a false impression, under what Connell said was the concept of “mental reservation.”

“There may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be,” Connell said by way of explaining this cleverly nuanced take on St. Augustine’s treatises proving it is never lawful to tell a lie.

Cardinal Desmond Connell explained the concept to the commission as follows:

"Well, the general teaching about mental reservation is that you are not permitted to tell a lie. On the other hand, you may be put in a position where you have to answer, and there may be circumstances in which you can use an ambiguous expression realising that the person who you are talking to will accept an untrue version of whatever it may be - permitting that to happen, not willing that it happened, that would be lying ... So mental reservation is, in a sense, a way of answering without lying."

The report cited use of "mental reservation" by church authorities in the cases of Marie Collins and fellow abuse victim Andrew Madden.

In the latter case, Cardinal Connell said he did not lie to the media about whether diocesan funds had been used to compensate abuse victims. He explained to Andrew Madden he had told journalists "that diocesan funds ARE [ report's emphasis] not used for such a purpose; that he had not said that diocesan funds WERE not used for such a purpose. By using the present tense he had not excluded the possibility that diocesan funds had been used for such purpose in the past."