He should never have been in that position after 2004, since he pled guilty to groping a 14 year old boy. Archbishop Myers was putting children in danger by not keeping Fugee out of active ministry.
He should NEVER have been returned to active ministry, he should have been laicized and locked away
but no, Church teaching isn’t clear enough on abusing children I guess, so he couldn’t be laicized.
The pain now had another dimension to it. These countries have been “converted” for centuries. You have to wonder, don’t you? What have they been told about women by the religious men who catechized them? What snide jokes and demeaning theology are still being taught about women by patriarchal religions? By the actions of exclusion and control and invisibility and domination and subordination of women by church men and holy elders everywhere? Even here. Even now.
From where I stand, it seems to me that male “protection,” paternalism and patriarchal theology are not to be trusted anymore because the actions it spawns in both men and women have limited the full humanity of women everywhere, and on purpose.
Isn’t it time for us all to really be converted, to say the real Truth about women from our pulpits, from our preachers, from our patriarchs, until both they and we finally believe it ourselves? Then surely the actions that make it real will follow.
"Sr Joan Chittister
Sr. Joan Chittister
I was just like you. Before you scroll past this, before you denounce me as a Protestant heretic who knows nothing about the Catholic Church, please listen for a few seconds.
For fifteen years of my life, I was sure I was going to be a religious sister. Of course there were a few years of doubt, but at 14 I was dead certain. I emailed religious communities, even visited a few. I fully intended to enter a religious community after I finished high school. It consumed every part of myself.
I had ideas about religious life. Habited nuns were the only “real” religious sisters. The others were of lesser value. Protestants were “heretics,” I accepted the “intrinsically disordered” teaching on “homosexual persons,” life issues were the main issues, etc. Religious communities had to talk about them and if they didn’t, they had no value to the Church. I was depressed because of the rigid rules I placed upon myself, and because I thought I was damned to the eternal fires of hell.
Then I had a revelation. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t worked for the Church understands what really goes on in one. There I was at 17, a pastoral assistant Suddenly I was faced with my own humanity. I realized that the world was a lot more complicated that the black and white rules I had drawn at 12 for myself. LIfe was a lot more complicated. People had real problems, they had real struggles. The catechism didn’t solve them and I could not just spout theology at them, they needed real pastoral care and love and understanding.
So I no longer had the conservative view of Catholicism that I had before; I grew to respect and love and cherish the LCWR congregations. My parents had me go to university—to broaden my view so that when I did enter the convent eventually, I could more effectively minister to those I was called to serve. I was going to work with those who felt they were unloveable, because I had once felt that way.
As some of you know, I got sick and was no longer able to enter religious life. I later left the Church because of personal reasons and joined the Episcopal Church, but I still work with a LCWR congregation.
I want you all to live your lives. Don’t spend your lives waiting to enter the seminary or the convent. Don’t spend them in perpetual holy hours or in Church all the time. Go out and find God in the world and serve Him in others. Love him in others by finding him in the world. Don’t spend your time calling others “heretics” on the internet or in real life. I’ve been there—instead spend your time loving God in the Other by serving your Neighbor.
If you are truly called to the religious life or the priesthood, your time to be a nun or religious or priest will come. But that time is not now. Go to college, go to high school, live the life you are called to live now, not waiting for the possible future.
In the Milwaukee Archdiocese, 575 people have filed claims saying that they were abused, over many decades, by Catholic clergymen. About 70 said they were victims of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who, church records show, admitted having molested deaf studentsat a boarding school outside Milwaukee, said Jeff Anderson, a lawyer in St. Paul who represents 350 of the 575 plaintiffs.
It’s not easy to read these
but you can’t be blind to what happened, to what still happens today
it’s not over
and clearly, as shown by the actions of the Archdiocese of Newark, it’s not getting better.
I know this has been posted before, but I don’t know if it was from a ~major news source.
But it makes me wonder: Yeah, it’s great that the church is so ~pro-life that it talks all about saving the babies, except when someone sues them. you have to practice what you preach, and it looks like this hospital is most definitely not
Nothing has changed
Bishops knew about the abuse
They hid it
They LIED
They protected the abusers
There are STILL priests who abuse children today
Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark, according to church personnel files.
