The Guardian gets Williams, even if the Catholic hierarchy doesn't

Skipping the polling data we reviewed the Guardian in an editorial agrees with us [our bold face]:

This morning the BBC will broadcast [Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams] recorded remarks on the Irish Catholic crisis, in which he says, quite in passing, that the church there has "lost all credibility". This perception is so widely shared, and so close to the truth, that to say it out loud has provoked an enormous row. After the interview was made public, Williams produced an uncharacteristically political apology – which is to say that he regrets the offence he has caused, but not the offending remark; the Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, could be heard on Radio 4 yesterday biting back the word "insult" when he was asked about it.

The Lead tipped us off about how understandable William's remark was. As the Guardian observed:

No one can blame Williams for pointing this out, nor indeed for getting his own back for years of patronising comments and aggressive behaviour from the Roman church. The official Vatican observer at the last Lambeth conference appeared to say that the Anglican communion was suffering from Parkinson's disease. Pope Benedict has personally encouraged the schism in the Anglican churches over homosexuality and most recently announced, to the consternation of even his own church here, a scheme to allow the Anglican opponents of women priests to convert in groups.

Both the conflict, and absent clear-eyed Catholic confrontation with the real circumstances, the decline to which Williams correctly alluded will almost inevitably continue.

Those children ...

Paddy Doyle led us to this victim's view of the historic lack of Roman Catholic clergy concern for the afflicted children:

The reason why the church covered up the abuse and moved priests about is because they did not blame the priests, they blamed the children. With this knowledge observe the reaction of church authorities. They look as if they would like to say it, but can’t.

And that is it. They can’t because they believe society is now over-sentimental about children and they would not be understood. This was confirmed to me when I met an old priest tucked away in a nursing home despite the fact he was not unwell.

At one point he suggested Cardinal Ó Fiaich should be canonised, I rejected the idea, pointing out he was involved in the cover-up of abuse.

The old priest said: “People should forgive him, after all we are prepared to forgive the children.” I asked: “Forgive the children what?”

He replied: “Their share of the blame.” Of course in that moment I realised he was himself an abuser, hidden away there.

The complete piece was originally published in the Irish Times under the headline, "Church blames Devil-inspired children."

Not a word about the children in Pope Benedict XVI's Easter Message

What of the children? No mention. Silence to the "petty gossip." Seek to still truthful critics. The reputation of the church (and of the Pope) comes first. Always.

Reuters terse, "Factbox" roundup is for those not comfortable studiously looking the other way.

The full, English text of the Pope's message.

Archbishop of Canterbury hits an Irish Catholic nerve

In answer to a BBC interviewer, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told the blistering truth about the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland:

And an institution so deeply bound into the life of a society, suddenly becoming, suddenly losing all credibility - that's not just a problem for the Church, it is a problem for everybody in Ireland.

Without retracting, Williams responded today to the avowedly "stunned" Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, by saying he meant no offense and regretted any difficulties his remarks had caused.

Indeed, how could he retract? He was talking about a country where a recent poll by the Irish Independent found: "Just over half believe that Pope Benedict, who faces allegations of covering up sex abuse in the US and in Germany, should resign."

That poll is part of the evidence that both the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church are losing public esteem hand over fist, worldwide. For example, a similar poll in Austria found that 57% believe the pope should resign. While:

More than 53,000 people left the Catholic Church in Austria in 2009, and local figures for the first three months of this year hint that last year’s record number could be exceeded.

Likewise, a Stern Magazine poll found that only 24 percent of Germans still trust the Pope, whereas six weeks ago 38 percent said they did. And "19 percent of Germany's estimated 25 million Catholics were thinking about leaving the Church in response to the sexual abuse scandal."

A CBS poll found that in the U.S., 24 percent of Americans view Pope Benedict XVI negatively -- a startling change from 4% in 2006. While his favorable rating among Catholics plummeted from 40% to 27%.

Stinging fellow clerics who in passing state the obvious will not reverse the decline, and because sharp protests of the undeniable are not likely to be well-received, may accelerate it.

Southern Baptist autonomy (not for women in the pulpit: for predators)

Put a woman in the pulpit and the ax of Southern Baptist discipline falls. The Georgia Baptist Convention is preparing to disfellowship Druid Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta because the Reverend Mimi Walker is a co-pastor there. While critics write the South Carolina Baptist Courier to abjure Eau Claire Baptist Church for calling Kelly Dickerson Strum to be co-pastor, one suggesting that church discipline is in order.

Yet amid the recurrent revelations of Southern Baptist pastoral sexual abuse, again documented by Christa Brown, no equivalent scripture-laced outpourings about applying the force of denominational discipline to the protection of the young from sexual wolves in Baptist clerical cloth. Or disfellowship of churches which ship predators of the cloth along to other congregations without a word of warning.

Oh no. Policy is clear: Women in the pulpit are a danger to the entire denomination. As are homosexuals welcomed into the pews. For the proliferation of predators, however, Southern Baptist Churches are autonomous. No denominational consequence for negligence.

An implicit SBC sexual predation policy? [Neglect]

The inflexibility with which the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) disfellowships member churches which affirm homosexual behavior may surpass Roman Catholic application of excommunication to other issues. The Catholic Church is more tolerant of homosexuality, but like the SBC, faces unrelenting problems with clerical sexual abuse.
The 500-member Royal Lane Baptist Church of North Dallas, Texas, recently placed itself in peril of ejection from the Baptist General Convention of Texas and from the SBC when the diaconate voted to rewrite the About Us section of its Web site to include:

Royal Lane Baptist Church is an inclusive, multi-generational congregation joined in Christian community. We are a vibrant mosaic of varied racial identities, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and denominational backgrounds.

That did not represent a change of heart by the church, as Sam Hodges of the Dallas Morning News reported:

"In effect, this is a collective coming out about who we are and have been for a long time," said Ruth May, vice chair of the deacons.
. . .
[The Rev. David] Matthews, who became Royal Lane's pastor last year, said the Bible "understood through the prism of Jesus" calls for full acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Debate over the issue immediately related BGCT/SBC action against local churches with regard to homosexuality and their failure to apply similar force to sexual predators. Nathan Barnes wrote:

The leadership of the SBC and apparently the BGCT are not willing to sacrifice church autonomy to catalog and track sex offending clergy but are willing to sacrifice it to keep GLBT folks from serving the Lord.

In rejoinder, another commenter said, "If aberrant behavior is to be accepted as normal and within God's provision for human sexual expression, why not pedophilia, or bestiality, or??" and Barnes responded:

BUT pedophila is already accepted. No church has been disassociated from the SBC or BGCT for passing on sex offending clergy to other churches.
It's not a double standard. It's the standard.

Christa Brown said at Stop Baptist Predators:

Mr. Barnes got it exactly right. Baptist leaders have so twisted the doctrine of local church autonomy as to make it little more than an easily manipulated excuse to serve their own ends. It’s pure contrivance for Baptist leaders to say they can’t do anything about clergy predators because of local church autonomy. After all, look at how quick they are to interfere with churches that admit to having gay members.

Like the Roman Catholic Church, the SBC is attempting to assert ethical/spiritual authority in the midst of a long public parade of evidence of its failure to protect young Christians from predatory members of its own clergy.
Both have other priorities.
Like hiding what they can behind confidentiality agreements. To protect the church's reputation and authority, of course.
As the Irish Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse wrote in 2009 that the Catholic Church pre-occupation"in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse" was "the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets." Not the protection of the children.
Suffering little children are a lower priority for the SBC than keeping women pastors out of the pulpit, keeping homosexuals out of the pews and barring otherwise somehow insufficiently fundamentalist churches from affiliation.
Realistic minds in both denominations must foresee, absent restoration of their reputation as safe places for the young, a future of empty pews.
[H/T: StopBaptistPredators]

Molested in a counseling session

No, Austrian Arch-abbot Bruno Becker did not spontaneously come forward, admit to abusing a 12-year-old once, four decades ago and resign out of contrition.

Becker was first confronted. There was, the victim says, an attempt to bribe him into silence.

Two other clergy were apparently involved and the well-know pattern of predator behavior is evident:

The two padres - one of whom has left the Church, while the other has died - were arrested in Morocco in 2005 on sex tourism charges, according to Salzburg prosecutors. An Austrian court found one of them guilty of abusing underage Moroccan boys, they said.

Becker's abuse was particularly heinous because it occurred as part of a conversation whose declared purpose, available accounts indicate, was to help the victim deal with previous abuse.

To wit, Catholic Culture reports:

Archabbot George Becker of St. Peter’s Archabbey in Salzburg was 24 years old and not yet ordained a priest when he found out that two monks had abused a boy. The future archabbot then conversed with the boy and molested him.

Yet the Catholic Church continues to insist that it can handle those matters itself and is "doing all it can," The Irish Times reports, to ensure these things "will never happen again."

Catholic Church making DC Marriage Act adjustments [Update: Way clear for act to take effect]

The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has declared that it "will be in compliance" with the requirements of the city's same-sex marriage act [.pdf], which takes effect Wednesday, and that the church will as a result maintain a quarter of a million dollars worth of social services contracts.

Some members of the religious right made a last ditch pitch to Congress, asking passage of legislation requiring a public vote -- a strategy already rejected by the DC Board of Elections and Ethics [.pdf]. DC Superior Court refused prevent the act from going into effect.

Reversal on appeal is not expected, and Congress is not expected to act.

What adjustments the Archdiocese of Washington will make is unclear. It has already shut down its adoption and foster-care services, transferring "seven staff members, 43 children and their families, and the 35 foster families" to the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF) for future administration.

Placing children with same-sex couples has been a sticking point elsewhere because it involves a direct collision with matters of Catholic doctrine, but successful adjustment in administration of other services does not seem unlikely.

Update

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John G. Roberts "denied a last-minute request Tuesday afternoon for a stay of the District's same-sex marriage law, disappointing opponents of the measure, who wanted to bring it before city voters in a referendum," the Washington Post reported Tuesday afternoon.

Apparently, D.C. can begin accepting applications by gay couples for marriage licenses tomorrow morning.

Read the rest of the story here.

Catholic Charities denies coverage to spouses of all new hires

Catholic Charities adaptation is to deny benefits, thus escaping the possibility of providing coverage to the spouses of gay marrieds.

In a March 1 letter, President and CEO Edward J. Orzechowski informed employees that health benefits will be denied the spouses of all new employees, although coverage for those who are employees as of March 1, will be unaffected.

Legion of Christ more cooperative than Women Religious? Really?

Catholic Culture's Jeffrey Mirus, seeking redemption for the Legion of Christ, indicts Women Religious. The takeaway:

For those who would swear that the Legion is fundamentally flawed at its very root and cannot be salvaged (and there are a good many in this camp), I would suggest they take careful note of the difference between the Legion and the women religious in the United States as to how each group has responded to their respective current apostolic visitations. A large number of communities of women religious are in open rebellion against Rome, resisting the visitation, and revealing their desire to do without the Petrine ministry, the male priesthood, and the “patriarchal” dogmatic theology of the Church, including the traditional definition of the Holy Trinity. In contrast, the Legion has turned confidently toward the See of Peter as to Our Lord Himself. It is not too much to say that the one thing necessary to fruitful ministry is an ongoing willingness to make the mind of the Church one’s own. If the Legion can do that—as a number of female religious congregations apparently cannot—then there are many, even among its just opponents, who would be well-advised to hold their fire.

Something about that comparison rankles.

The last Legionnaires' apostolic visitation and predicted March outcome [Updated: Plagiarism]

With Zenit reporting a conclusion of the Legionaries of Christ apostolic visitation will be in March, this is a good time to review the first one (1956-1959).

Cassandra Jones explains:

. . . it concluded obscurely and Father Maciel and the Legionaries were able to misrepresent it for fifty years afterward. But the visitation did occur and actually concluded that Maciel needed to be removed from office and that the Legionaries needed reform. The Legionaries defeated that first apostolic visitation with untruth, appetizing presentation, and the help of curial friends. This is something that anyone interested in the honest outcome of today’s visitation needs to be aware of.

Attending the article is an instucitive timeline.

Bishops taking part in the current Apostolic Visitation met at the Vatican for "their first evaluation" on Dec. 4. They denied having met in October, as was reported earlier.

The Legion will not be dissolved but head will roll, according to an article by Jesus Bastante at the Spanish site ReligionDigital.com. The article says in part [Spanish]:

• Visitators will submit in their reports in mid-March, 2010.
• The order will not be dissolved but reaction will be stern and dismissals are expected.
• Current Legion leaders "are trying to disengage completely from the figure of" Maciel because Benedict has declared "zero tolerance" for pedophiles:
  

  The Pope was visibly shaken by everything that he has learned about the life of the founder of the Legion of Christ, and the responsibility not only Maciel, but many of his colleagues, who are now trying to avoid its responsibility by ignorance and apologizing.

• The seminaries will be restructured.
• Many top leaders will be asked to resign, among them probably Alvaro Corcuera, the current General Director, whom many accuse of having "instigated" the silence around Maciel for many years.

[H/T: How to get a loved one out of the Legion of Christ & Regnum Christi]

Does all of that remind you of Ireland, where after decades of systematically concealed abuse is revealed in a stunning report, the pope is outraged and an Irish bishop's resignation is accepted but thus far no one is going to jail? Nor, it seems, is the pope going to visit Ireland to apologize.

Just make some changes in top management, tidy up the offices and move on.

Maciel's Plagiarism:

“El Salterio de mis días” (The Psalter of my Days), popular and long-venerated by members of the Legion of Christ as a work of Fr. Marcial Maciel's spirituality, was plagiarized from a book by Spanish Catholic politician, Luis Lucía.

According to the Catholic News Agency, the plagiarism was disclosed in a recent, internally circulated Legion of Christ memorandum whose purpose was to further distance current members of the Legion from its founder.

The original book was “El Salterio de mis horas” (The Psalter of my Hours).

CNA reports that in it Lucía, a Spanish Christian Democrat, "reflected on his experience of being persecuted both by the Communist government during Spain's civil war (1936-1939), and the Nationalist government of Francisco Franco, who condemned him to death, but later changed the sentence to life in prison."

According to a CNA source, Fr. Maciel's version reproduces "80% of the original book in content and style."

Anglican leader pushes back

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams fired back Nov. 19, telling a conference in Rome that the Roman Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a barrier to Christian unity.

Speaking at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University prior to his Saturday meeting with Pope Benedict XVI, Williams said, drawing a sharp contrast, “For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women.”

He went on to say that Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism.

Thus, he thoroughly defied one of the animating tensions which led Pope Benedict XVI to offer disaffected Anglicans a “Church within a Church” that would enable them to retain traditional Anglican practices within the Catholic faith.

Williams not only repudiated the notion that he might lead a reversal of direction in the Anglican ordination of women, he also described the pope's historic offer as little more than an “imaginative pastoral response” which contributed little to ecumenical relations between the two churches.

Along the same lines, he also said:

It does not build in any formal recognition of existing ministries or methods of independent decision-making, but remains at the level of spiritual and liturgical culture.

As such, it is an imaginative pastoral response to the needs of some; but it does not break any fresh ecclesiological ground.

Protestants aren't the only ones who complain about the choir

The Italian [Catholic] Bishops Conference is looking at the rules for music and the magazine Espresso is running a poll along with its article on the national harmonic crisis.

Legionaries of Christ to be dissolved or refounded

Sources in Spain say Rome's investigation into the Legionaries of Christ will result in either the dissolution or the re-founding of the order. There is apparently a disagreement between the Americans and the Spaniards over which course to take and whether to keep any of the order's current leaders.

Roman Catholic journalist Austen Ivereigh writes for America magazine:

According to a former Legionary quoted by the Spanish religious journalist Jose Vidal, the ordinary priests and members of Regnum Christi, want a root-and-branch reform --if necessary, by means of a dissolution -- in order to give a new institute a fighting chance. But the order's leaders are fighting a defensive rearguard action, arguing that they knew nothing of the double life led by Maciel, and were therefore neither accomplices in his abuses nor did they attempt to cover them up.

The investigation, called an "apostolic visitation," is being conduded by Basque Bishop Ricardo Blazquez in Spain and by Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput in the United States.

Current leadership is in apparent denial about the full scope of Marcial Maciel's offenses, is "aware that no order has ever survived the repudiation of its founder" and with actions like a recent letter to the Legionaries lay organization Regnum Christi is fighting to stay in power.

The denialist strain still evident in their actions affirms that “the current Mexican leadership of the Legionaries is not up to the challenge of dissociating the organisation from the sexual and financial wrongdoings of the founder.”

"Subtle racism" still deters black Catholic leadership

Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo greeted the remarks more favorably than many did former President Jimmy Carter's declaration that President Barack Obama is besieged by racism. Note that other Catholic disagreement we found was civil in this important, widely overlooked moment in our long national debate over "racism" and its effects.

Black Catholic Bishop J. Terry Steib of the Diocese of Memphis reflected Saturday on the "subtle racism" which had resulted in "a relative dearth of black Catholic leadership" in 1984, when Black Catholic bishops issued their own pastoral letter: What We Have Seen and Heard [.pdf].

Keynote speaker at a symposium marking the silver jubilee of the landmark 1984 letter, he also said that despite a quarter of a century's progress, that same racism recently caused a furor in Catholic circles over Notre Dame University's award of an honorary degree to President Barack Obama. He told the audience at Philadelphia's St. Raymond Church that other presidents have had disagreements with the positions of the Catholic Church in in war policies and capital punishment and the like, but have received honorary degrees without similar objection. That racism, he said, is doing the church ongoing harm.

Lou Baldwin of the Catholic Standard Times wrote:

It is the subtle racism that still exists which contributes to the lack of priestly vocations among young black men because "it leads to a mistrust of the Church among young black men and women," he said. "Let's acknowledge that." On the other hand, the African-American community "has contributed to some of the difficulties they are facing," Bishop Steib said, quoting Obama on the collapse of the two-parent family in the black community and the failure of many black men to live up to responsibilities to their children.

The pastoral letter being celebrated dealt less with the effects of Catholic racism than with the special gifts, culture, and values shared African American Catholics bring to their church and their path in the faith.

Yet there was no possibility of omitting racism from the discussion while also being honest for racism an overarching characteristic of American life, not of denomination.

Speaking into the gale of uproar of Obama's school speech black Southern Baptist pastor Dwight McKissic did not flinch from it either. Bob Allen of the Associated Baptist Press summarized McKissic's view:

"Whenever a black man ascends to prominence and power, the political establishment tries to demonize that person," McKissic said. He quoted the late Jerry Falwell, who in 1961 questioned "left-wing associations" of Martin Luther King. "They were accusing him of being a communist and a socialist like they accuse Barack Obama of being a communist and socialist." ... McKissic said many white preachers want God to judge America for abortion and gay marriage. McKissic said he feels strongly on both of those issues but believes that racism is also a sin, and God must judge America for that sin as well.

Legion of Christ in (perhaps calculated) denial {Addendum]

A recent letter from Legionaries of Christ fathers Julio Martí and Scott Reilly to the lay organization Regnum Christi is in denial that the founder, Marcial Maciel, was disciplined by the Holy See amid charges which included sexually molesting minors.

In a paragraph about measures taken to preclude further abuse, the letter says:

One of the questions that come to mind refers to the “safe environment and child protection” measures in our communities and apostolates. Our Constitutions, other norms and many elements of our discipline have always helped us to be particularly careful in the dealing with minors.

More recently, it has become clear that Maciel fathered several children and Legion of Christ superiors knew about the children at least 15 years ago.

Cassandra has developed an enlightening timeline [scroll down the left-hand column] of events from the beginning.

Instead of dealing with events, however, the letter moves right along to focus on pursuit of new credentials that are intended to be reassuring:

More recently we are in the process of accreditation by Praesidium, a risk management organization now helping a great number of religious institutions in North America. Praesidium is conducting a full review of our internal rules and policies, as well as our training of all those who deal with minors. They will shortly be conducting on-site visitation of several of our institutions to verify that what is on paper is being applied. There are twenty-five accreditation standards to meet, covering the areas of prevention, response and supervision.

What are the standards?

They don't say, so we turned to the recently published Congregation of St. Basil Praesidium Accreditation Final Report, which documents their meeting the same standards.

That's so nice that it seems reasonable to wonder if the good fathers are trying to damp action by the Papal Visitation currently under way by appearing to have already done part of its work for it. This is, remember, a visitation with which it is rumored they are not being altogether cooperative.

Indeed, the good fathers report they have set up a review board whose membership and governance are not disclosed:

Here in the U.S. we have also set up an external review board so that in the event of allegations of sexual abuse, we have the advantage of “outside eyes” to weigh the evidence, issues and provide us with recommendations. Praesidium accreditation is being promoted by the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, which links all the male religious orders in this country.

It is also true that the letter extended “a special apology on behalf of the Legion” to victims of their founder’s sexual misconduct."

While, as you see, tending to deny the scope of the order's problems.

Addendum:

Members of Legionaries of Christ/Regnum Christi wishing to contact the apostolic visitor for the United States and Canada -- Archbishop Charles Chaput -- can do so via email. American Papist recommends:

To contact Abp. Chaput, send an email with the subject line "PRIVATE" to "shepherd [at] archden.org" (without the brackets and spaces). Emails ought to be VERY SHORT and to the point. Every email will be read eventually.

Cardinal O’Malley responds

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley received considerable incoming fire after presiding at Senator Ted Kennedy's funeral.

O'Malley wrote on his blog post Wednesday that he disagreed "in the strongest terms" with those who argued that Kennedy did not deserve a Catholic funeral.

Jacqueline L. Salmon called his defense "spirited." But as David Gibson and Mark Silk have observed, it was more than that.

O’Malley's reproach to his zealous critics was broad, not narrowly defensive of his action:

At times, even in the Church, zeal can lead people to issue harsh judgments and impute the worst motives to one another. These attitudes and practices do irreparable damage to the communion of the Church. If any cause is motivated by judgment, anger or vindictiveness, it will be doomed to marginalization and failure.

This call for moderation comes soon after the resignation under a cloud of Bishop Joseph Martino and repudiation of partisan, conservatives bishops by Santa Fe Archbishop Michael Sheehan.

That does not mean this debate is somehow simple, as tmatt reminds us, nor all of its origins obvious. But the authority of the call for moderation is increasingly clear.

Catholic Right drifts away from Papal Encyclical toward Protestant Conservatives

Today's NYT piece by David Kirkpatrick led both Grant Gallicho and Mark Silk to note how the Catholic right has put itself at odds with the church's social justice position.

Gallicho, himself Catholic, analyzed the comments of Bishop Nickless of Sioux City. Nickless told the NYT:

Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined ‘best procedures,’ which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses.

Gallicho responded:

Government monopoly?
Patient choice?
Does the bishop understand that in several states insurers operate virtual monopolies?
Or that many Americans have no choice when it comes to health insurance? That they take what they can get or else they go broke–or they can’t get it, suffer a catastrophic illness, and break the rest of us?
Are we to believe that the profit motive is better than “bureaucratic standards”?
Is that church teaching too?

Silk summarizes church teaching as recently reflected in Pope Benedict's encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. Silk writes:

As I've pointed out here, the pope's encyclical teaches that food, drinkable water, "basic instruction and elementary health care" are all "elementary and basic rights." Sure there's politics and prudential judgment involved in determining the best way to provide people with health care, but so is there in determining the best way to provide people with food and drinkable water and breathable air.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a Web site where it takes a stand for the broad, generous health care reform which church social policy implies. And against abortion. Which the Christian Right is attempting to use as a wedge issue by arguing there is unequivocal support for abortion in the various health reform proposals.

Carefully sorting abortion out produces equivocal results that do not support towering rhetoric from either side of the health reform debate. Consider the recent work of Beliefnet’s Steve Waldman on that issue.

As a result, Conservative Catholic bishops who are joining the Christian right on that may find themselves at odds with both church policy and reality.

Archdiocese of Leon, Mexico, unable to pay medical bills of infirm priests

David Agren of Catholic News Service writes:

Saying that falling Sunday collections have left the Archdiocese of Leon, Mexico, unable to pay the medical bills of its infirm priests, Archbishop Jose Martin Rabago has called on Catholics to continue supporting the church financially in spite of the current economic crisis.
Archbishop Martin told reporters Aug. 23 that the archdiocese had an $18,000 deficit during the first half of 2009 as collections fell. He said financial projections show the deficit would grow to more than $85,000 by the end of the year.

Read the rest of the story here.

Unique implosion of Legionaries of Christ continues

The implosion of the Legionaries of Christ is "unique in modern church history," writes Jason Berry of New Orleans for the Hartford Courant. And much of the fault lies squarely with Pope Benedict XVI, who in May of 2006 approved an order banishing order founder Father Marcial Maciel Degollado from public ministry to "a life of prayer and penitence," but ignoring the victims and failing to specify the causes of action.

Those omissions gave credence to a stream of misinformation which apparently continues amid a rising chorus of calls for top down reform of the $650 million-a-year order with seminaries, prep schools and universities spread across the globe.

On Feb. 3 it was revealed that Maciel had fathered a daughter, but there has still be no comprehensive report dealing the other issues. Specifically, as Berry wrote:

In 1997, Gerald Renner and I reported in The Courant on sex abuse accusations against Maciel by nine men who had been Legion seminarians in Spain and Rome in the 1950s. Juan Vaca, who said his abuse began at age 12, produced documents he sent to the Vatican in the 1970s and in 1989, to Pope John Paul II. Each time, the Vatican failed to act.

On Feb. 25, Archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin F. O’Brien called on the Legion of Christ to give “full disclosure” of their founder’s activities and has expressed his concerns that the movement ‘fosters a culture of personality’ with the founder at the center. The Legion of Christ had committed to releasing a major statement no later than that day, and no such statement was forthcoming.

Archbishop O'Brien has advised Catholics against joining the Legion or Regnum Christi and calls for Vatican intervention continue.

What next for the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi?

In the London Telegraph, Damian Thompson wrote:

Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore, America's oldest diocese, last week advised Catholics against joining the Legion or Regnum Christi. He said he was worried that the order "stifles the free will" of its priestly members and lay affiliates - not least, by encouraging the cult of Fr Maciel, a Mexican priest who abused seminarians and siphoned off money from the faithful to support his mistress and daughter.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, Archbishop O'Brien said:

"While it's difficult to get ahold of official documents," Archbishop O'Brien said, "it's clear that from the first moment a person joins the Legion, efforts seem to be made to program each one and to gain full control of his behavior, of all information he receives, of his thinking and emotions."

The archbishop said many members who leave the order suffer "deep psychological distress for dependency and need prolonged counseling akin to deprogramming."

Cath News echoes the call for Vatican intervention because "the current Mexican leadership of the Legionaries is not up to the challenge of dissociating the organisation from the sexual and financial wrongdoings of the founder."