This Is Why Cowards Have No Welcome in Heaven
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
The mentality has been:
-When I make it out of seminary I’ll say something….
-After I’m ordained I’ll say something….
-Once I make pastor I’ll say something…
-If I’m ever made a Bishop I’ll say something..
What you end with is men without chests who never say anything..
And think they’re virtuous in being mute.
I wouldn’t expect any priest in either the dioceses of Metuchen or Newark to say anything given every bishop in NY, NJ and the DC area, and heck the majority of the USCCB, knew and said nothing.
Don’t rock the boat.
You’ll recall the blog maintained by Ignatius Press which included Philip Lawler, Domenico Bettinelli, Fr. Paul Mankowski, Fr. Paul Shaughnessy (IIRC) and “Diogenes” (a composite, but usually Fr. Paul Mankowski) as its contributors? IIRC, it was called “Off the Record” or some such. There was a 2005 Diogenes post on McCarrick’s conduct in regard to invoking a particular canon which surmised he was being blackmailed and that the blackmail was reinforced with 28 year old photographs of a nearly naked man at a beach house. There was some mighty specific scuttlebutt circulating at that time.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2021/07/07/newark-archdiocesejohn-j-myers-home-hunterdon-county-nj/7872152002/
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It was either Fr. Mankowski or Fr. Shaugnessy who said that if you inspect a rectory and find a full liquor cabinet and slick magazines (among other things), you can wager the priest’s life of chastity is in disorder. It was his opinion that promoting ascetical practices would clear a mess of dubious characters out of the seminary.
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Would-be whistleblowers usually look to see if anyone at all is prepared to stand with them. If no one, odds are they’ll keep silence. In hindsight it looks like cowardice and probably is to some degree. But standing alone in the face of certain attack and possible loss of career is brutally hard. Few are cut out for it. That’s the simple reality.
From Batman Begins: “I ain’t a rat. Besides, in this town there’s no one to rat too.” Probably a lot of that mindset. Especially in cases where people “knew” but not first hand.
I am *still* horrified that not even one person stepped up to stop McCarrick from his evil, since it was such common knowledge.
It cannot just have been fear of reprisal or disinterest.
The words of this posting are absolutely correct. The words of our Creed include sorrow for our sins – “for what we have done and what we have not done”.
Satan flourishes where truth fears to challenge his bullying. We *all* have a mission to fight evil right where we are, no matter who we are and no matter how dangerous it may be.
Just my two cents.
I think quite a few of these gay clerics think homosexuality is okay in practice as long the partner is not a minor.
It came to light that Venezuela? had an underground railroad of sorts for homo leaning seminarians to attend a NJ seminary. These young men would be assigned for the summer to gay pastors who would further groom them. Sometimes there were conflicts between pastors over which favorite would be sent to which parish. Nice cars, trips to the beach, going to shows in the city were enticements. Hopefully seminaries have been cleaned out.
Weeeellllllllll……
If efforts regarding McCarrick were lamentable, others have been pretty disgusting too. Most of us would not be willing to confront a bishop–never mind a cardinal–about liturgical abuses.
In many contexts, I consider that we hear “human” or “person” now; 30 years ago, we would have heard “he”, “him”, “his”, “man”, or “men” in reference to a generic person. Ladies demanded to condemn these as “sexist”.
If we aren’t willing to confront a mob of women about these, nor confront others about communion in the hand, EMHCs, altar girls, or blah music, …the argument about McCarrick loses much of it’s savor with me.
I get it that McCarrick’s actions dealt with the sixth commandment directly, yet even venial sins become mortal if they are persistent and many.
Besides which, far too many of those who critique the Church about McCarrick and other abusers, …still refuse to condemn safe sex education and the secular progressive mentality in schools.
We can’t legitimately scream about smelly air if we refuse to take out the trash.
Re the article on Archbishop Myers’ retirement mansion: I remember when he was bishop of Peoria IL (1990-2001) and was being hailed as the great conservative Catholic hope. He had an article printed about him in Newsweek in 1990 and ordained classes of up to 12 new priests at a time in the early/mid 90s for Peoria. Yet even then there was controversy about his remodeling the bishop’s quarters in the cathedral rectory at considerable cost, allegedly including a “hot tub” (he said it was just a regular bathtub with some Jacuzzi-style jets). I remember thinking at the time that the “hot tub” controversy was silly but now it appears to have been a foreshadowing of things to come, I guess.