When the pope mentioned growing up in a sinister regime, did he mean Nazis or Catholics? Readers respond to the papal visit

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By Kay Ebeling
Here are reactions to the pope’s visit you won’t read in mainstream media, plus Bill Maher’s New Rule About Catholics in the video box above. (He sees FLDS and Pope as similar, except 'altar boys can't get pregnant.') First email: Mary Pitcher writes, “To those who so want the Catholic Church to be what it claims to be.”

I am truly pleased that the pope has mentioned the abuse and the victims so often on his trip. I think people have become tired of the topic and want it to be over. And it is so not over…and if we pretend it is, it is such a disservice to all of us, most especially those who had the courage to step forward, and to those who have not yet had found their voice.

And also to those who so want the Catholic Church to be what it claims to be…..a worldwide community example of Christ’s love. Until this scandal is confronted in all its ugliness and complexity, the church’s very existence is at risk. So having him highlight it, allows it to remain front and center. That’s a very good thing.

I am also so pleased that the pope has actually said that the pain and suffering of the survivors cannot be put into words. I have not heard ANYTHING like “get over it.” It seems to me Benedict has gone so far as to suggest that listening to the survivors is important and necessary for all in the community. I do wonder about the people he chose to meet. He didn’t meet with any of the leaders of the survivor’s groups. That’s a problem. It’s like a leader only wanting to surround himself with those who see things his way.

I have heard the words “Scandal in America, US scandal, US crisis,” too many times in his speeches. This is NOT a US problem. It is a worldwide problem. It is a worldwide problem that is deeply, deeply embedded in the structure of the church.

And all the pomp, the adulation by the press, the adulation by Catholics and non-Catholics alike, adds to my concern this is part of the problem. The elevation of the priest, bishop, pope, as someone who stands above us in all ways, but especially as the one who mediates between us and God, created and perpetuates the sickness of the structure.
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Requests for young boys as companions by priests based in Rome during John Paul's visit. . .
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Instead of adulation from the press I’d like to have Richard Sipe offer his commentary. Sipe is a former Benedictine priest, who in his 35 plus years after the priesthood as a therapist/author, has studied the priesthood and treated priests in trouble. www.richardsipe.com. In his book, Celibacy in Crisis, on page 242, he describes two horrible scenarios.

“I have already recounted the story of the young priest who was hospitalized with a severe depression. Mute for weeks, he finally confided his unbearable secret. His bishop-mentor-friend used him to procure young sexual companions from the streets. Evil, not illness, morality, psychology or situation, dominates this behavior.”

And then…this paragraph from Richard Sipe flew back to me as I thought about the pope’s visit:

“John Paul II has visited the United States on several occasions during his reign as pope. The preparations for his visits take years. Even the color and type of his vestments as well as each detail of his schedule are orchestrated by a team of emissaries, mostly priests from Rome.

"A diocesan team headed by the local bishop or cardinal coordinates the myriad details. I have fielded complaints from local workers that they had to respond to requests for sexual companions---usually young boys---from priests based in Rome.”

(On a personal note…when I first read these words a few years back I sobbed for what seemed like hours. My heart was breaking…..I no longer cry like that…..but I also no longer hold out hope that the church can be saved. I truly believe it has already collapsed. And some people simply aren’t aware of it as of yet. I also believe that what is emerging from the ashes what Clarissa Pinkola Estes talks about as the “church beneath the church.”

The pope talks about not letting pedophiles into the seminary….what about those who are the administrators and the teachers? What about those perpetrator administrators and teachers who know where they bodies are buried…..Those who have something to hold over the men currently in power.

In two years in the mid 70’s, more than 30% of the St. John’s Seminary graduating class were credibly accused perpetrators. We have not gotten graduates of that seminary still currently priests to admit that they saw or heard anything. I wonder if statistical analysis from classes in the 80’s and 90’s will show similar percentages of perpetrators….as more and more victims come forward as they reach the age when they can admit what happened to them as children.

I truly believe that the structure of the church hierarchy, with a basis is patriarchy, is evil. There is no resolution to this scandal, this manifestation of evil…. unless the structure is addressed.

And the pope’s very visit to the UN, the fact that the Vatican is considered to be a Nation State flies in the face of being able to topple the structure.
-- Mary Pitcher
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JAY NELSON WROTE:
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This from the Pope this afternoon:

"My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers," he told the crowd at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers.

"Its influence grew, infiltrating schools and civic bodies as well as politics and even religion before it was fully recognized for the monster it was," the pope said.
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The horror of the destruction recounted for generations. . .
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"Many of your grandparents and great-grandparents will have recounted the horror of the destruction that ensued. Indeed, some of them came to America precisely to escape such terror."

So what was he talking about? Growing up Catholic?
-- Jay Nelson
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And Frater G contributed this copy and pasted from a political website:
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The papal visit had one major institutional crisis to deal with—the long-running scandal over the sexual abuse of children by thousands of Roman Catholic priests. This dimension of the visit brought another display of media adulation and ideological reaction.

The press portrayed Benedict—who adamantly rebuffed sex abuse victims for years while serving John Paul II—as deeply moved by their suffering. In his initial remarks about the scandal, however, as he flew to the US on board his personal jet, the pope bemoaned only the damage done to the Church, not to the victims themselves. The US Catholic Church has paid out more than $2 billion in legal settlements to some 13,000 victims, including $660 million in the Los Angeles diocese alone, and several dioceses have been compelled to file for bankruptcy.

The pope's closed-door meeting with five sex-abuse victims was presented by Church officials and the media as a major breakthrough, although the five had been carefully vetted by the Boston archdiocese to ensure a relatively harmonious session.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said the five had "ongoing relationships" with archdiocesan officials, and had "stayed engaged with the office"—i.e., they had remained loyal to the hierarchy despite the Vatican's continued defense of Cardinal Bernard Law.

As Boston archbishop, Law protected priest-abusers and allowed them to transfer from parish to parish when exposed, rather than removing them from the priesthood.

Benedict even sought to blame the sex-abuse scandal on the excessive sexual permissiveness of modern culture, rather than the repressive practice of priestly celibacy which the Catholic Church, alone of major religious institutions, continues to enforce.
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Priest rape reports in Poland, Mexico, Ireland, Austria, and Germany suggest common denominator not US loose morals
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Similar sex-abuse cases have been reported in countries as diverse as the United States, Poland, Mexico, Ireland and Austria. The common denominator is not the culture of the specific countries, but the atmosphere prevalent within the Catholic Church as an institution.

As the World Socialist Web Site noted when the sex abuse scandal in the United States first came to widespread public attention, some six years ago, "Every aspect of the sexual abuse crisis—the pain and suffering of the victims, the misery and sexual dysfunction of the priests, the callousness of Church officials—suggests a diseased institution whose practices and beliefs run counter to elementary human needs and inevitably breed the unhealthiest of psycho-sexual climates. The Catholic Church's essential being flies in the face of modern society."
-- World Socialist Web Site
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BONUS: This quote circulated Saturday, from Tom Doyle:
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They are probably going to make a couple of minor changes in the process and maybe even add to the years before the SOL runs out. On the other hand his remarks about the bishops are typical....he claims some bishops told him they didn't know the score etc. His sources for any information about this nightmare have been the bishops.....the guys who caused it. That's like the blind leading the blind. One lies and the other swears to it. They don't get it. They won't get it. They can't get it.
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ME: I’m glad it’s over. I have a jury trial to cover and don’t need distractions like the raging anger I felt all week because of the pope’s visit.
-- kay ebeling

Onward. . .

Papal visits to me are just a bunch of pap.