Hear what Roger Mahony does not want you to hear. Bishop who confronts sex and crime in the Catholic Church will appear in LA June 12

By Kay Ebeling

What a clear and direct opening paragraph: “Sexual abuse of minors by a significant number of priests, together with the attempts by many church authorities to conceal the abuse, constitute one of the ugliest stories ever to emerge from the Catholic Church. It is hard to imagine a more total contradiction of everything Jesus Christ stood for, and it would be difficult to overestimate the pervasive and lasting harm it has done to the Church.”

The book quoted above caused Roger Mahony to write: “I am hereby requesting that you cancel your visit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Canon 763 makes it clear that the Diocesan Bishop must safeguard the preaching of God’s Word in his own Diocese. Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.” -- Signed His Eminence, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, May 9, 2008.

Showing all the respect due Roger Mahony when it comes to the issue of predator priests, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson from Australia, pictured above, will be speaking and signing his book, Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church, in Los Angeles June 12th at 7:00 PM , in the ballroom at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel near Fox Hills Mall, Culver City, 7:00 PM, admission free, $4 to park or you can take the 439 bus like me.

At least 10 other American bishops have sent letters like Roger Mahony’s urging Robinson to stay away, and the Australian Conference of Bishops has him under investigation because of his book “Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church.” There must be something worth seeing at Robinson's speaking engagements.

“These guys are like the Cosa Nostra, just like Frank Keating said,” says Tom Honore, pictured above, who organized the Culver City appearance, as an activist with A Call to Action. “Silence is their rule and that's why they're so angry about his book and what he’s saying.”

Robinson writes that the church is “fractured.” He says, “I felt that the demand was being made that I give my submission to the silence as well as to the words, and I could not do this."

Robinson’s ideas may be astonishing to Roman Catholics but once again as I forge through these stories, I realize how fortunate I was that my dad let me stop going to Catholic Church when I was 13 years old and showing so many signs of damage. My dad was only beginning to understand back in the early 1960s what rape by a priest in preschool years had done to my sister and me.

What Bishop Robinson is saying is not revolutionary. It’s what anyone who studies the Bible discovers about three or four books into the New Testament, that the problems in the Catholic Church date back to about the Year 100, when they started doing everything wrong and then built from there.

Plus, what Robinson is saying is considered by American bishops “dangerous to say” in “an institution that denounces homosexual behavior and all sexual activity outside of marriage but overlooks the perverted behavior of ‘celibate’ bishops and priests.”

That quote came in an email I think from Udo, and it expresses my thoughts exactly, although I have no idea who wrote it.

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‘Every ounce of effort I put forward to bring Bishop Robinson here would be worth it if survivors came to be with this man’
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“From having read the book and witnessed the tears and horrible devastation that this abuse has wreaked in the lives of survivors, I hope survivors will come to see Geoffrey Robinson,” Honore said. “It’s rare to hear someone who’s a person of faith who understands authentic living and love,” Honore says.

“I would feel that every ounce of effort that I put forward would be worth it if survivors come and be with this man. He has a lot to offer.”

The ballroom at Four Points Sheraton where Robinson is speaking holds 200 people. City of Angels will be there and we hope to have video footage of an overflow crowd come to hear Geoffrey Robinson, retired bishop from Australia, speak, hopefully we'll get an interview to post here at City of Angels Network.

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Robinson goes to Hebrews 5 and I’ve been looking for a reason to quote that book in the New Testament since I started the blog a year and a half ago!
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ME: Misuse of this one construct in one book of the New Testament, written specifically for the Hebrews, is one core problem with the Catholic Church, pretty damnable evidence of dirty laundry all the way back to the year 100 or so. I hear a lot of dialogue about Hebrews 5:2-3 and the Catholic Church at Bible studies I go to in my neighborhood.

REVOLUTIONARY STUFF:

FROM the Introduction to Robinson’s Book:

‘Every high priest chosen from among human beings is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.’ (Hebrews 5:1)

The Greek word (lambano) here translated as ‘chosen’ means simply ‘taken’, but the Latin text that was always quoted said assumptus, which means ‘taken up’.

The implication was that the priest was ‘taken up’ from among human beings to some higher level. This is not what the Letter to the Hebrews meant, for the next words are, ‘He is able to deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is subject to weakness, and because of this he must offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as for those of the people.’ Hebrews (5:2-3)

Despite this, the idea of being ‘taken up’ was part of the culture and it brought some reflection of the ‘messiah complex’ into that culture. It was not a healthy idea and it must now be confronted.

This in turn led to a ‘mystique’ of the priesthood, a permanent state of being ‘taken up’.

ME: YES, YES, THAT'S THE CORE OF THE WHOLE PROBLEM,

That “Other Than” quality that priests carry with them, totally the opposite of what Christ wanted. Go, Bishop Robinson, keep talking!

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ME: That's Also what sets CLERGY sex abuse apart from other forms of child molestation, because of the roots in spiritual abuse. That element of the “holier than thou” priest truly played into every one of our molests, all 500,000 or so of us who are walking on this earth damaged from rape by a pedophile priest.

It would not have happened if they hadn’t been priestsm if they hadn’t had that special entry into our families’ and therefore our lives.
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SEMINARIES FOR PRIESTS ARE UNHEALTHY BECAUSE:

FROM ROBINSON’S BOOK CONTINUED:

It’s impossible to grow to maturity, especially when candidates are taken in as young as eleven or twelve years of age. There are many factors that do not contribute to healthy growth: the one-sex environment, the absence of parents and other nurturing figures, the other sex as a ‘threat’ to a vocation rather than as a positive and essential influence for adolescents, the absence of any positive preparation for a celibate lifestyle. At a time when adolescents and young adults need to develop their own identity.”

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MORE ABOUT THE CULVER CITY APPEARANCE
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Honore, who organized, the Culver City appearance, started showing up at SNAP, VOTF, ACTA, and other demonstrations about clergy sex abuse around 2003.

“I kind of gravitated to people who were marginalized. As an African American it was a blessing for me to be on the outside looking in, and I feel like that's where the Gospel really takes us.”

Honore’s career took him from a Creole Catholic church in Baton Rouge, through the seminary and three years as a priest, then after leaving the priesthood, work in the Civil Rights movement, urban affairs, and finally a job with HUD that brought him to Los Angeles.

“I went to seminary at age 17 after my girlfriend died,” Honore said, “I entered in grief. It was during height of Civil Rights revolution. I was ordained 1965 one of the first four black men to graduate from St. Joseph Seminary in Washington DC.

Honore became a Josephite, an Order that worked in the late 1800s with ex-slaves.

“My parish was a black Catholic parish in Louisiana.” Honore said. “But I soon discovered the church hierarchy were patronizing and immature. That came to be true to me, so I resigned the priesthood. A year later I met my wife.”

She had been a nun with the Dominicans who left her order soon after going to North Africa to teach.

Honore worked as a professional community activist in Chicago 1968-1970. He got a masters in Urban Affairs at Loyola. He came to California in 1971 working for the federal Housing agency HUD developing Model Cities.

Ah those Golden Years when the federal government invested in its own people, but I digress. . . .

“I was fortunate I was ordained right as Vatican Council ended,” Honore says. “I started to see my faith was not involved with structure but it had a Gospel focus.”

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If Roger Mahony says don’t listen, City of Angels Network will be there with camera ready to record Robinson for posterity.
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To me, as long as Roger Mahony and 10 other American bishops don’t want Robinson to talk, I want to go hear what he has to say. I mean read that letter, copied in full here:

MAHONY LETTER TO BISHOP ROBINSON:

Dear Bishop Robinson
I am writing once again in reference to your planned speaking engagement in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles on June 12, 2008.

Your letter informing me of your coming appearance made it clear that you were not seeking my permission or approval, that you were planning to come regardless.

Since your communication, I have come to learn that your new book is being investigated by the Australian Bishops’ Conference because of concerns about doctrinal errors and other statements in the book contrary to Church teaching.

I have also learned that His Eminence, Cardinal Giovanni Bautista, the Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops has urged you to cancel your visit to the United States.

Consequently, I am hereby requesting that you cancel your visit to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles now set for June 12, 2008. Canon 763 makes it clear that the Diocesan Bishop must safeguard the preaching of God’s Word and the teachings of the Church in his own Diocese. Under the provisions of Canon 763, I hereby deny you permission to speak in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

As a brother Bishop, I would urge you to cancel the entire speaking tour and to work closely with your own Bishops’ Conference on their investigation. I would surely expect you to fillow exactly their recommendations in this matter.

With every best wish, I am

Sincerely yours in Christ

Signed
His Eminence
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony
Archbishop of Los Angeles

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ME: Mahony the man who has no credibility at all on the issue of pedophile priests tries to pull rank and intimidate a retired bishop from Australia.

THINK OF IT:

Robinson spent nine years in the 1990s dealing with the clergy abuse crisis and concluded the church is sick at its very core.

You have Mahony on one hand condemning Robinson, and Robinson on the other hand, describing the crimes of bishops like Mahony.

Which one are you going to believe.

The Cardinal tries to strong arm Bishop Robinson, saying as archbishop Mahony has to “safeguard the preaching of God’s Word in his own Diocese.”

If that's the case then Roger Mahony better leave the state quick

The Cardinal rose up through Church hieirarchy during the same years and decades that an epidemic of pedophiles raged in Roman Catholic parishes from canyons to desert to sea from at least the 1960s to the present, covering the entire Southern California region.

If Roger Mahony doesn't want people to hear Geoffrey Robinson, I say let’s organize carpools to the Four Points Sheraton Thursday June 12th to hear him speak at 7PM.

Normally, the sight of someone in a priest collar sends me the other direction, but some of the things Robinson says in his book hint at change, something good. So City of Angels will be at the Culver City appearance Thursday June 12 with video camera, hopefully to interview the bishop and post it on this blog.

“He puts the whole scandal in the context of someone who understands church history,” Honore said. “How the whole thing of power has corrupted the leaders, the distorted view of sex, how that has developed.”

“He sees how the abuse has come into a delicate and complicated truth of our lives, that we grow and develop by our experience of love,” Honore continued. “In those episodes of clergy abuse, the whole ability to love and trust was gouged like it was run through with a bulldozer.

“Robins admits there is no simple counseling, deep study is needed,” Honore said.

“He gives examples in a way that helps you to as an outsider get in touch with that reality and you start to understand how it’s going to take a long-long time in most instances, if the victims will ever be able to gain trust and to experience love.”

How does Robinson demonstrate that?
I asked.

“It comes up in Chapter 11 of the book, where he says some are trying to counsel people into forgiveness and healing without knowing how to walk the walk themselves.”

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Bishop Robinson had been molested as a child by an adult himself but did not realize the damage until he worked with other victims.
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Robinson was appointed in 1994 to the Australian Catholic Church's national professional standards committee to help develop procedures to respond to sex abuse complaints

He did not come out about his own sexual abuse publicly until three years after retirement, with the publication of the book. But his years working with the committee caused him to look at his own abuse differently.

Robinson is quoted as saying: "It was talking with victims and some of the things they said that aroused feelings and memories in my own mind. With the help of counselors, I became conscious of some of the effects it had had on me."

"I never wish to see any boy taken into the seminary at that age again."

Here are some quotes from the book’s Introduction.

ME: After reading a bit of it, I hope survivors have a presence at all three Robinson appearances in Southern California, if for no other reason, to show the world that the church needs to go in the direction of Geoffrey Robinson from Australia, not continue with the mafioso style strong arming of Roger Mahony of Hollywood.

QUOTES FROM INTRODUCTION

ROBINSON: In 1994 I was appointed by the Australian bishops to a position of leadership in responding to revelations of abuse, and for the following nine years I was at the heart of this storm within my country.

I felt sick to the stomach at the stories that victims told me.

It is inevitable that many will react to the sexual abuse of minors according to older values rather than with a new mind to meet a new problem.

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A thousand years of secrecy
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“Those older values have for a thousand years included secrecy, the covering over of problems and the protection of the good name of the church.”

Robinson writes from an international perspective:

More from Robinson’s book”

There was a wide variety of responses to abuse within each nation.

Even now I cannot see evidence that a true confrontation of the problem is occurring. The staff of those clinical facilities specially set up for the treatment of priests and religious who have offended against minors have not been asked by Roman authorities for their findings on the causes of abuse.

The bishops of the world have not been asked to coordinate research and study within their own territories.

Until basic steps such as these are taken, I find it impossible to believe that church authorities are determined to confront rather than simply manage the problem.

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Celibacy is not the sole cause
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Excerpt continued:

Celibacy is not the sole cause of sexual abuse by priests and religious. It would actually be good if it were, for then, by the simple expedient of abolishing celibacy, one could abolish all abuse. But even if celibacy were abolished tomorrow, there is every reason to believe that the problem would not disappear.

One of the best statements I have encountered concerning the causes of abuse, the one with the greatest promise of showing us the way forward, is that child abuse, by priests, religious or, for that matter, anyone else in the community, is most likely to occur when three factors come together:

an unhealthy psychological state, unhealthy ideas concerning power and sex, and an unhealthy environment or community in which a person lives.

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HE IS TALKING DIRECTLY TO ME HERE:
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In almost every case there is evidence of careful selection and ‘grooming’ of a victim, of planning of the circumstances, and of care taken to ensure that the victim does not speak to others of what has happened, so it is impossible to dismiss paedophile activity as the result of a ‘sickness’ for which the offender is not responsible.

In most cases, there is clear evidence that offenders knew what they were doing and were responsible for their actions.

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THE MESSIAH COMPLEX
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Excerpt continued:

Worst case is that of the ‘messiah complex’, where a person believes that God is calling him or her to be, as it were, a messiah, a chosen one who is called to some special mission and is, therefore, above the rules out, that apply to ordinary mortals, an unhealthy domination and subservience will be present. including the moral rules. In such cases, if sexual abuse does not occur, some other form of abusive behaviour will.

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Robinson says the cause of clergy sex abuse is in the very roots of the Catholic church, where boys got isolated at way too young an age in seminaries, where priests were given godly attributes, directly the opposite of words written by Paul and others in the New Testament about how to carry out Christ’s message. Robinson even criticizes the clothes bishops and priests wear. For these ideas the bishops try to ban him from speaking to Americans.
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God still has a sense of humor, or maybe it’s angels giving Nancy Drew here clues

Since I started writing this blog in January 2006, it’s never ceased to amaze me the parallels. Alberto Gonzales the Attorney General testifying, I don't recall, I don't recall at the same time as Roger Mahony was saying I don't recall I don't recall in what deposition testimony anyone was ever able to get in the LA Clergy Cases.

There was the arrest of the pedophiles in Utah at the same time as the Pope arrived in America, to try to keep the pedophile paparazzi away from the Pope. It didn't work.

Now we have Scott McClellan’s book about the Bush White House coming out in parallels to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson’s book about the broken Catholic Church.

It’s almost like God gives us clues, where to look for the truth, and I think it will be worthwhile to go hear Geoffrey Robinson speak June 12 in Culver City.

Usually news of a priest coming to speak, especially about clergy sex abuse, makes me make plans on the other side of town, but this time I'm going.

See ya there.