Nabi Sayeth: Who in the Hierarchy is Willing to Lay Down His Life for Our Lord's Flock?

Nabi Sayeth: The call to be a shepherd of Our Lord’s flock is one that entails a most sacred of duties. A true shepherd must love the flock as Jesus loved His flock and most important of all, be willing to lay down his life for them.

Unfortunately, as the revelations of corruption continue it is clear that so many of the shepherds were more concerned with secular matters such as rank, privilege, power, MONEY and public perception…..So often the flock was left to fend for itself, without direction, guidance and protection.
The following is a look inside the thinking of one former and very powerful clergyman/shepherd:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A former nuncio to the United States acknowledged hearing rumors about the sexual misconduct of Archbishop Theodore E. McCarrick already in 1994.

Cardinal Agostino Cacciavillan, who served as pro-nuncio to the United States from 1990 to 1998, told Catholic News Service Oct. 29 that he received a phone call from a woman in the months preceding St. John Paul II's visit to the United States in 1995.
"I remember in 1994, during the preparation of the papal visit to New York, Newark and Baltimore," Cardinal Cacciavillan said, "I received a telephone call" at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C.

According to the 93-year-old retired papal diplomat, the caller feared there would be a "media scandal if the pope goes to Newark," Archbishop McCarrick's diocese, because of "voices, voices (rumors) about McCarrick's behavior with seminarians."
"It was not a formal complaint, but the expression of a concern," he said.

Cardinal Cacciavillan said that he took the matter to the then-archbishop of New York, Cardinal John J. O'Connor, because he was "the closest bishop. No one better than the archbishop of New York would know what was happening in the Archdiocese of Newark."


Cardinal O'Connor carried out an "investigation, an inquiry," he said, and told the nuncio that "there was no obstacle to the visit of the pope to Newark."

While Cacciavillan and his cohorts were concerned about potential scandal and the public perception of the pope, young men and boys were being raped and their vocations ripped out of their hearts by a notorious predator, Uncle Teddy McCarrick. I ask you as one who loves the Catholic Church: 

Does this behavior and thinking not make your stomach sick???

Father Boniface Ramsey is a priest who once taught at Immaculate Conception seminary in Newark, New Jersey which was governed by former bishop McCarrick. In what amounts to his confession in Commonweal magazine 10/29/18 he writes about his awareness of Uncle Teddy’s immoral behavior while he taught on the faculty at Immaculate Conception:

“I taught at Immaculate Conception Seminary from the late 1980s until 1996, when Theodore McCarrick was archbishop of Newark and Immaculate Conception was his seminary. What I heard in those days about McCarrick’s misbehavior with seminarians I used to refer to, until very recently, as rumors. Now I realize that “rumors” was not the right word, because rumor suggests uncertainty. What the seminarians would talk about among themselves and with some members of the faculty were experiences that they themselves had undergone, or that they had heard others had undergone. It may have been gossip, but it was gossip about real events.

Most people who have been following the case of Theodore McCarrick know by now that he had a beach house on the Jersey Shore at his disposal and that he would regularly request seminarians to visit it with him. This is how it went: he or his secretary would contact the seminary and ask for five specific seminarians, or would just contact the seminarians directly. Understandably, a request from one’s archbishop could not easily be refused. When McCarrick and the five seminarians arrived at the beach house, there were six men and only five beds. McCarrick would send four of his guests to four of the available beds and then tell the fifth seminarian that he would “bunk” with him in a separate room. When bedtime came, McCarrick stripped himself naked, almost always in front of the seminarian, before putting on some bedclothes. The expectation was that the seminarian would do the same, although some managed to avoid this by going to the bathroom or by some other ruse. Sometimes, I was told, the five seminarians raced from the car to the house to claim beds for themselves, and the slowest ended up with the archbishop.
Whenever a seminarian who had slept in the same bed as McCarrick shared his experience with a faculty member, the common response was “Did he touch you?”

Father Ramsey was disturbed by what he had heard. As he writes:

“Eventually, though, I began to have difficulty accepting it. The unusual behavior was exacerbated by the silence surrounding it; I sensed no disapproval, just a kind of resignation. I was a newcomer on the seminary scene and, at that time, a Dominican friar rather than a priest of the diocese of Newark. Perhaps I was able to view the situation with more critical distance than the other faculty members. In search of advice, I spoke with a fellow Dominican whose counsel I respected. It was obvious to him that I should bring my concerns to the rector of the seminary, which I did sometime in the late ’80s (I no longer remember exactly when). The rector knew exactly what I was talking about and promised to do what he could to stop it, after admitting that he felt strung between his loyalty to his archbishop and his realization that what the archbishop was doing wasn’t right. Whatever the rector may have done—and I believe he took some sort of action—McCarrick was unperturbed, and the visits to the beach house continued.”

And then Father Ramsey made a move that resulted in a sickening revelation of the depth and magnitude of the cover-up:

“I telephoned the archbishop of Louisville, Thomas Kelly, a friend of mine now deceased, to tell him what had happened. I recall what he said—that “we all know” that McCarrick had “picked up” someone at an airport. From what I understand, McCarrick had met a good-looking flight attendant and invited him to become a seminarian then and there. (I’ve been told this was not the only such spontaneous invitation.) Whether this person shared McCarrick’s bed at the beach house or anywhere else, I don’t know, but he was clearly significant enough in McCarrick’s eyes for McCarrick to fire me when I led the charge to have him expelled. I understood that the 'we' of 'we all know' meant McCarrick’s fellow bishops. This was my first inkling that knowledge of McCarrick’s behavior was not restricted to the seminary, or to the archdiocese of Newark, but was widespread among the American bishops.”

Nabi asketh: How could the shepherds allow such horrible damage to be done to the lives of young men and boys, many of whom had chosen to give their lives in service to the Lord’s Church? How could so many shepherds remain silent while hearts were so severely broken and faith was dashed? How could these shepherds stand before us at Mass with their mitres and crosiers perfectly in place, the crucifix suspended above them, knowing what they do, and pretend to be our leaders and role models in the Catholic Faith?

But then there is a woman who was called by the Lord to be a sign which reads, “I beg to differ”......(An interview on 60 Minutes 10/28/18):

Siobhan O'Connor was working for the Diocese of Buffalo when she had a revelation.

For three years, she had worked as the executive assistant to Bishop Richard Malone. She maintained his calendar, took care of his correspondence, answered his phone lines and emails. They had such a close working relationship that the southpaw assistant joked she was his "left-hand woman."

But what she saw in that role infuriated her — and she realized she had to speak up about it.

Siobhan blew the whistle on her boss, Bishop Malone providing damning information about the sexual abuse cover-up in the diocese of Buffalo as only someone with her inside knowledge could.

It must be noted that bishop Malone is quite experienced in the “art” of Church sexual abuse cover-up. Before he became the bishop of Buffalo, he had been the auxiliary bishop OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BOSTON AT THE TIME THAT THE SEXUAL ABUSE SCANDAL CAME TO LIGHT. CARDINAL BERNARD LAW HAD BEEN HIS BOSS!

What gave Siobhan the courage to speak the Truth and expose the corruption in her home diocese of Buffalo? My Friends, the same thing that should motivate everyone who is aware of information involving the continued cover-up including:

-lay chancery workers-pastors and associate pastors-Diocesan attorneys-Diocesan lay board members-parish finance and pastoral council members-victims, past and present-anyone and everyone with even the seemingly smallest pieces of information

In her words…”The reality of what I saw really left me with no other option because at the end of my life, I'm not going to answer to Bishop Malone. I'm going to answer to God,"

To Whom do YOU expect to answer at the end of YOUR life??? Please discern your answer to this question with great care because eternity lasts forever….