Her bishop, Paul Bootkoski, had the temerity to claim that those blogging about her being fired are misrepresenting the situation.
Showing posts with label Rite of Sodomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rite of Sodomy. Show all posts
Monday, March 30, 2015
Reflecting on Patti Jannuzzi's Bishop Who Plays a Little Loose with the Truth
Her bishop, Paul Bootkoski, had the temerity to claim that those blogging about her being fired are misrepresenting the situation.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Accused Priests vs. Accused Bishops: the Double Standard
I received an email today from Opus Bono Sacerdotii, a group that assists priests accused of sexual abuse, with a sad story from an accused priest. Here's a portion of what the priest wrote:
Now consider the case of an accused bishop. This comes from a 2003 three webpage from SNAP:
So let's get this straight. A priest is accused and is immediately suspended, everyone in the known world is notified of the allegation, and the priest is hung out to dry. He is presumed guilty and must prove his innocence, paying for his defense himself. On the other hand, a bishop is accused, keeps the accusation secret, pays out tens of thousands in hush money to his accuser from diocesan funds, not to mention countless bucks to lawyers and public relations folks, and continues on the job.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
When the bishops developed their sex abuse policy in Dallas in 2002 they excused themselves from its coverage. No "one strike and you're out" policy for the bishops. How many innocent priests have been caught up in spurious accusations? Certainly there are plenty of guilty men, and most bishops covered up for them and moved them around from one diocese to another. But how many priests with one twenty or thirty-year-old allegation are victims of a witch hunt? How many have been presumed guilty with little evidence from a so-called "credible allegation" who, even when exonerated, are deep-sixed by their bishops because of public outcry?
The situation is beyond shameful and is one more scandal against the bishops of the United States, most of whom are experts illusionists with their smoke and mirrors. Perhaps the most shocking thing is the way they cover for one another and scapegoat the priests under them and even the laity through their sex abuse and safe-touch policies. It is all about protecting the bishops and the assets. As for their souls, they apparently don't come into the equation.
I had a surprise visit to my Parish office by two Officials from the Chancery, the Vicar for Priests and a Canon Lawyer (who happens to be a classmate of mine). They asked to see me privately and I was extremely nervous because of their attitude and demeanor. When the three of us were alone, they proceeded to tell me that a “credible allegation of sexual abuse” was made against me and that I had an hour to pack a bag and to come with them. Few details were given to me when I asked.Consider the treatment of this priest, presumed guilty from a thirty year old allegation. And what exactly constitutes a "credible allegation?" If he's guilty where is the proof? Apparently the accusation constituted proof for this bishop. What recourse does the priest have?
They mentioned a name which I never heard of before and that this “victim” was deceased. His widow and attorney came to the Diocese to bring this supposed abuse to their attention. This was to have occurred some thirty years ago.... I discovered later that the Diocese had already sent out a “Fax Blast” concerning my removal. After the press and media extensively exposed my ‘credible allegation of sexual abuse’ for two days, I found myself living in a hellish nightmare. After some two or three weeks later, the same two Officials called me to another meeting and informed me that another “victim” came forth after the public disclosure to make a second allegation against me. (And I had thought that life could not have possibly gotten any worse.)
As God as my witness, I swear as I swore on a Bible before the Diocesan Officials, these allegations are totally and completely untrue. My mind and my soul are bruised, beaten and trampled down. My parishioners are most supportive but I am not permitted to visit them and I cannot afford to call them by telephone.... I suffer panic attacks, acute anxiety and severe depression. Worst of all, there is nobody that can really understand or share this onerous burden that I bear.
I am in financial ruin ‘to put the icing on the cake’. I have exhausted my life savings trying to pay monthly expenses....
Even when the day for my exoneration and restoration does come, I have already seen the future. There is none. Two weeks ago a fellow priest of our Diocese was accused of sexual misconduct which allegedly occurred forty years prior, was exonerated and was officially assigned to serve ‘in restricted ministry’ at a convent motherhouse. When the media got hold of his new assignment, the public outcry that a ‘priest, accused of credible sexual abuse’ would be assigned to an area which had schools and day-care centers nearby, our bishop, bowing to “public pressure and shepherdly concern” reversed and revoked his Official assignment the very next day, not even twenty-four hours had elapsed.
Now I have abandoned all hope. I do not know where to turn for help, for someone who understands. I am ashamed. I am alone....
Now consider the case of an accused bishop. This comes from a 2003 three webpage from SNAP:
San Diego – Bishop Robert Brom was accused of coercing a student into a sexual relationship at a seminary in Minnesota, where he once was rector and later headed the Diocese of Duluth. Church officials acknowledged multiple settlements to seminarians as a result of abuse allegations involving other members of the hierarchy and priests but deny the validity of the claims. Brom paid a confidential settlement (reported to be $85,000.00) to his accuser, who agreed to retract his claim against Brom. Brom has stated the pay out was "minimal insurance" to help his accuser of getting on with his life. The deal was reached in 1993 but didn't become public until this spring. Bishop Brom continues to deny wrongdoing and remains on the job.SNAP isn't the only recorder of Brom's sexual abuse. In her book The Rite of Sodomy, researcher Randy Engel, quotes from a nuisance lawsuit the diocese of San Diego filed against investigative reporter Robert Kumpel of San Diego News Notes.
In his sworn statement of March 12, 2002, [Mark] Brooks [a seminarian dismissed for blowing the whistle on homosexuality at St. Francis Seminary in San Diego and Bishop Brom in particular] mentioned publicly for the first time that he had spoken by phone with a former seminarian from Immaculate Heart Seminary in Winona named Jeffrey Maras, who confirmed that while Bishop of Duluth, Brom had coerced him into a four-year sexual relationship. Maras told Brooks that he could identify Brom from the markings on his privates. Maras, desperately in need of money, agreed to enter into a confidential financial settlement with Brom in exchange for a fraudulent 'retraction letter' that he was forced to write as a condtion for receing financial compensation from the bishop. (Rite of Sodomy p. 857-58)Engel reports another affirmation of Brom's sex abuse quoting Msgr. Michael Higgins, a former canon lawyer from the Diocese of San Diego who operates the group, Justice for Priests and Deacons. In an April 22, 1999 letter to Pope John Paul II, Msgr. Higgins wrote. "It is a matter of public record...that the Bishop of San Diego, Robert Brom, has himself been charged with grave sexual behavior and has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars of diocesan funds in attorneys' fees and damages to escape the consequences of that miisconduct...and was given a promotion to the Diocese of San Diego when the full extent of his digsuting and immoral behavior was already known."
So let's get this straight. A priest is accused and is immediately suspended, everyone in the known world is notified of the allegation, and the priest is hung out to dry. He is presumed guilty and must prove his innocence, paying for his defense himself. On the other hand, a bishop is accused, keeps the accusation secret, pays out tens of thousands in hush money to his accuser from diocesan funds, not to mention countless bucks to lawyers and public relations folks, and continues on the job.
WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
When the bishops developed their sex abuse policy in Dallas in 2002 they excused themselves from its coverage. No "one strike and you're out" policy for the bishops. How many innocent priests have been caught up in spurious accusations? Certainly there are plenty of guilty men, and most bishops covered up for them and moved them around from one diocese to another. But how many priests with one twenty or thirty-year-old allegation are victims of a witch hunt? How many have been presumed guilty with little evidence from a so-called "credible allegation" who, even when exonerated, are deep-sixed by their bishops because of public outcry?
The situation is beyond shameful and is one more scandal against the bishops of the United States, most of whom are experts illusionists with their smoke and mirrors. Perhaps the most shocking thing is the way they cover for one another and scapegoat the priests under them and even the laity through their sex abuse and safe-touch policies. It is all about protecting the bishops and the assets. As for their souls, they apparently don't come into the equation.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sodomy and Theology of the Body: The Death of Common Sense
Today is the feast of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, the martyrs of Uganda. These 22 young men lived and died near the end of the 19th century during the reign of King Mwanga. He was a pederast who demanded that the young men of the court engage in lustful relations with him. They refused and were put to death either by being burned at the stake or beheaded. What saints for our immoral age when in-your-face homosexual lust has taken to the streets and hotel ballrooms of our country! And what was the primary sin St. Charles and his companions condemned? Sodomy.
Please, somebody explain how sodomy can be considered acceptable foreplay in a loving, Catholic marriage or any marriage for that matter. It defies common sense! If anything goes in foreplay, what's the problem with using pornography or sex toys or with tying your spouse to the bedpost?
Randy Engel has common sense on her side. I'm sorry to be critical because I respect both Smith and West, but this issue absolutely defies reason!
FROM RANDY ENGEL
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 10:55 PM
In my two year study on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which ran as a 7-part series in Catholic Family News (May-November 2008) and is now available online at www.newengelpublishing.com, I tackle the issue of the morality of anal penetration by married couple as a form of foreplay as explained by Christopher West.
In Chapter Five of his book Good News About Sex & Marriage – Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teachings (First Edition), in response to a question on the morality of anal sex for married couples, West states “There’s nothing inherently wrong with anal penetration as foreplay to normal intercourse.” This is a false teaching and a serious moral error.
Based on my 17 years of research for The Rite of Sodomy – Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church, which included a study of all of the Church Fathers, including Saint Peter Damian and Saint Bernardino of Siena, on the vice of sodomy, I can categorically state that the Catholic Church has always defined sodomy to include anal penetration, with or without ejaculation.
The act of sodomy, whether carried by homosexuals or by spouses, is intrinsically evil and a perversion. A married couple who engages in anal penetration and then goes on to normal coitus has engaged in two separate acts - the first, sodomy, is a grave sin, whether or not ejaculation has occurred. Further, the physiology of anal copulation is such that it would be most difficult to prevent ejaculation.
In West’s revised edition of Good News About Sex & Marriage, this grave moral error was not corrected. After pointing out that anal penetration is unsanitary and unaesthetic, West asserts:
Perhaps in some abstract, objective sense, there is nothing to condemn mere penetration of the anus as absolutely and in every case immoral. But subjectively speaking… it is very difficult to justify anal penetration as a loving act of foreplay to the marital embrace. It is an act that seems to stem much more from the disorder of lust than from a genuine desire to symbolize and renew the marriage commitment.
Now, alas, we have Janet Smith, claiming that:
Certainly there isn’t any “Church teaching” about this action at a magisterial level, but few seem to know that there is a tradition of approval of such behavior as foreplay to intercourse (not to be confused with the biblical condemnation of sodomy which replaces intercourse) by orthodox Catholic ethicists. The principle generally invoked is that consensual actions that culminate in intercourse are morally permissible…. Perhaps it is time for ethicists to work on the question…
What madness is this?
Where, pray tell, is the Catholic tradition that approves of anal penetration as a forerunner to coitus to be found?
What question is there for ethicists to work on?
Isn’t 2000 years of Church teachings on the immorality of sodomy good enough for West or Smith?
Do West and Smith have to be reminded that not all married couples have normal sexual desires? Indeed some are drawn into sinful acts as a prelude to intercourse including sadomasochist acts, the viewing of pornography to stimulate sexual excitement, and sodomy.
Isn’t it time that TOB advocates like Christopher West and Janet Smith be held accountable for their erroneous and dangerous pronouncements on Catholic sexual morality and conjugal love?
Please, somebody explain how sodomy can be considered acceptable foreplay in a loving, Catholic marriage or any marriage for that matter. It defies common sense! If anything goes in foreplay, what's the problem with using pornography or sex toys or with tying your spouse to the bedpost?
Randy Engel has common sense on her side. I'm sorry to be critical because I respect both Smith and West, but this issue absolutely defies reason!
FROM RANDY ENGEL
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 10:55 PM
In my two year study on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body which ran as a 7-part series in Catholic Family News (May-November 2008) and is now available online at www.newengelpublishing.com, I tackle the issue of the morality of anal penetration by married couple as a form of foreplay as explained by Christopher West.
In Chapter Five of his book Good News About Sex & Marriage – Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teachings (First Edition), in response to a question on the morality of anal sex for married couples, West states “There’s nothing inherently wrong with anal penetration as foreplay to normal intercourse.” This is a false teaching and a serious moral error.
Based on my 17 years of research for The Rite of Sodomy – Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church, which included a study of all of the Church Fathers, including Saint Peter Damian and Saint Bernardino of Siena, on the vice of sodomy, I can categorically state that the Catholic Church has always defined sodomy to include anal penetration, with or without ejaculation.
The act of sodomy, whether carried by homosexuals or by spouses, is intrinsically evil and a perversion. A married couple who engages in anal penetration and then goes on to normal coitus has engaged in two separate acts - the first, sodomy, is a grave sin, whether or not ejaculation has occurred. Further, the physiology of anal copulation is such that it would be most difficult to prevent ejaculation.
In West’s revised edition of Good News About Sex & Marriage, this grave moral error was not corrected. After pointing out that anal penetration is unsanitary and unaesthetic, West asserts:
Perhaps in some abstract, objective sense, there is nothing to condemn mere penetration of the anus as absolutely and in every case immoral. But subjectively speaking… it is very difficult to justify anal penetration as a loving act of foreplay to the marital embrace. It is an act that seems to stem much more from the disorder of lust than from a genuine desire to symbolize and renew the marriage commitment.
Now, alas, we have Janet Smith, claiming that:
Certainly there isn’t any “Church teaching” about this action at a magisterial level, but few seem to know that there is a tradition of approval of such behavior as foreplay to intercourse (not to be confused with the biblical condemnation of sodomy which replaces intercourse) by orthodox Catholic ethicists. The principle generally invoked is that consensual actions that culminate in intercourse are morally permissible…. Perhaps it is time for ethicists to work on the question…
What madness is this?
Where, pray tell, is the Catholic tradition that approves of anal penetration as a forerunner to coitus to be found?
What question is there for ethicists to work on?
Isn’t 2000 years of Church teachings on the immorality of sodomy good enough for West or Smith?
Do West and Smith have to be reminded that not all married couples have normal sexual desires? Indeed some are drawn into sinful acts as a prelude to intercourse including sadomasochist acts, the viewing of pornography to stimulate sexual excitement, and sodomy.
Isn’t it time that TOB advocates like Christopher West and Janet Smith be held accountable for their erroneous and dangerous pronouncements on Catholic sexual morality and conjugal love?
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