Letter #51, 2018: Abuse and abuse

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Letter #51, 2018: Abuse and abuse

[2018-09-06]

[Engleză]

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Letter from a reader

Dr. Moynihan,

Please continue to keep us updated. I appreciate your letters and read every single word. They're extremely informative and after all of the cover ups and open secrets, we need as much information as possible

(...)

As a Catholic mother of three young children, I’m irate and disgusted by all of this madness. “It’s time to drain the swamp,” can be appropriately applied to our situation in the Church.

(...)

Please continue to publish your letters and keep us all informed. We need you, for such a time as this, especially because without reporters like you who are exposing the darkness, I wouldn’t be able to remain in the Catholic Church. As it is, I’m hanging on by a thread. The brother of a close friend was molested by a priest in Tucson, Arizona.

(...)

Again, because I know good Catholics like you are willing to fight for Christ’s Church, I’m hanging in there, but it’s not easy.

Many blessings for all that you are doing and please don’t let Satan try and dissuade you from any of it because he will. He hates that the truth is coming to light.

Christ be with you,

(name)

====================

Day #12

Today is the 12th day since the publication of Archbishop Vigano's "Testimony"

Some believe the turmoil and outrage of the first days after the release of Archbishop Vignao's "Testimony" is now dying down.

They argue that Francis has made the right decision, not "dignifying" Vigano's many allegations with a response.

And they affirm that it is becoming clearer that this entire uproar is a "maneuver" with "political" motivations, that it is an attempt to undermine Francis, not because of any egregious oversight on his part, but because Vigano, and others, oppose his willingness to embrace sinners, forgive them, and invite them fully back into the community of the Church.

Others, on the contrary, believe that the turmoil and outrage has not died down, and will not die down.

They deny that Francis has made the right decision by remaining silent about the allegations, and argue that the allegations are serious and need a response, the sooner the better.

They tend to reject the thesis that Vigano made his charges for personal reasons, and to agree with Vigano's central argument -- that there have been too many "cover-ups" for too long, and that something must be done "yesterday" (that is, immediately, with no further delay).

They argue that what is at stake is not a Christ-like embrace of sinners who seek forgiveness, which is seen as essential to the Christian faith, but rather the embrace of a change in Church doctrine which would define away the sin -- something seen as an apostasy from the full truth of Jesus' message.

And they say that far from being over, the case is about to explode to a new level of seriousness, with "explosive" dossiers about to be released.

So is the clamor dying down?

Or is it all about to explode again, and still more devastatingly?

We will see.

==================

Having sketched above, in perhaps too simplistic terms, the two main attitutdes toward the "Vigano Testimony" on Day #12, it does seem clear that the case has "parted the veil" to reveal a profound struggle within the Catholic Church between factions in the Vatican and Church hierarchy, and outside of the Church, for "control of the narrative" about what the Church is and what she believes.

Victory in this larger battle requires victory in the smaller battle: control of how all these charges and counter-charges play out.

It is clear that the battle ranges across a spectrum of issues and positions that sometimes seem very confused. But two main "poles" on the spectrum may perhaps be discerned:

(1) Pole #1: the case involves matters central to the faith (doctrine, the salvation of souls, and apostasy from that doctrine, from the faith)

(2) Pole #2: the case involves matters not central to the faith, but still of very great importance to and in "the world."

Regarding Pole #1, doctrinal matters, the perennial faith must be defended, as always.

Regarding Pole #2, prudential matters, though the very faith itself is not in question, the freedom of the Church still needs to be defended, that "libertas ecclesiae" without which the doctrines themselves can be brought under enormous pressure from external forces.

This "Pole #2" makes the "Vigano Case," depending how it is handled, a case that could lead to "non-Church entitities" -- i.e., governments -- acquiring greater influence over the Church.

This in turn could result in Church leaders feeling greater and greater pressure to agree to support certain political, social, and cultural positions.

Or, to put it another way, depending how this all plays out, the danger exists of a "neutralization" of the Church's moral teaching precisely at a moment in history when that teaching is -- as always -- badly needed.

==================

As so often in history, individuals and their personal histories, individual sins and individual acts of courage and self-sacrifice, play their important roles, while other individuals are characters who have only a brief "walk-on" in the ebb-and-flow of events. These characters include:

-- former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

-- Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano

-- Cardinal Donald Wuerl

-- Vatican spokesman Father Thomas Rosica

-- Cardinal Angelo Sodano (he knows many things, but is silent)

-- Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re (he also knows the truth about many things, but no one seems to be able to speak with him)

-- Cardinals Joachim Meisner and Carlo Caffara (now deceased) and Walter Brandmueller and Raymond Burke

-- Pope Benedict XVI

-- Pope Francis

But beyond these and other individuals, whatever their strengths and weaknesses — and all of these men and women have both laudable virtues and lamentable weaknesses — there is another level of historical action that transcends the individuals, and that level is Holy Scripture and the Gospel itself. The deposit of the faith.

The chief task, the essential task, of the Holy See, that is, of the Pope, the Successor of Peter and of all who work with him and for him — one might only say the only task — is to protect what been handed down as "of the faith" ("de fide")... to protect it and to hand it down in its integrity, in its truth, to those who come after us.

Sursa: www.InsideTheVatican.com

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