Anglican Mainstream

From The Irish Catholic (Hat Tip: eChurch)

The Taoiseach, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Children are all indicating that a proposed new law will require priests to break the seal of confession if someone confesses to them the crime of paedophilia.

This would make us the one and only country in the Western world to have such a law. Even Revolutionary France in the days of its worst violence against the Church did not pass a law requiring the breaking of the seal of confession.

The justification for the law is that the crime of paedophilia is so heinous that no one who hears about it, under whatever circumstances, can be allowed to keep it to themselves.

But our Government is clearing missing something that every other Government can see, which is that at a minimum such a law is very unlikely to lead to a single conviction and at a maximum will be counter-productive and will make society less safe, rather than more safe.

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By Damian Thompson, Telegraph

Michael Gove has to persuade the Churches to abandon their blind faith in secular dogma.

Four independent schools and one sixth-form college send more of their pupils to Oxford and Cambridge than 2,000 comprehensives and state-run colleges, according to a study by the Sutton Trust. This statistic is being reported by the teaching unions and their media supporters in priggish tones that imply that public schools are up to their old Oxbridge string-pulling games. Actually, the report finds nothing of the sort: although ancient colleges are willing to lower the bar slightly for bright children from deprived backgrounds, most comprehensives don’t come close to meeting the A-level requirements of Oxford and Cambridge.

But, more to the point, they don’t show much inclination to do so, such is the poverty of aspiration instilled in students by their chippy teachers and anti-elitist governing bodies.

Admittedly, a few comprehensives achieve the most rigorous standards: when I was at Oxford, I was always bumping into old boys of the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in west London – clever lads with stellar A-levels and wits sharpened in the pubs of Hammersmith. But I’d be surprised if the Vaughan is still sending many pupils to Oxford in a few years’ time.

For decades, the Left-wing education department of the Catholic Diocese of Westminster, which controls the Vaughan, has been waging a campaign of intellectual vandalism against the school. In the 1980s it tried but failed to close its sixth form. Now its aim is to stop the oversubscribed all-boys school favouring the children of parents who are actively involved in their local Catholic parishes.

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By David Mills, First Things

81 percent of the victims were post-pubescent males, [they] downplayed the homosexual connection by suggesting that this simply reflects the fact that offenders had greater access to boys. The report also proposes the possibility that, “Although the victims of priests were most often male, thus defining the acts as homosexual, the priest did not at any time recognize his identity as homosexual.”

 

A less politically correct conclusion, it would seem, is to acknowledge that the offending clerics were perhaps unwilling to take “ownership” of their struggle with homosexuality. In any event, this line of argument appears to be little more than a red herring.

 

According to Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, a consultant to the Vatican Congregation for Clergy and a leading expert on clerical sex abuse, how an abuser may “recognize” himself is not entirely relevant; rather, the homosexual acts alone testify to “deep seated” homosexuality.

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by David Lindsay

The usual suspects are up in arms that the Vatican has once again issued instructions relating to child abuse cases which do not simply require that such matters be blithely handed over to the civil authority.

What if the civil authority is the EU, with its year planner for children which includes the festivals of every major religion except one, and I think we can all guess which one? What if there is practically no functioning civil authority, as in some countries where the Catholic Church is active? What if it would be better that there were not than that there were what there is, as in very many such countries?

What if the civil authority is our own dear Police, who long ago stopped enforcing the age of consent from 13 upwards, or our own dear Social Services Departments, with their long history of publishing academic studies claiming that sex between men and teenage boys was beneficial to both parties, not to say of putting that view into practice in their residential facilities?

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By Kathleen Gilbert, LifeSite News

A leading authority on the clerical sex abuse crisis has criticized those who conclude that new data has ruled out homosexuality as a significant cause in the scandal – even though the vast majority of priest abuse was perpetrated against adolescent males.

by David Batty, Guardian

Report claims less than 5% of abusive priests were paedophiles as critics accuse it of 'garbage in, garbage out' exoneration

A report on the child abuse scandal in the US Catholic Church has provoked condemnation for concluding that the permissive society of the 1960s was to blame for the rise in sexual offences by priests.

The investigation commissioned by Catholic bishops said that the peak incidence of sexual abuse by priests in the 1960s and 70s reflected the increased level of other deviant behaviours in American society in the period, including "drug use and crime, as well as social changes, such as an increase in premarital sex and divorce."

Researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice said most of the abusive priests were ordained in the 1940s and 50s and were not properly trained to confront the social upheavals of the 1960s.

David O'Brien, a historian of American Catholicism at the University of Dayton, said the report, Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010, was dangerous because it seemed to exonerate bishops.

"This recalls an old tabloid banner headline from an early pre-Boston stage of this crisis: 'Bishops Blame Society'," said O'Brien, referring to the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002.

The study said there was no single cause of the abuse and concluded that few of the abusive priests were paedophiles, as their victims were not all pre-pubescent.

Less than 5% of the abusive priests could be defined as paedophiles because the majority of victims were aged between 11 and 14.

"There's no indication in our data that priests are any more likely to abuse children than anyone else in society," said lead researcher Karen Terry.

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by Luke de Pulford, Guardian

The Vatican's letter to bishops shows an organisation taking the problem of paedophilia very seriously

Reading the authoritative letter from the Vatican to bishops worldwide one picture emerges more than any other: far from being some sort of well-organised paedophile protection ring, church bureaucrats have been flailing around desperately in an attempt to police the world's 1.2 billion Catholics since the first scandals erupted in Boston, and are clearly doing all they can.

Consider first the letter's detailing of the many reforms and processes introduced in the last 10 years by Rome, intended to make it easier to deal with case of abuse. Second, its restating that procedures in civil law must be followed – which, depending on where you live, usually means referring all allegations to police and social services.

Third, its clarification that the church's own law must be invoked to punish perpetrators. This in no way contradicts the previous point; every citizen bound by church law is equally obliged to observe the laws of their own country – and, contrary to popular belief, this has always been the case.

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By Avril Ormsby, Reuters

Britain's Catholics have been urged to make more effort to follow religious custom and abstain from eating meat on Fridays, potentially boosting sales of fish.

Church law has required Catholics over the centuries to comply with this abstinence as part of Friday penance, the day set aside for special prayer and fasting to mark the day Jesus died.

Traditionally Catholics have opted to eat fish instead, though a combination of new church guidance and changing eating habits has eroded this habit.

Now the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales wants to re-establish the practice of Friday penance and its abstinence from eating meat as a symbol of a simple shared act of self-denial.

"I think Catholics will welcome this," the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, told reporters.

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By John Hooper, Guardian

More than a million Roman Catholics set aside the scandals that have rocked their church to take part in a jubilant beatification of their late pope, John Paul II.

The Polish pontiff who helped speed the fall of communism in Europe was placed just a step from sainthood at a ceremony in St Peter's Square presided over by his successor, Benedict XVI. Looking out at a congregation that stretched half a mile down the broad avenue leading to the river Tiber, the pope said John Paul had "reclaimed for Christianity that impulse of hope which had in some sense faltered before Marxism and the ideology of progress".

Benedict said the man who could now be referred to as Blessed Karol Wojtyla turned back "with the strength of a titan … a tide which appeared irreversible".

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By Rosa Prince, Telegraph

The Church of England has blocked a Government move to scrap a centuries-old law which prevents members of the Royal family from marrying Roman Catholics, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, began work towards repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement, under which heirs to the throne must renounce their claim on marrying a Roman Catholic, in order to introduce full equality between the faiths.

Talks were held with the Anglican Church as part of wider discussions on constitutional reform, which come under his remit as Deputy Prime Minister.

The reforms have also led to steps being made towards securing the agreement of the Commonwealth to end the common law principle of male primogeniture, under which the younger sons of royalty have precedence over their older sisters.

However, the plan to abolish the Act of Settlement was quietly shelved after the Church raised significant objections centring on the British sovereign’s dual role as Supreme Governor.

Church leaders expressed concern that if a future heir to the throne married a Roman Catholic, their children would be required by canon law to be brought up in that faith.

This would result in the constitutionally problematic situation whereby the Supreme Governor of the Church of England was a Roman Catholic, and so ultimately answerable to a separate sovereign leader, the Pope, and the Vatican.

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From BBC News

By Thomas Peters, Catholic Vote (H/T SPUC)

Last week I began to expose the coordinated efforts of well-funded gay-rights groups to subvert the Church’s teaching on homosexuality and marriage by funding groups, including “Catholic” groups, whose sole purpose is to change our minds about these issues.

by Marcia Segelstein for World.mag

Yes, according to a gay rights group called Truth Wins Out.

But first some background. In case you missed the news, the Catholic Church has sanctioned a new iPhone/iPad app called“Confession: A Roman Catholic App.” It’s available through iTunes for $1.99.

Despite some of the mocking headlines when it was released (“Can’t Make it to Confession? There’s an App for That,” “Catholic Church Approves Confession by iPhone,” and “New, Church-Approved iPhone Offers Confession on the Go”) the application isn’t a way for Catholics to confess, it’s a way for Catholics to prepare for confession.

According to Fr. Edward Beck, writing for ABCNews.com, the application “leads you through an ‘Examination of Conscience’ to help you figure out what your real sins are.”

According to the Catholic News Agency, the app, developed by Little iApps, is a hit, having risen to the No. 1 spot in the “Lifestyle” section of Apple’s app store. Ryan Kreager, Little iApps’ co-founder and developer, told CNA that the app has generated lots of interest, and not just from Catholics. “The response that we’ve gotten from non-Catholics—from our Protestant brothers in Christ, as well as those outside the Christian faith—has been largely positive . . 

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By Jamie Doward and Gabriel Stargardter,Guardian

Group claims app fosters 'anti-gay spiritual abuse' as it shoots up list of popular downloads

By John Smeaton, SPUC

Earlier this week I mentioned that Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, continues to cause confusion regarding Catholic teaching on homosexuality. I mentioned that the archbishop's most recent comments had been welcomed by Terence Weldon, the openly practising homosexual who helps organise the Archbishop Nichols-backed Soho Masses for dissenting homosexuals.

As if to reinforce my concerns, I see that Durex, the makers of barrier contraceptives, have advertised one of those Soho Masses, taking place last month, on their website for healthcare professionals.

The Durex website contains material of a character deeply hostile to Catholic teaching on human sexuality. It's not suprising, then, that they would promote the celebration of a Mass, the organizers of which are openly hostile to Catholic teaching on human sexuality and where attendees receive Holy Communion in spite of openly admitting they are and intend to stay in homosexual relationships.

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BBC News

By Damian Thompson, Telegraph

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By Damian Thompson, Telegraph

Is there a Catholic in the world who still goes to Mass who doesn’t realise the nuclear damage that has been done to the Church by modernist nuns? Millions of Catholics have had to stand by while these “good sisters” dismantled hundreds of years of work … advancing a socialist, Marxist political agenda, embracing lesbianism, instituting yoga classes along with Mother Earth prayer tutorials, conducting retreats based on sorcery and witchcraft … making a shipwreck of the faith by teaching that abortion is acceptable, that women can be priests, that WE ARE CHURCH…

by Jonathan Wynne-Jones, Telegraph

by Damian Thompson, Telegraph

An intensely touching detail from the final Anglican sermon of the Rt Rev Andrew Burnham, Bishop of Ebbsfleet, delivered yesterday at St John the Evangelist, New Hinksey, Oxford. As the Ordinate Portal reports, at the end of the service, Bishop Burnham – who will be ordained into the Ordinariate as a Catholic priest – “laid aside his crozier and mitre at the feet of Our Lady”. Here is his sermon:

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? John 14:2

Thank you, all of you, for getting out the snow-chains and coming here today. It was a bit of an after-thought to put on this service: I am supposed to be on Study Leave and I knew, in my heart, that it would turn into Gardening Leave, that I should be resigning rather than returning to the work of a bishop in your midst. But I shall always remember my wife, Cathy, telling the students at St Stephen’s House on the Leavers’ Course, that it is vital to leave properly, to say your goodbyes, and move on. It’s not quite what the Americans call ‘closure’ but it’s something like it. It is what distinguishes a decent departure from a death. In some ways, leaving is uncomfortably like dying. As I sit in my office, I hear about what is going on. Other bishops providing cover: and we are already grateful to Bishop Lindsay Urwin for that. The Council of Priests meeting and talking about what kind of Bishop of Ebbsfleet is needed in future. Stories that suggest that people are not moving off but simply moving on, looking forward to a new bishop and life returning to normal.

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