The Catholic Church and Baptising the Spirit of the Age!
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Cardinal Godfried Danneels - "Liberal" Prelate |
(5) How “Liberal” Ideas on Paedophilia were Taken Up by Some Catholics (including Bishops) in Belgium and the USA
(A) “The Fall of the Belgian Church” Article by Alexandra Colen 24 June 2010 [10]
“Alexandra Maria Catherine Colen (born on 9 July 1955 in Dublin, Ireland) is a Belgian politician. She is member of the Belgian Federal Parliament for the Vlaams Belang party since 21 May 1995. She holds a PhD in linguistics, and is known for her advocacy of strict Catholic ethics.
She is married to Paul Beliën, the editor of the conservative-libertarian blog The Brussels Journal.
Within the Vlaams Blok and its successor party Vlaams Belang, Colen is seen as leading the religious conservative (essentially Catholic) wing of the party—although some critics and observers believe she is comparatively more libertarian than other figures within the party.” ]
In Belgium, today [24 June 2010], police searched the residence of the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and the crypt of the Archbishop’s cathedral in Mechelen. They were looking for evidence of cover-ups in the ongoing investigation into widespread pedophilia practices within the Belgian church in the decades during which Cardinal Godfried Danneels was Archbishop. Danneels retired in January of this year.
Police also confiscated 450 files containing reports of pedophile offences by members of the clergy, that had been submitted to an investigation committee which was established within the church to deal with pedophilia cases.
Since the revelation in April that Cardinal Danneels’s close friend and collaborator, Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the Bishop of Bruges, had been a practicing pedophile throughout, and even before, his career as a bishop, victims have gained confidence that they will be taken seriously, and complaints have been pouring in, both to the courts and to the extra-judicial investigation committee of the archdiocese. The new archbishop Mgr. André-Joseph Léonard, has urged victims to take their case to the courts.
His predecessor, the liberal Cardinal Danneels, who was very popular with the press in Belgium and abroad, was Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and Primate of Belgium from 1979 until 2010. The sympathy for pedophile attitudes and arguments among the Belgian bishops during this period was no secret, especially since 1997 when the fierce controversy about the catechism textbook Roeach made the headlines. The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The textbook contained a drawing which showed a naked baby girl saying: “Stroking my pussy makes me feel groovy,” “I like to take my knickers off with friends,” “I want to be in the room when mum and dad have sex.” The drawing also shows a naked little boy and girl that are “playing doctor” and the little boy says: “Look, my willy is big.”
The drawing also showed three pairs of parents. Those with the “correct” attitude reply: “Yes, feeling and stroking those little places is good fun.” This “catechism textbook” was used in the catechism lessons in the catholic schools, until one day I discovered it among the schoolbooks of my eldest daughter, then 13 years old. On 3 September 1997 I wrote a letter to Cardinal Danneels, saying:
“When I see this drawing and its message, I get the distinct impression that this catechism textbook is designed intentionally to make 13 and 14 year olds believe that toddlers enjoy genital stimulation. In this way one breeds pedophiles that sincerely believe that children actually think that what they are doing to them is ‘groovy’, while the opposite is the case.”
I told Cardinal Danneels that, although I was a member of Parliament for the Flemish-secessionist party Vlaams Blok, I was addressing him as a Catholic parent “who wishes to remain faithful to the papal authority and also wishes to educate her children this way.” I insisted that he forbid the use of this book in the catechism lessons: “This is why I insist – yes, the days of meekly asking are over – that you forbid the use of this ‘catechism book’ in our children’s classrooms.”
Today this case, that dates from 12 years ago, assumes a new and ominous significance. Especially now that I know that Mgr Roger Vangheluwe, the pedophile child molesting Bishop of Bruges, was the supervising bishop of both institutions – the Catholic University of Leuven and the Seminary of Bruges – whence came the editors in chief of this perverted “catechism” textbook.
Monsignor Vangheluwe not only entertained pedophile ideas, but also practiced them on his 11-year old nephew. Hundreds of children who were not raped physically were molested spiritually during the catechism lessons.
After I started my campaign against the Roeach textbook, many parents contacted me to voice their concerns. Stories of other practices in the Catholic education system poured in. There were schools where children were taught to put condoms over artificial penises and where they had to watch videos showing techniques of masturbation and copulation.
Because Cardinal Danneels refused to respond to requests to put an end to these practices, I and hundreds of concerned parents gathered in front of his palace on 15 October 1997. We carried placards with the text “Respect for parents and children,” and we said the rosary. Cardinal Danneels refused to receive a delegation of the demonstrators. “I shall not be pressured,” he said in the libertine magazine Humo on 21 October 1997. The Archbishop’s door remained closed when we demonstrated again on 10 December 1997.
When we demonstrated at the palace of the Bishop of Antwerp on 19 November 1997, Mgr Paul Van den Berghe received a delegation of mothers that included a local councilor from the Christian-Democrat party and myself. Mgr Van den Berghe, who was the Episcopal supervisor for education, listened to the mothers, wept and promised to investigate the practices in the sex education and catechism lessons. He also announced this intention in a declaration to the press.
He must have been reprimanded by his colleagues, because on 24 November, after a meeting of the Bishops’ Conference, in a press release to the press agency Belga, the Bishop of Antwerp announced that, in spite of his promise, there would be no investigation. Today we know that one of the colleagues present at the Conference was the child molester Vangheluwe, which makes that incident, too, very unsavory indeed.
On 18 February 1998 we were at Cardinal Danneels’s door again, myself and a group of parents. Again the door remained closed. So on 18 March 1998 a group of two hundred parents went to the Papal Nuncio, the ambassador of the Vatican, in Brussels. But the Nuncio, who was a friend of Danneels, also refused to meet us. He had, however, alerted the police, who had several water cannons at the ready just around the corner.
Meanwhile Danneels’s friends in the press started a campaign against me. “Colen continues to pester the bishops,” was the headline in Gazet van Antwerpen. One evening Toon Osaer, Danneels’s spokesman at the time, phoned me to tell me that as a Catholic I had to “be obedient” to the bishops. In Humo Danneels insinuated that I was “conducting my election campaign.”
On 5 January 1998 the daily newspaper Het Volk interviewed Patrick Vanhaelemeesch, a catechism teacher in the diocese of Bruges and one of the co-authors of Roeach. He gave some details about the illustration concerning masturbating toddlers in the catechism book. He said that the illustration was intended to convey the message that “toddlers experience sexual lust.” Vanhaelemeesch revealed that the committee of bishops had mentioned this illustration in an evaluation report of the catechism book. The report stated: “The presentation of the sexual-pedagogical attitudes is rendered ridiculous in the eyes of the pupils by the text balloons.” According to Vanhaelemeesch this criticism “indicates that the bishops had no objections at all to the message conveyed [i.e. toddlers experience sexual lust], but feared that the pupils would not take it seriously.”
When I had exhausted all possibilities and it was clear that the Belgian church did not want to hear the parents, I decided to sever all ties with the Catholic education system. I took my five children out of school and set up a homeschool together with other parents, so our children would be educated in a Catholic environment.
I sent a letter to all the cardinals in the world to inform them about the contents of the Roeach textbook. “Please be assured that this Dicastery will give your report all due consideration, answered Mgr. Clemens, Cardinal Ratzinger’s personal secretary, for the Congregation of the Faith in Rome; Cardinal Gagnon from Rome appreciated “the just battle which you are conducting”; “The matter which you raised is very important,” wrote Cardinal Arinze from Rome.
I received letters of support from cardinals from all parts of the globe. “I share your concern. It is important that you do not leave the matter uncontested,” wrote Cardinal Meisner of Cologne; “You have good reasons to be concerned,” wrote Cardinal Wamala of Uganda; “I feel strongly enough to write to Cardinal Danneels in the hope that he may enlighten me,” wrote Cardinal Vidal of the Philippines; “If I have the opportunity to discuss with Cardinal Danneels the matter you have drawn to my attention, I ill do so,” wrote Cardinal Williams of New Zealand; “I shall try to do something in order to help you,” wrote Cardinal Lopez Rodriguez of Santo Domingo; “I am aware that your concerns have been brought to the attention of Cardinal Laghi, Prefect for the Congregation for Catholic Education,” wrote Cardinal O’Connor of New York.
On 27 February 2010 the daily newspaper De Standaard wrote that these letters “enhanced Rome’s perception of the weak church leadership in Belgium.” Hence, the liberal Danneels was replaced by Mgr Léonard. Rome hopes that he will be able to restore the church in Belgium. I share this hope. However, it is a pity that it has taken so long. The damage that has been done is greater than anyone could have imagined.
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It's nice to see that, despite the indifference/hostility of Cardinal Danneels, the action taken by Alexandra Colen and her supporters did have some effect. According to the Wikipedia article on the Catholic Church in Belgium
In 1998 it was reported that a catechism textbook for Belgian children called Roeach 3 showed comic-book-style pictures of toddlers asking sexual questions and engaging in sexual play. The Belgian Catholic hierarchy stated that the textbook was intended for adolescents, and that the pictures were meant to convey the idea that young children experience lust, a prevalent theory in contemporary psychology. Nevertheless, the textbook was withdrawn after public protests by Catholics, which elicited media coverage as well as support from Church officials around the world. [My emphasis]
The editors of Roeach were Prof. Jef Bulckens of the Catholic University of Leuven and Prof. Frans Lefevre of the Seminary of Bruges. The name "Roeach" refers to the Hebrew word Ruach, meaning "spirit" or "breath".
There are obvious parallels between the disaster that befell the "liberal" Catholic Church in Belgium and its counterpart in the USA. See in particular the observations of Father Joseph Wilson below - in his article "The Enemy Within" - concerning Fr Paul Shanley. However - unlike Fr Shanley - Cardinal Danneels survived the scandal that consumed his paedophile friend the Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe. (Perhaps the Cardinal was too useful an idiot?) A likely reason is that Danneels' successor Mgr Leonard was a conservative who had already taken over when the scandal broke - and the media preferred to denounce him rather than the very accommodating cleric who had been their favorite for decades!
The mild treatment of Danneels by the media is even more astonishing in view of the following - quoted in the Irish Times article Belgian Cardinal 'covered up abuse' on 29 August 2010
The former head of Belgium's Catholic Church urged a sexual abuse victim to delay a public statement on the case until the bishop involved resigned, it has emerged.
Belgium's De Standaard newspaper yesterday carried transcripts of a meeting Cardinal Godfried Danneels held with Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and a sexual abuse victim of the bishop in April 2010.
"It is true this meeting and conversation took place, and that the transcript is correct," a Church spokesman confirmed. Cardinal Danneels's spokesman Toon Osaer said the cardinal had not covered up anything and had openly spoken about the April 2010 meeting following Dr Vangheluwe's resignation two weeks after the conversation took place.
In the transcripts, the cardinal suggested the victim should make no public statement about the abuse until the bishop retired the following year. "It might be better to wait for a date in the next year, when he is due to resign," Cardinal Danneels told the victim, according to the transcripts. He told the victim he believed a public announcement would not serve the interests of the victim or the bishop, the transcripts said. "I don't know if there will be much to gain from making a lot of noise about this, neither for you nor for him."
Dr Vangheluwe resigned after admitting having abused the victim for a number of years, both as a priest and a bishop.Cardinal Danneels retired in January and has been questioned as a witness in an investigation into sexual abuse by the Church in Belgium.There may well be a valid humanitarian reason for the advise given by Cardinal Danneels to the victim of Bishop Vangheluwe. Still if the Cardinal was a conservative he would have been savaged by media and politicians. Instead they preferred to direct their anti-clerical hatred at his successor Mgr Andre-Joeeph Leonard!
(B) Father Paul Shanley and “Liberal” American Catholics
During the late 1960s and the 70s Father Paul Shanley was part of the Church's outreach to gays in the Boston Archdiocese. He "outreached" so far that he adopted their lifestyle hook, line and sinker. He openly denounced Catholic teaching on sexual issues and could hardly be accused of hypocrisy as he lived his life in accordance with his professed ideas. He was furiously denounced, for so doing, by Catholic traditionalists and the Boston Church built up a huge file on him. Finally in 1979 he was removed from his "Gay" ministry to the fury of his gay and liberal friends. No other action was taken against him and he remained a priest
As per Wikipedia:
“Shanley first gained notoriety during 1970s as a "street priest," catering to drug addicts and runaways who struggled with their sexuality. His writings included "Changing Norms of Sexuality". During the 1980s, Shanley served as pastor of St. John the Evangelist in Newton [Massachusetts]. In 1990, he was transferred to St. Anne's in San Bernardino, California. While there he and another priest, John J. White, co-owned "a bed-and-breakfast for gay customers 50 miles away in Palm Springs".
“Shanley had earned "the nickname the hippie priest for his long hair and outspoken views, including his public rejection of the church's condemnation of homosexuality." He attended a conference on sexuality [February 1979] where the founders of NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association, conceived the idea of such an organization. However, Shanley was not a part of the 32 individuals at the meeting who caucused to form the group, according to a Catholic priest and Protestant minister who were.”
The pusillanimity of the Boston Archdiocese was to have lethal consequences for itself and for Father Shanley. If Shanley had been dismissed from the priesthood under pressure from traditionalists, he would have become a liberal martyr and a permanent icon for gays. However he remained - officially - a clergyman and as such became a victim of the wave of anti-clerical hysteria that swept America from the mid 1990s onwards - in the form of the Retrieved Memory movement (itself a follow-up to the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria of the 1980s). In 2002 he was accused of regularly raping four 6 year old children on a weekly basis, 20 years previously. All four accusers knew each other and all claimed they had suddenly recovered their memories having repressed all knowledge of the rapes for decades. There was a ferocious media assault on the Church led by the Boston Globe - with the full support of the "liberal" National Catholic Reporter. (The file that had been built up on Shanley, was used as evidence that the Archdiosese "knew" he was a child molester; the fact that it largely consisted of denunciations by conservatives of his gay antics was ignored!)
The media onslaught had the unintended effect of bringing to light some unpleasing facts about the accusers and the authorities dropped two of the four - including Gregory Ford the man who started it all. A third dropped out after facing tough questioning during a pre-trial hearing and eventually only one case - that of Paul Busa actually made it to court in January/February 2005. During the trial Busa again managed to "forget" the relevant details about one of his allegations (perhaps he felt unable to face cross-examination on that issue?) but nevertheless the jury convicted Paul Shanley on the other charges and he was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. There can be no doubt but that the vile behaviour of the "liberal" media - including the National Catholic Reporter - was a major factor in the jury's decision.
The case against the now defrocked (in 2004) Paul Shanley was based entirely on Repressed Memory evidence; yet RM was being heavily attacked by 2005 and that kind of hysteria seemed to be going the same way as had Satanic Ritual Abuse a decade before. On the contrary, the conviction of the former Father Shanley served to revive a dying witch-hunt. In January 2010 the Massachusetts Supreme Court dismissed Paul Shanley's appeal and re-affirmed the validity of Repressed Memory.
Extract from an article by Father Joseph Wilson entitled "The Enemy Within" in the Catholic World Report, 4 July 2002 [11]
.... I was in the seminary 1977-1986. The theologate from which I graduated was the Dallas seminary. The vice rector in charge of the collegians there-- under whose influence the college wing of the seminary deteriorated dramatically, discipline eroded, sexually scandalous situations proliferated and good men abandoned their vocations in disgust--left the priesthood a year after I graduated, to "marry" the President of the Dallas Gay Alliance. He thoughtfully invited the seminarians to the festivities. He had been our Moral Theology professor (he studied for his doctorate in moral theology at the local Methodist university), in whose class we used Father Andre Guindon's text, The Sexual Language. This was a fascinating work, in the pages of which I learned, for example, that gay sex is in some ways preferable to straight sex because it is more innovative, expressive, playful.
It is interesting to look back and see how many of the men in that seminary left, either before or after ordination, to embrace an active homosexual lifestyle, often with each other. I actually had the experience, while there, of sitting through a lecture by Father Paul Shanley, the Boston priest who was recently arrested in California. As you know, I would hope, the Boston chancery office had a file of 1,600 pages on Father Shanley, including the diaries in which he described teaching kids how to shoot up drugs, and letters from all over the country protesting the lectures he gave in which he actively promoted pedophilia as helpful and healthy. The lecture he gave was for the Priests of the Dallas diocese and for the 3rd- and 4th-year seminarians--I was sitting directly behind the then-Bishop of Dallas, Thomas Tschoepe, who laughed and joked his way through a truly vile presentation.
This, ..... was part of my formation for the sacred priesthood. (Along with all of the other stuff: In my 1st year of theology almost all of our textbooks were paperbacks written by Protestants. Our text on the Eucharist was written by a British Methodist. That was not in Dallas, by the way; it was on Long Island) these stories could be multiplied literally ad infinitum. It was and is typical in this country that young men presenting themselves for formation are subjected to situations which undermine their faith and morals. That is not because the seminary is wired for cable TV. It is because the bishops of this country permit it to be so. .....The New York Times described Paul Shanley as "a defrocked priest who became a lightning rod for the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church". However they left out a lot. Like Cardinal Danneels, Fr. Paul Shanley had been a darling of the Catholic Left but suffered a much uglier fate. When Shanley was released in July 2017 after 12 years in prison, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League issued a statement Catholic Left Goes Mute on Paul Shanley [emphasis is mine]
....Boston-area media outlets such as CBS, NBC, Fox 5, New England Cable, and WHDH have all labeled him a pedophile. This is inaccurate: he had sex with children, adolescents, and adults. There was one proviso—they had to be male. Not to even mention his homosexuality is a cover-up.
Shanley is a creature of the Catholic Left. They helped to shape him ideologically and support him organizationally. Now they have gone mute.
Known as the “hippie priest,” the left-wing Shanley argued in the 1970s that “homosexuality is a gift from God and should be celebrated.” He certainly celebrated his homosexuality. But he didn’t stop there. In October 1977, he contended that “not even incest or bestiality” could cause psychic damage........
The Catholic Left has long pushed the Church to relax its teachings on sexuality. This idea was fermented in the 1960s and took root in the 1970s. In other words, Shanley is their boy. Indeed, he served as chaplain to Dignity, the dissident Catholic left-wing organization. As I once told a leader of Dignity, Shanley would never be chosen as chaplain to the Catholic League, but he was a good fit for his group.......
To be fair, Shanley himself has been treated unjustly. Though there is a mountain of evidence showing that he was a practicing homosexual and abuser, his conviction was based on an accusation citing “repressed memory.” This is a fiction: as many prominent psychologists and psychiatrists have shown, the more serious the offense, the less likely it is to be repressed......
We hope Shanley finally makes peace with God. We also hope that the Catholic Left stops saying that the Church’s “sexual repression” caused men like Shanley to do what he did. No, it is precisely the abandonment of restraint—advocated by the Catholic Left—that brought about the homosexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.
NOTES:
[10] from “The Brussels Journal” The Fall of The Belgian Church
[11] from article “The Enemy Within – a Parish Priest Cautions His Would-be Defender” by Fr Joseph Wilson in Catholic World Report, 4 July 2002
Afterthought!
HOWEVER it is also worth reading this article by Joann Whyijewski, one of Shanley's non-Catholic left-wing defenders! Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film
It begins: I don’t “believe the victims”.
I was in Boston in the Spring of 2002 reporting on the priest scandal, and because I know some of what is untrue, I don’t believe the personal injury lawyers or the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team or the Catholic “faithful” who became harpies outside Boston churches, carrying signs with images of Satan, hurling invective at congregants who’d just attended Mass, and at least once – this in my presence – spitting in the face of a person who dared dispute them.......
She also writes about Father Gordon MacRae, politically conservative and not a critic of the Church but the Church abandoned him anyway!
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