Denials by Cardinal McCarrick’s colleagues are ‘not credible’ : Canon lawyer

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Denials by Cardinal McCarrick’s colleagues are ‘not credible’ : Canon lawyer

July 30, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – “Who calls the fondling, groping, and sex with young seminarians and young priests ‘consensual sex between adults’?” asked a canon lawyer speaking out about the Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sex abuse scandal last week.

“These are our sons,” she exclaimed.

“These are the young men in formation who we’ve encouraged to go to seminary,” she continued. “We as mothers, and family members, have raised our sons in the church and encouraged them to the priesthood.”

Canon lawyer Marjorie Murphy Campbell spoke with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over about an open letter she penned to the United States Conference of Bishops (USCCB) in The Christian Review, titled an Open Letter to the USCCB Regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal.

A crisis in the episcopacy of this Church

“To call it ‘improprieties between adults’ instead of ‘predation by a person in a position of trust and authority’ is the work of PR and the work of attorneys,” said Campbell, “and it sounds to me like, when I read [the bishop’s statements that are being issued], that the bishops are going to try again to hide behind PR firms and lawyers, and treat this as a canonical problem when it is not. It is a crisis in the episcopacy of this Church.”

Arroyo kicked off their conversation by noting that in the early 2000s, there was a delegation of Catholics who went to the Vatican to warn about McCarrick’s reputation for preying upon seminarians. Despite that, McCarrick was allowed “to proceed in a very quick pace up the hierarchical chain of command and became one of the most influential cardinals in the world.”

“And following that,” noted Arroyo, “he becomes a kingmaker, and his proteges are now going on to higher careers and they become bishops.”

“Why didn’t somebody in the U.S. Conference of Bishops stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute’?” asked Campbell. “We have a problem that is much bigger than just our priests. We have a problem at the Episcopal level. And if something was said to Rome, and there was non-responsiveness from Rome, then all the more reason why our bishops should have taken the matter into their hands, within the community that is created by the Episcopal conference. They meet, they discuss, they talk formally, they talk informally, and this is information that was here and available.”

Denials by Cardinal McCarrick’s colleagues are ‘not credible’

Bishops who worked in close collaboration with McCarrick, including Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery of Laity, Life and Family, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., have issued statements denying they had any inkling of McCarrick’s predatory sexual behavior toward young men.

Farrell in particular was a very close collaborator of McCarrick and also his housemate for six years.

Campbell said that “based on all of the reports,” recent statements by McCarrick’s former and current colleagues are “not credible”

A new, ominous chapter

In her open letter to the USCCB, Campbell appealed to the bishops:

With this shameful exposure of Cardinal McCarrick’s history, the USCCB enters a new, ominous chapter. The bishops must confront serious questions about the role and credibility of the conference itself. I urge you toward disclosure, transparency, and communication. I urge you to commission a third study with a focus on how a sexually abusive bishop not only remained immune from scrutiny that our priests underwent during the sexual abuse crisis but advanced in [his] Episcopacy.

Laity must be in charge of the investigation

Campbell added:

I also urge the USCCB to promptly appoint a commission of laity to work with the USCCB and...to formulate independent observations and recommendations regarding procedures for exposing, reporting and addressing sexual misconduct by our bishops. It is critical to Catholics – who are called upon to encourage our sons toward the priesthood – to understand the scope of sexual predation, and its enabling, among our Bishops. The voice of the laity must be included and heard, for the voice of our Bishops has failed us.

“We need an internal factual audit of which bishops knew what,” asserted Campbell. “This has to be a laity-led solution. The credibility at the episcopal level is shot.”

“This commission can’t be urged to dig a trench with handcuffs on,” she said. “This has to be a commission that is given complete and full access to the records of the USCCB, and every bishop is obligated to cooperate with.”

Regarding the notion that since McCarrick is 88 years old, the Vatican will just wait for him to die rather than put him on trial, Campbell said, “No matter what the response of the Vatican is, the laity in the United States are demanding that we be given access and control of the solution to this.”

Campbell said that McCarrick should be laicized and stripped of his title as a cardinal, and that “bishops who know that they participated in concealing this information, I believe they should resign. I believe there should be a period of reflection, resignation, and repentance.”

⚑ Bergoglio covered up and protected the homosexual predator Juan Carlos Maccarone within the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA)

William Wilberforce: 'You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.'

This is not a 'crisis of the Church', it is a homosexual infiltration that has taken control of the hierarchy.

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We will recognize them by their fruits.

Prayer to St. Michael

Please protect us, St. Michael the Archangel, against violence, murder, and robbery. In your goodness preserve us today from all the malice of sinful and wicked persons. In your sleepless vigilance watch over the safety and welfare of our homes, and keep guard over our possessions. Ever hold in your special care, most triumphant St. Michael, the forces of public order against the crimes of evil people, and defend all honest citizens in time of peril. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Novena Prayer to St. Michael

(Pray for nine consecutive days)
Saint Michael the Archangel, loyal champion of God and His Catholic people, I turn to thee with confidence and seek thy powerful intercession. For the love of God, Who hast made thee so glorious in grace and power, and for the love of the Mother of Jesus, the Queen of the Angels, be pleased to hear my prayer.
Thou knowest the value of my soul in the eyes of God. May no stain of evil ever disfigure its beauty. Help me to conquer the evil spirit who tempts me. I desire to imitate thy loyalty to God and Holy Mother Church and thy great love for God and men. And since thou art God’s messenger for the care of His people, I entrust to thee this special request: (here mention your request).
Saint Michael, since thou art, by the will of the Creator, the powerful intercessor of Christians, I have great confidence in thy prayers. I earnestly trust that if it is God’s holy will, my petition will be granted.
Pray for me, Saint Michael, and also for those I love. Protect us in all dangers of body and soul. Help us in our daily needs. Through thy powerful intercession, may we live a holy life, die a happy death and reach Heaven where we may praise and love God with thee forever. Amen.
Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory Be.
St. Michael, Guardian of souls, Vanquisher of rebel spirits, Pray for us.

St John Chrysostom

Our Lord having reproached the Jews with blindness, they might have said, We are not blind, but we avoid you as a deceiver. Our Lord therefore gives the marks which distinguish a robber and deceiver from a true shepherd. First come those of the deceiver and robber: Verily, verily, I say to you, He that enters not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. There is an allusion here to Antichrist, and to certain false Christs who had been, and were to be. The Scriptures He calls the door. They admit us to the knowledge of God, they protect the sheep, they shut out the wolves, they bar the entrance to heretics. He that uses not the Scriptures, but climbs up some other way, i.e. some self-chosen, some unlawful way, is a thief. Climbs up, He says, not, enters, as if it were a thief getting over a wall, and running all risks. Some other way, may refer too to the commandments and traditions of men which the Scribes taught, to the neglect of the Law. When our Lord further on calls Himself the Door, we need not be surprised. According to the office which He bears, He is in one place the Shepherd, in another the Sheep. In that He introduces us to the Father, He is the Door, in that He takes care of us, He is the Shepherd. (Catena Aurea)

LIBERTAS ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE NATURE OF HUMAN LIBERTY
35. And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free.

“If you want to be certain of being in the number of the Elect, strive to be one of the few, not one of the many. And if you would be quite sure of your salvation, strive to be among the fewest of the few; that is to say, do not follow the great majority of mankind, but follow those who enter upon the narrow way, who renounce the world, who give themselves to prayer, and who never relax their efforts by day or night, so that they may attain everlasting blessedness.” -Saint Anselm, Father and Doctor of the Church

PRAYER TO SAINT JOSEPH, THE PROTECTOR OF CHRISTIAN FAMILIES Great Saint Joseph, who wast chosen of God to be the head of the holiest and most august of families, deign to cast thy eyes upon us, and take us this day under thy special protection. Holy Patriarch, model of the holiest faith, and of the most perfect virtues, obtain for all the members of this family grace to withstand the dangers and seductions of the world, and to remain stedfastly attached to the LORD. Obtain for us that, always united by the bonds of the most tender charity, and encouraging one another mutually in good works, we may taste under thy auspices the sweetness of that peace which JESUS has promised to His true disciples. But above all, when our last hour shall come, obtain for us that we may find grace before the Sovereign Judge, so that, reunited in heaven at the foot of Thy Throne, we may celebrate everlastingly the glory of GOD and thy praise. Amen.

St. Vincent Ferrer -- Sermon on the Last Judgment: In the same way, in the time of Antichrist, the Sun of justice will be obscured by the interposition of temporal goods and the wealth which Antichrist will bestow on the world, inasmuch as the brightness of faith in Jesus Christ and the glow of good lives will no longer shine among Christians. For, lest they should lose their dominion, temporal rulers, kings and princes will range themselves on the side of Antichrist. In like manner, prelates for fear of losing their dignities, and religious and priests to gain honors and riches, will forsake the Faith of Christ and adhere to Antichrist.

Neither living nor lifeless faith remains in a heretic who disbelieves one article of faith. The reason of this is that the species of every habit depends on the formal aspect of the object, without which the species of the habit cannot remain. Now the formal object of faith is the First Truth, as manifested in Holy Writ and the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth. Consequently whoever does not adhere, as to an infallible and Divine rule, to the teaching of the Church, which proceeds from the First Truth manifested in Holy Writ, has not the habit of faith, but holds that which is of faith otherwise than by faith. Even so, it is evident that a man whose mind holds a conclusion without knowing how it is proved, has not scientific knowledge, but merely an opinion about it. Now it is manifest that he who adheres to the teaching of the Church, as to an infallible rule, assents to whatever the Church teaches; otherwise, if, of the things taught by the Church, he holds what he chooses to hold, and rejects what he chooses to reject, he no longer adheres to the teaching of the Church as to an infallible rule, but to his own will. Hence it is evident that a heretic who obstinately disbelieves one article of faith, is not prepared to follow the teaching of the Church in all things; but if he is not obstinate, he is no longer in heresy but only in error. Therefore it is clear that such a heretic with regard to one article has no faith in the other articles, but only a kind of opinion in accordance with his own will. (Saint Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 5, a. 3)

Tuesday, July 31, 2018