Oh, Those Wacky Germans!

Once again, the German archbishop, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, responded positively to the question, “What do you do when a homosexual couple asks you for an episcopal blessing.”  He claims not to be promoting a general ecclesial solution and, hence, a general public liturgical blessing for same-sex relations. And he even rejects calling such a relationship marriage. Nevertheless, he says, “the decision should be made ‘on the ground, and [considering] the individual under pastoral care’.”

Another German, this time Johannes zu Eltz, the Catholic Dean of the city of Frankfurt am Main, is engaged in the pastoral care of homosexuals. He says, “the question is whether the church is able to learn that good things happen in those relationships; that homosexual couples . . . by their companionship give birth to moral goods for themselves and for others: love, loyalty, commitment, fecundity, chastity. If this is true, then there is the possibility to confirm these goods and to ask for God’s providence and guidance for this couple. That is what we call a blessing.”
Similar reasoning comes from Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück, the deputy chairman of the German Episcopacy.
Well, let's see what the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about it...
 Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC §2357).

The Love That Won't Shut Up

Grand Rapids, Mich., Nov 27, 2019 / 06:55 pm (CNA).- A Michigan diocese said it supports a priest who told a parishioner that because of her same-sex civil marriage she should not receive the Eucharist.

“Inclusion and acceptance have been a hallmark of Catholic Churches in the Diocese of Grand Rapids throughout the diocese’s history. They remain so. They presume, however, a respect on the part of individuals for the teachings and practice of the wider Catholic community,” the Diocese of Grand Rapids said in a statement Thursday.

“No community of faith can sustain the public contradiction of its beliefs by its own members. This is especially so on matters as central to Catholic life as marriage, which the Church has always held, and continues to hold, as a sacred covenant between one man and one woman.” the diocese added.

The diocesan statement came after a Nov. 26 report from local news channel WOOD TV 8, which claimed that Fr. Scott Nolan of St. Stephen Parish in East Grand Rapid had “denied Communion,” to Judge Sara Smolenski, chief judge of the Kent County District Court.

Notice that it doesn't use the Bishop's name? Here he is:

Father David J. Walkowiak

 

 

  This made me laugh:

Smolenski and Nolan have had previous run-ins. The judge is one of several parishioners who has criticized some of Nolan’s actions as pastor of the parish; which have included requiring that lectors at parish Masses be Catholics.

And this:


“I try to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord Jesus Christ. My faith is a huge part of who I am, but it is the church that made that faith, the very church where he is taking a stance and saying ho-ho, not you,” she added, also telling the local news station that she had devoted her life to the Church and recently given a $7,000 gift to the parish.

"Drawing Bright Lines"

READ THE WHOLE THING.

I’m an old man, and though I hope, and on certain days even go so far as to expect, that the Catholic Church in America will eventually recover from the very bad slump it has been in for the past few decades, I fear that I won’t live long enough to see this recovery.

When I’m on my deathbed (a piece of furniture I hope to avoid for at least a few more years), in order that I may die with a smile on my face, I will ask my grandchildren to bring me news of any signs of Catholic recovery.  “Report to me,” I’ll ask them, “any bishop who has been brave enough to excommunicate a Catholic pro-abortion politician.  And tell me about any diocese in which it has been discovered that there is not a single example of a homosexual priest.”

Just to make sure they understand the nature of this latter request, I will make it clear that I’m not interested in learning about a diocese in which all priests have abstained from the crime of sexually molesting underage boys.  I’m always happy, of course, to learn that priests are not committing sexual crimes, just as I’m happy to learn that they are not committing crimes of embezzlement and bank robbery.  But abstention from sexual crimes, while in itself a good thing, is hardly proof that we have a generally chaste priesthood.  Perhaps the opposite.

When Church authorities focus on the prevention of sexual abuse, I suspect they are doing this, at least in part, to draw attention away from the homosexual rot that is ruining the Church.  It’s as if they are saying, “We are absolutely determined that our priests will never again be guilty of sexual abuse – but we’re not really troubled if they happen to have consensual relationships with adult men.”

 THERE'S A LOT MORE AT THE LINK TO "THE CATHOLIC THING".

Good Luck With Your Queer Studies Degree, Audrey

South Bend, Ind., Oct 2, 2019 / 04:11 pm (CNA).- Students and observers are reacting to a hand-painted sign, posted outside an academic hall at the University of Notre Dame, bearing the words “There is Queer Blood on Homophobic Hands.” The sign implicates Catholic student journalists, faculty, and alumni for the deaths of people who identify as queer.

According to the Irish Rover, the sign appeared outside DeBartolo Hall, close to the football stadium, the week of Sept. 19. Campus police have since removed it.

The walk-out when Mike Pence was the commencement speaker at UND

 In addition to its message painted in blood red, the sign includes pasted articles clipped from The Irish Rover and the Observer, two student publications, that reflect Catholic doctrine on human sexuality, along with pictures of people nationwide who identify as queer and have been killed or committed suicide.

The names of the student journalists, as well as the names of other students, faculty, and alumni of Notre Dame are circled in red paint. 

Though the sign itself was anonymous, the Observer newspaper on Sept. 30 published an op-ed by Audrey Lindemann, a Notre Dame junior who, in the form of a poem, said the Catholic student publication’s “ivory tower theology slit my loved ones’ throats.”

Fredo's Brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Claims to be Catholic

 Of course, Cuomo was "educated" at Fordham University...a Jesuit school.



 From "The Catholic Thing". Read it all.


The eight Catholic dioceses of New York are bracing themselves against a flood of lawsuits over clerical sexual abuse. A new law, known as the Child Victims Act, was passed early this year and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in February. Among the provisions of the new law is a one-year “look-back window,” during which civil cases that had passed the statute of limitations can be revived.

That window opened yesterday, August 14.

New civil suits are being filed. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, more are expected to be filed in the coming weeks and months. (I just Googled “Child Victims Act” and the first four results are advertisements for trial lawyers with offices in New York.)

Given the increased liability for the Catholic Church – and the fact that the bishops of New York trust Governor Cuomo about as far as they can throw him – you might suspect that the bishops would be opposed to the new law. And they were. Or rather, they were opposed to earlier versions of the law, and had been for years. But they withdrew their opposition in late January, just before the bill was passed.

As the bishops said in a statement at the time, “The legislation now recognizes that child sexual abuse is an evil not just limited to one institution, but a tragic societal ill that must be addressed in every place where it exists.”

So what changed? The Catholic bishops wanted several changes in the bill. They hoped to see the statute of limitations dropped entirely for criminal sex-abuse cases; the law merely extends them (along with statutes of limitations in civil cases). The bishops were also reluctant to support the look-back window, for obvious reasons. But they either had a change of heart on that point – or saw the writing on the wall. The real sticking point was a loophole that would have left public institutions – in particular, public schools – largely immune to the kind of exposure non-public institutions (like the Catholic Church) would face under the new law.
New York law requires that a “notice of claim” be filed by a victim before proceeding in a civil claim against a public institution. If that “notice of claim” isn’t filed within 90 days, the suit can’t proceed. The result was that victims of child sexual abuse had just 90 days to decide to take civil action against state and municipal institutions, including public schools.
For years, bishops around the country have insisted that legislation that lifts, or retroactively extends, statutes of limitations for civil suits in child sex-abuse cases ought not single-out the Catholic Church. The Child Victims Act removes the “notice of claim” loophole for cases involving the sexual abuse of minors, both new cases and those that might be brought during the look-back window. When that language was changed in the proposed bill, the Catholic bishops dropped their objections.

Yet Another Bishop With Courage! They Inspire Me!

The dancers soar across the church aisles and the altar, embrace as they spin and cover each other in blue and red chalk. They do this after opening video clips of homophobic protests and violence have flashed across the screen. All of this accompanied by a recording of Jeff Buckley’s popular song, Hallelujah. Near the end the two men share a brief kiss.  The final image is a large banner they create that reads ‘Choose Love,’ raised high over a backdrop of stained glass.
This dance performance video, entitled Hallelujah, was set and filmed in Quebec’s historic Church of St. Pierre Apôtre. Its a queer love story produced by Matthew Richardson–and the church leaders were happy to host it.

 “They welcomed me, my message, and our creation with open arms,” said Richardson,the show’s creator and  a former Cirque Du Soleil performer. Hallelujah is one of five dances he will direct as part of his CircusQueer Project. The video is deeply intimate in a deeply Catholic setting. In a review by the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News (SDGLN), dancers Guillaume Paquin and Arthur Morel Van Hyfte are described as “only [the] heart” of the video, while, “the church [is] its body, taking on perhaps the most important role in the video: an example of inclusivity through servanthood.”

The Bishop of Montreal.

Christian Lépine (French pronunciation: ​[kʁistjɑ̃ lepin]); born 18 September 1951) has been Archbishop of Montreal since 20 March 2012.
 
Before entering the seminary, Lépine studied at the Collège Militaire Royal de St-Jean and École Polytechnique de Montréal. He was ordained a priest on 7 September 1983. He studied theology at the Université de Montréal and philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome from 1986 to 1989.^[3] He served as secretary to Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte from 1996 until going in 1998 to work at the Secretariat of State and later at the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. From 2001 to 2006 he was a member of the formation staff of the major seminary in Montreal, before becoming pastor of Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Purification-de-la-Vierge-Marie-Bienheureuse. 

In the autumn of 2009, his parish of Notre-Dame-des-Champs became the centre of a media controversy after they hosted a session for parents on how to instill an integrated sexual identity in their children. The then-Fr. Lépine had to cancel the last two sessions of the series after homosexual activists threatened to protest.
 
On 11 July 2011, he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Montreal and Titular Bishop of Zabi, and on 10 September he was consecrated by Cardinal Turcotte. He served as Episcopal Vicar to Family and Youth.
 
On 20 March 2012, less than a year later, he was appointed to succeed Cardinal Turcotte, who had reached the age of retirement the previous year, and at an 8 a.m. meeting of the College of Consultors on the same day he took canonical possession of the see. A public installation took place on 27 April 2012.

GUILTY Until Proven Innocent

Cincinnati, Ohio, Aug 5, 2019 / 08:30 am (CNA).- An auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, and member of the USCCB committee on child protection, is facing accusations that he failed to report to Cincinnati’s archbishop a series of allegations that a priest had engaged in inappropriate behavior with teenage boys.

After CNA presented its investigation to the archdiocese, a spokesperson said that Bishop Joseph R. Binzer would be removed from his position as head of priest personnel, effective immediately, while the archdiocese begins its own internal investigation.

The archdiocese has not removed Binzer, 64, from his post as archdiocesan vicar general, a position of authority second only to the archbishop. Binzer is also a member of the U.S. bishops’ conference committee for the protection of children and young people.

Binzer could face further disciplinary action by Cincinnati Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, and is likely to undergo a formal investigation under the provisions of Vos estis lux mundi, a recently promulgated policy for dealing with bishops who fail to properly handle allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct.

That sounds horrible! But...

 
At the time, the complaint was forwarded to Butler County authorities, who found no evidence of criminal behavior.

That'lll Show Him

If you thought punching random people claiming they’re “Nazis” was bad, wait till you see this. We’ve clearly reached a whole new level of incivility with the left’s war on religion. Watch as a smiling protester violently shoves a priest perceived by the LGBTQWTF community as “anti-gay” off a high stage during mass in Cachoeira Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil:

I guess we should be glad she didn’t cut his head off.

Father Marcelo Rossi is a well-loved priest in Latin America with a popular radio show with over three million listeners. The gay press is not condemning this attack and instead is insulting the priest in their reports, calling him “anti-gay” and repeating statements he made about gay sex that are in line with Catholic teaching and are supposed to be what all priests believe.

“Queerty” listed quotes with no context after claiming, “Rossi has made numerous anti-gay statements throughout his career.” Because that’s the important part, right? Father Rossi may have made statements that made unhinged gay people attack. Totally his fault.

July, Or Greed Month

 From Dr. Bastiat at the Ricochet website. You have to be a member to read the whole thing, I believe.

One of my gay friends (“Chad”) posts repeated rainbow-colored memes and pictures on his Facebook feed, every day during “Pride Month.” He views gays as a civil rights group: Why should someone be treated differently simply because they were born differently? At first, I found it odd that Chad insisted on celebrating his pride in, well, in simply being born different. Nothing he accomplished, but just the way he was born. That seems like me spending a month every year celebrating my pride in being born with brown hair. I mean, brown hair is nice, but it seems like an inadequate reason for parades.

Anyway, after a while, it occurred to me that Chad’s celebration of pride could serve as a model for other holiday months. Perhaps we should have a celebratory month for each of the Seven Cardinal (Deadly) Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, and Sloth. (Obviously, we would not celebrate The Seven Heavenly Virtues. That’s no fun.) Fortunately, the LGBTQQIP2SAA+ founding, um, fathers had the foresight to observe Pride Month in June, so each of the remaining six months of the year could be used to observe the six remaining Cardinal Sins. It works out so perfectly, I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence. This must have been the plan all along.
August will be fun – an entire month celebrating Lust! Woohoo! And I’m not sure exactly how some of our neighbors will observe the months celebrating Gluttony and Sloth. What, exactly, would they do differently? And, if I’m being brutally honest, I’m not sure what I would do differently in some of these months.

Now the Bad News

New York City, N.Y., Jul 5, 2019 / 10:52 pm (CNA).- A New York priest who told a prospective seminarian to lie to Church officials about his sexuality has been indefinitely suspended from ministry after a canonical penal process found him guilty of serial sexual misconduct.
“I write to share some unpleasant and somber news concerning Father John Duffell, your just retired parish administrator,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan wrote in a July 1 letter to parishioners of New York’s Blessed Sacrament Parish.

“Father Duffell has been directed not to publicly exercise his priestly ministry due to an allegation from the past that he abused his position of authority in a violation of his promise of celibacy.”
“The allegation was made first to the District Attorney, and then brought to our attention. This allegation involves an adult; it does not involve a minor. It is important that the archdiocese take such allegations seriously,” Dolan wrote.

A source close to the priest told CNA that the allegation involved serial misconduct over a period of years.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York told CNA July 6 that the priest was found guilty of the canonical crime of sexual misconduct in an administrative penal process undertaken by the archdiocese. His suspension from priestly ministry is indefinite, the spokesman said. 


The priest has faced criticism for some activities of the “gay fellowship” at his parish.
In 2017, the parish “gay fellowship” partnered with the Born This Way Foundation, an “LGBT-rights” group founded by entertainer Lady Gaga, to hold a fundraising dance at the church hall.
Duffell was pictured in an Instagram photo with Lady Gaga in 2016.

Pride Month

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/06/the-week-in-pictures-prince-of-whales-edition.php

Catholic, in the Nancy Pelosi Sense

 This could have been another The Trouble With Jesuits post.


Panama City, Panama, Jan 16, 2019 / 04:06 pm (CNA).- A U.S.-based coalition of dissenting Catholics, whose backers include wealthy non-Catholic funders, is sending a small group of LGBT activists to World Youth Day in Panama to engage with media and pilgrims and to challenge Catholic teaching and practice they say is “harmful.”

The six pilgrims are backed by the Equally Blessed Coalition, currently composed of the groups Call to Action, Dignity USA and New Ways Ministry. The group Fortunate Families had belonged to the coalition for several years but left it in 2018.
This year’s World Youth Day, a major international Catholic young adult event, will take place in the Panama City area Jan. 22-27. It is expected to draw 3 million people, including 200,000 Panamanians, according to local papers. Pope Francis will take part in the events and celebrate a penitential liturgy with juvenile detention center detainees, a Way of the Cross with young people, a prayer vigil with youth, and a Mass for World Youth Day participants.
The Equally Blessed Coalition’s November 13, 2018 announcement cited Pew Research Center and Public Religion Research Institute polling that they said showed two-thirds of American Catholics backed “gay marriage” and a majority oppose “so-called ‘religious freedom’ laws that allow businesses and other public service providers to discriminate against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” (This sounds bogus).


In a February 12, 2010 statement, then-U.S. bishops’ conference president Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said New Ways Ministry’s claim to be Catholic “only confuses the faithful regarding the authentic teaching and ministry of the Church with respect to persons with a homosexual inclination.” He rejected claims that it provides “an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice.” The group has no approval from the Church and “they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States,” he said.

In 2016 New Ways Ministry awarded its Bridge Building Award to media commentator and America magazine editor Father James Martin, S.J., who based his book on LGBT outreach on his acceptance speech.
In 2012 the Equally Blessed Coalition issued a report attacking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus for their work to maintain the legal definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman

Cura te Ipsum

The daughter of the most corrupt politician in the most corrupt state in the country is after the Church....

A scathing report from Attorney General Lisa Madigan finds the number of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse against children in Illinois is much higher than previously acknowledged.
The report said accusations have been leveled against 690 priests, while Catholic officials have publicly identified only 185 clergy with credible allegations against them.
The determination is part of a preliminary report made public Wednesday by Madigan’s office, which has been investigating Catholic clergy sexual abuse of minors following revelations during the summer of widespread abuse and cover-ups by Catholic officials in Pennsylvania. The report was critical of the six Catholic dioceses that govern parishes across Illinois for their lack of transparency and flawed investigations.

A SCATHING report? I'm sure she will do something about it, right?


Madigan stressed the findings issued in the report are based on a preliminary investigation, and it was too soon to say what, if any, action should be brought by her office. She said she would like to see her successor, Democrat Kwame Raoul, continue the inquiry next year.

I Really Hope This is Photoshopped

A rainbow cross? What? Anybody? ANYBODY?

How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington, a moment many victims of clerical abuse had hoped would demonstrate his commitment to holding bishops accountable for mismanaging cases of sexual misconduct.

But instead of making an example of Cardinal Wuerl, who was named in a recent Pennsylvania grand jury report that accused church leaders of covering up abuse, Francis held him up as a model for the future unity of the Roman Catholic Church. The pope cited Cardinal Wuerl’s “nobility” and announced that the 77-year-old prelate would stay on as the archdiocese’s caretaker until the appointment of his successor.

In an interview, Cardinal Wuerl said that he would continue to live in Washington and that he expected to keep his position in Vatican offices that exert great influence, including one that advises the pope on the appointment of bishops.

 Viganò 2 – Francis 0

Bishop Cupich and the Elephant in the Room

September 19, 2018 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Chicago priest and his parishioners have burned a rainbow flag that was once displayed at the parish, in an act that the priest has called an “exorcism,” in apparent defiance of the Archdiocese of Chicago, led by pro-LGBT Cardinal Blase Cupich.

Although a spokeswoman for the archdiocese told the Windy City Times that “the pastor has agreed not to move forward with these activities,” after Fr. Paul Kalchik of Chicago’s Resurrection Parish said he would burn the flag publicly, the priest went ahead with the event in private, joined by several members of the parish. They reportedly prayed prayers of exorcism as well.

Kalchik told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was the victim of homosexual sex abuse by a neighbor as a child, and defended his actions as a response to homosexualist “propaganda” in the Catholic Church.

“That banner and what it stood for doesn’t belong to the Archdiocese or Cardinal Cupich. It belongs to the people of this parish who paid for it,” Kalchik told the newspaper. “What have we done wrong other than destroy a piece of propaganda that was used to put out a message other than what the church is about?”

“The people of this parish have been pretty resilient and put up with a lot of B.S.” Kalchik told the Sun-Times. “And it was just by accident that this banner that was made to celebrate all things gay … did not get destroyed when I first got here.”

It is not clear if the priest also burned donation pledge cards as he had planned to do, in likely response to corruption in the archdiocese revealed in recent scandals involving Cardinal Cupich.

The burning was carried out in “a private way, a quiet way, so as not to bring the ire of the gay community down upon this parish,” Kalchik told NBC News on Monday. “It’s our full right to destroy it, and we did so privately because the archdiocese was breathing on our back.”

Kalchik told NBC News that the flag was a “profane” symbol because it mixed the LGBT rainbow with a cross, and said that using the cross as anything other than a “reminder of our Lord’s passion and death . . . is what we consider a sacrilege.”

They Don't Require Math in Journalism School

In 2018, the highly retrospective nature of most of the allegations still gets lost in the deserved and appropriate public wrath at each new wave of revelations. Those revelations are about sexual abuse that hundreds and perhaps thousands of priests in the United States committed over a long period but overwhelmingly in the 1960s through the 1980s. Gray notes that, in the John Jay report of 2004,

the most common decade of birth for alleged abusers was the 1930s and the most common decade of ordination was the 1960s. This profile has not changed in allegations that emerged in the 14 years that have followed — including the recent [Pennsylvania] grand jury report. No new wave of abuse has emerged in the United States.

“Wave,” of course, doesn’t mean “incidence.” CARA counts 22 cases of abuse that priests in the United States are alleged to have committed in 2015–17. That’s an average of about seven cases per year. Still too many. For perspective, however, compare that with the annual average of 271 cases of abuse that, since 2004 alone, has been alleged to have been committed by priests during the 1970s. Are the figures for the past few years so dramatically lower because accusers tend to come forward only many years after an incident? Will we have to wait until 2050 to have an adequate picture of what the rate of abuse might be now? Probably not, according to Gray...

SEVEN per year. Meanwhile in the Chicago Public School System....

They were top athletes and honor-roll students, children struggling to read and teenagers seeking guidance.
But then they became prey, among the many students raped or sexually abused during the last decade by trusted adults working in the Chicago Public Schools as district officials repeated obvious child-protection mistakes.

 To better quantify the frequency of abuse in Chicago’s schools, reporters obtained and analyzed Chicago police data on such crimes from 2008 through 2017. Police investigated 523 reports that children were sexually assaulted or abused inside city public schools during that 10-year period, or an average of one report each week, the data show.

 In all, the Tribune closely examined 108 cases and identified 72 school employees as alleged perpetrators in the last decade. The rest were student-on-student sexual attacks.


FYI -there are over 13,000 school districts in the United States.

And the Border Wall!

 

 

Pope Says He Will Address Sex Abuse Scandal Once He’s Finished Talking About Climate Change

The Elephant in the Room

 

I'm talking to you, pervert

It is time for clergy and laity to begin a movement for the purification of the Church. The shameful sexual sins and crimes of clergy—including cardinals, bishops, and priests—can no longer be tolerated. Tolerance is precisely what has allowed these problems to multiply for decades and persist up to today. 

As Fr. Thomas Berg recently explained, the issue is sexually active priests and bishops. In the main, the persistent problem is with homosexually active priests.  Fr. Roger Landry argues—rightly, I think—that most priests who persist in infidelity with women eventually leave the priesthood, but priests who cheat on their vocation with men often continue to live a double life. Most of the issues stem from this kind of duplicity. Networks of active homosexual priests have developed: They protect and promote their own and others who will tolerate them. They become a major problem when they insinuate themselves into positions of power (in a seminary, in a chancery or diocese, in a religious order, in the Roman curia)—as occurred in the case of Theodore McCarrick. 
The sins here are more grave than adultery or homosexual acts because they besmirch what is holy. Properly speaking, this is sacrilege, the perversion of Holy Orders, and the defilement of a person solemnly and publicly consecrated to God in chastity. The sin is even more serious when a bishop, a seminary formator, or a priest uses the authority of his office—an office instituted by Christ for the sanctification of the faithful—in a perverse way, in the service of shameful and selfish passions. The higher the abuse of authority in the Church, the more grave is the sacrilege. These are not private sins of individual Christians, and the victims suffer more because they are abused not by “private individuals,” but by priests. These crimes dishonor and offend God, and they wound the Church in a unique way.

An Upside Down Country To Match the Justice System

So no proof, just two guys accusing a Bishop for something that allegedly happened 40 years ago. And he's convicted.

Adelaide, Australia, May 22, 2018 / 11:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Australian Archbishop Philip Wilson has been found guilty of failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse disclosed to him in the 1970s.

The guilty verdict was announced Tuesday by local magistrate Robert Stone.

Currently the head of the Archdiocese of Adelaide, Wilson is the most senior Catholic Church official to be convicted of concealing abuse. The bishop, who has maintained his innocence throughout the trial, could face up to a maximum of two years in jail. It is unknown if he will appeal the verdict.

The victims of the scandal, Peter Creigh and another altar boy who is unnamed for legal reasons, said they both had told Wilson of their abusive experience with Fr. James Fletcher.

Creigh said that he told Wilson in graphic detail of the abuse in 1976, five years after it had occurred. However, Wilson said the conversation never took place, noting in a court hearing April 11, “I don’t think I would have forgotten that.”

The second victim said he had told Wilson of the abuse in the confessional in 1976, but that Wilson had dismissed the boy with a penance, saying that he was lying. Wilson said he would never tell someone in the confessional that they were untruthful, and that he did not remember having seen the boy at all in 1976.