In the pages of the Jerusalem Post comes an editorial on the journalistic pseudo-inquisition launched against the Holy Father. Former New York City mayor, Ed Koch, makes some points that deserve wide circulation:
The primary explanation for the abuse that happened – not to excuse the retention of priests in positions that enabled them to continue to harm children – was the belief that the priests could be cured by psychotherapy, a theory now long discarded by the medical profession. Regrettably, it is also likely that years ago the abuse of children was not taken as seriously as today. Thank God we’ve progressed on that issue.
Bravo, Mayor Koch. The Pollyannaism of the “experts” who functioned as advisers in this matter dictated a rigid party line: therapy can cure homosexual predators; once cured, they can be recirculated as pastors. Ed Koch says this theory is “now long discarded by the medical profession.” I hope so. It seems to have been a quaint theory of the latter half of the twentieth century, an era so full of quaint, yet morally corrosive, theories.
But even then, there were voices of seasoned common sense. The founder of the Servants of the Paraclete, Father Gerald Fitzgerald, advised the Bishop of Manchester, N.H., in the following words:
We are amazed to find how often a man who would be behind bars if he were not a priest is entrusted with the [care of souls] … from our long experience with characters of this type … their repentance and amendment is superficial. A new diocese means only green pastures.
Bishop Matthew Brady followed this advice, not only bouncing the abuser who occasioned the inquiry to Father Fitzgerald, but even writing to warn his brother bishops not to accept the disgraced priest in their dioceses.
Sadly, later generations of the Servants, an institute founded to help priests caught up in vice, betrayed their founder’s wisdom, and were among the very enablers and “experts” who tried, and failed, in the therapeutic approach — the one “now long discarded by the medical profession.” The result cost millions in settlements, and untold damage to souls redeemed by Jesus Christ.
Back to Mayor Koch, who cites the real reasons for the smear job on the Pope:
Many of those in the media who are pounding on the Church and the pope today clearly do it with delight, and some with malice. The reason, I believe, for the constant assaults is that there are many in the media, and some Catholics as well as many in the public, who object to and are incensed by positions the Church holds, including opposition to all abortions, opposition to gay sex and same-sex marriage, retention of celibacy rules for priests, exclusion of women from the clergy, opposition to birth control measures involving condoms and prescription drugs and opposition to civil divorce. My good friend, John Cardinal O’Connor, once said, “The Church is not a salad bar, from which to pick and choose what pleases you.” The Church has the right to demand fulfillment of all of its religious obligations by its parishioners, and indeed a right to espouse its beliefs generally.
The Mayor goes on to state that he, a Conservative Jew, disagrees with the Church on all those points. We ought to pray for his conversion, but now we can certainly credit Mr. Koch for recognizing and publicly decrying the injustice of lying about the Pope simply because his agenda differs from that of the anti-Catholic leftist media.
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