UNITED STATES
Enlightened Catholicism
I didn’t intend to go two weeks without posting, but it looks like I certainly managed to do so. For some reason time just seems to be going ultra fast for me lately. I keep track of dates and appointments on a 5 week white board and today marks the end of five weeks. It seems like maybe two weeks since I last changed all the dates. Maybe this is God’s way of packing more life in a short amount of time. I would hope I’m experiencing aging at the same rate. If I age two weeks for every five, I could be around a lot longer than I think. It’s a miracle.
Speaking of miracles, the Vatican has just announced one for Paul VI. It involves the cure of an unspecified problem with a fetus who upon birth did not exhibit the expected birth defect. The Vatican makes no bones about this miracle validating Paul VI’s issuance of Humanae Vitae: “The Postulator of the Pope Paul VI’s cause said this was an extraordinary and supernatural event which took place through the intercession of the late Pope. It was in line with his magisterium and the contents of the “Humanae Vitae” encyclical, i.e. the defence of life, “but also the defence of the family, because that document discusses married love, not just unborn life. This healing is in harmony with Montini’s teaching.”” I certainly hope this blatant politicizing of a miracle and the canonization process of a pope doesn’t portend miracles for every contentious issue promulgated by any pope in the last two hundred years. I anxiously await the next PVI miracle. If there is any justice or honesty, it will be the full cure of AIDS in a gay man.
Pope Francis has aslo been on my radar these past two weeks. I was hoping the latest meeting of the C8 would end with the announcement of the names on the commission on clerical abuse, and maybe more information concerning it’s mandate. There was no such announcement. This commission is still a matter of one sound bite from Cardinal O’Malley and absolutely no walk. The voices for justice, like Betty Clermont’s, in this area are now getting louder and their arguments harder to refute the longer Francis fails to act. It’s been almost a full year and Francis has yet to act in any meaningful way on clerical abuse. He is repeating the sad pattern he had with this issue in Buenos Aires. As Gerry Slevin also points out, so far the priority has been all about putting the Vatican’s money in order rather than giving the victims of the Catholic priesthood some justice.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.