I am afraid that the record of Cardinal Murphy O’Connor when Bishop of Arundel and Brighton was not a good one concerning priests who had committed sexual rapes upon children, and at least one notorious offender was given another job where he had easy access to children – with the obvious results. The Cardinal said, in his defence, ” we did not know what to do, in those days” but any school would have told him exactly how to deal with these appalling men – it is not to “recycle” them so they can rape other innocent children. The Catholic Church in England has not faced up to the problem of sex abuse, as a recent article in the admirable “Christian Order” makes clear. Nor has the new pope said much about these sexual attacks on the innocent – although Our Blessed Lord said that for those who harmed children it would be preferable to be at the bottom of the sea with a millstone round the neck. For some Catholics, the crime of sexual attacks by priests on children makes this age not the “greatest age in the history of the Church” but the worst and most shameful. Sexual abuse has emptied the Catholic churches of Ireland and reduced ordinations to almost zero. I have heard it said that this corruption of children by the clergy (the very ones who should be protecting them) has always gone on. I know of no evidence that this happened on any scale before the 1960s. The great enemies of the Church – Rousseau, Voltaire, Proudhon, et al, told many stories of the “evils” of the Catholic Church, (Nuns carrying on with priests, etc) but none of these, to my knowledge, accused the Church of the sexual abuse of children.
- Chrysostom, the dating of the appearance of this scourge is precisely known: it was in the middle 1950′s when the Servants of the Paraclete, an American Order set up by its holy founder specifically to give residence and spiritual help to priests in trouble (drunks, affairs with women etc.), noted in his letters (hair-raising they are too, and available online) to Bishops that he was seeing for the first time ever homosexual priests and predatory homosexual attacks on children. He warned Bishop after Bishop. He warned Paul VI, who I believe tightened up Canon Law as a result of the warnings given by this Fr. Fitzgerald. It was exactly these provisions of Canon Law that the American, Irish and British Bishops entirely ignored which facilitated the movement of these devils from one parish to another.Mid 1950′s. The problem appeared not to have existed before then.
- Benedict C:What a very illuminating piece of information.
- WUE, check this out.Google “Fr. Fitzgerald, letters”. You’ll find all the links you need. the Bishops ALL KNEW about this scourge decades ago.
