Waiting for Godot to Leave

What on earth is wrong with our bishops?   As bad as I thought Bishop Finn handled the Fr. Ratigan case , I had no idea that he ignored the red flags described in this letter alone.  The letter was written in 2010 by Julie Hess, the principal of the Catholic school at the parish where Fr. Ratigan was pastor, and delivered to Finn's Vicar General, his second-in-command. All you need to keep in mind while reading it is that Fr. Ratigan was later discovered to have been busy taking pornographic photographs of the little girls of his parish (one as young as age two), was molesting them, and has since been sentenced to 50 years in Federal prison without the possibility of parole. How did Fr. Ratigan's ordinary react to this letter and to the unfolding of this horrific case? Bishop Finn utterly and totally ignored this letter .  As far as I know, he never even acknowledged receiving it until more than a year later, after the story broke, when he claimed he finally "r...

Let me begin by saying that "sexting" (sending lewd comments and naked photos of yourself via text), though sinful, is far from the worst thing one adult can do to another.  Sexting someone you think is a 16-year-old boy ... well, that's another story But which is worse?  A priest sexting someone he thinks is a 16-year-old boy, but isn't - or a pastor refusing to tell parishioners about this and bullying them into not asking questions when the priest is removed from their parish for this very reason? The priest intended to abuse a minor, but didn't.  The pastor intended to bully his parishioners, and did. From The Star Ledger  (emphasis mine) ... The text messages read as if they’ve been ripped from a pornographic novel. Matthew Riedlinger quizzed his texting partner about sex videos, pressed for details about intimate liaisons, described sexual acts and encouraged mutual masturbation. He also repeatedly asked to meet. "Promise me you will...

While in the bathtub tonight I finally understood what Stanley Jaki meant when he said (more than once) that the universe can not be infinite, for an infinite quantity can never be realized. That never really sank in until I saw it ... right there in the tub as the water was sinking down the drain.  It is the nature of infinity that it has no limit.  Its very definition means it is indefinite - in-de-finite; it can not be real, composed of things.   It can only be conceptual.  There is no such thing as "an infinite number of things" for infinity is, in one sense, not a "number" (you can never count "up to" infinity), and "things" are always "realized".  By its nature infinity can not be "realized", composed of actual things. Jaki saw this and saw that this was the fundamental philosophical and mathematic reason that the universe was finite; there were empirical reasons as well.  And if the universe is finite, then materia...

The other day, I referenced an article by Minnesota Public Radio  in my post What Would You Do?  regarding one of the most mishandled cases of abusing clergy since Bishop Finn and Father Ratigan . And Bill Donohue has stepped into the fray, going so far as to giving "Kudos to Archbishop Nienstedt", the man who must take the administrative blame for the sexual abuse of two boys by Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer.  Kudos indeed. Donohue's legalistic defense of the indefensible can be read here . The best thing to be said for it is that it's short.  And he ends with a pointed challenge, which I will be so bold as to answer.  Or attempt to answer. Donohue says ... The burden is on those who disagree to say exactly what should be done in instances where there are no complainants. Well, there were complaints in the Wehmeyer case, as anyone reading the MPR article will see, but Donohue plays fast and loose with the facts.  This is his M.O. But he has pointed o...

Most of us, I imagine, read our emails backwards.  That is to say that when a bunch of emails pile up in our inboxes, they are usually arranged from most recent to least recent.  This is like reading Chapter Ten of a novel, then reading Chapter Nine, and so forth. The Riverfront Times has an article on Archbishop Carlson and his history of handling claims of abuse .  One of the very helpful things the RFT does is to embed on their website the original documents related to the issues they are reporting.  And so you can bypass any possible lax reporting or media spin by going to the source.  This was particularly helpful in the Bishop Finn case .  I still have readers, for example, who are quite rightly concerned about how the media tarnishes the Catholic Church by reporting half-truths, but who don't realize that in this internet age, and especially in the Bishop Finn case, original source documents are available (i.e., the Graves Report and the Stipulat...

Fr. Shawn Ratigan Fr. Shawn Ratigan has been sentenced to 50 years in Federal prison without the possibility of parole for molesting and taking explicit photographs of girls as young as age 2. You can read about it here - but the Kansas City Star goes into some detail about the nature of the crimes, and it's not easy to stomach. At the time the story broke, when it was revealed that Ratigan's bishop, Robert Finn, mishandled the case and showed a flagrant disregard for the victims and their families, Bill Donohue of the Catholic Defense League downplayed Ratigan's crimes and asserted that no child pornography was involved.  The priest was just a shutter bug who liked to take photos of young girls and their crotches, or so Donohue implied. In the perfect world, Bill Donohue would read the Star's description of the photos Ratigan took and the physical contact he had with his helpless victims and would issue a heart-felt apology for the shameful way he spun the s...

In a seminar once, someone asked C. G. Jung about the meaning of life.  "Isn't love the meaning of life?" he was asked. "No!" he replied emphatically.  "The meaning of life is life!" In other words, vitality, exuberance, existence, power.  Success!  (i.e., Moloch , Priapus ) Not sacrifice, compassion, caring, surrender.  Failure!  (i.e. the Cross) C. G. Jung Before my conversion, I read everything Carl Jung ever wrote.  Twenty or more volumes.  This one answer sums up the gigantic mistake that was behind his philosophy and that is behind everything that is ultimately anti-Christian.  There was much good in Jung - a rejection of Freud's atheistic materialism, a regard for the whole person, an appreciation for the spiritual realm, the courage to take religion seriously - but there was a poison, a poison that was particularly bad for me, and for anyone who was using Jung's false faith as a substitute for true Faith, as I was. And...