WHAT I CAN TELL YOU ABOUT THE VICTIMS

When the news broke of the release of the report about the pedophile scandal in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania, all hell broke loose on social media, and everyone seemed to be focused on lengthy discussions about how to punish the evildoers, and how to fix the Catholic Church so that this does not happen any more.

At first, I joined the conversations. As a convert, I was horrified by the revelations of the ever-widening scope of the pedophile ring. Then I realized that none of the posts I was reading made mention of the victims. The focus seemed entirely on the perpetrators, present and future. I found that odd.

After questioning many people about this remarkable lack of interest in the victims, and reading many weak and unconvincing arguments about why it was somehow 'right' to ignore them, I realized that there is STILL considerable squeamishness around this topic. WHY? Evidently, the fact that the victims were subjected to sexual abuse makes other people feel uncomfortable.

As a victim of several instances of childhood sexual abuse and rape, I am speaking out for the victims in the Catholic Church scandal. Rapes and assaults are not part of the "sexual history" of someone who has been assaulted, and there is no reason why anyone should be embarrassed about the fact that they have been victimized. Assault and rape are not "sex." They are crimes against innocent persons. Though my PTSD would flare dramatically if I was made to recount the details, I do not mind presenting my credentials as one of a huge group of people violated by adults when we were children.

I was sexually abused by my father when I was a toddler.

My first stepfather tried to rape me when I was 7 years old.

My second step father tried to strangle me when I was 11.

When I was 14, I was drugged, gang raped, and thrown into a river to die.

Instead of just jumping right into a vigorous discussion about how to punish the latest batch of perpetrators and their co-conspirators, I would ask, what would Jesus do? His first care would be for the victims, which is what I recommend.

Empathy, sympathy, kindness, emotional support, prayer vigils; these are all good things, but mostly I recommend that, instead of barging in and making pronouncements of the causes and cures of the pedophilia problem in the Catholic Church, we should first care for the victims.

While most of us will not have access to the actual victims of these specific crimes, neither do we have access to the movers and shakers in the curia. Our impact on the authorities at the top of the institutional hierarchy is no different than the impact we might have on the victims. There is really no good reason why we should be ignoring the victims and jumping on top of the "crime and punishment" aspect of the issue, nattering endlessly about what caused this and how to fix.

It is nearly hilarious the large number of people who behave as if their opinion about what the Church should do is very very important. Very. Never mind that none of us has any power over what the Vatican does! Their opinion is important, darn it! (Sarcasm.) There are fights breaking out. It is unnecessary, and I have the feeling that all the effort spent in arguing for one's personal opinion just rubs the emotional wounds raw. We are powerless in the grip of disturbing news about the government and about the church, and it is all too much.

Don't get me wrong. I have an opinion, but I'm not married to it. Basically, I think the cause of this widespread problem in the institution of the church is Satan. Satan loves to attack The Church. He infiltrates as a wolf among the sheep. He enters the seminaries. He rises in the ranks.

Putting aside the spiritual reality of the situation, I offer the observation that predators are attracted to any situation in which he or she will have access to their prey. You find them in the schools, in the support staff for team sports, in day care centers. Wherever there is easy access to the predator's preferred prey, they are there.

For instance, divorced mothers with young children are famously vulnerable to pedophiles who  move into the home and, at night when the wife is asleep, or when they are 'babysitting,' they assault the children. Scores of vulnerable women have been fooled into letting men into their home and trusting these virtual strangers to have access to their children, based upon nothing more substantial than a bunch of sweet sounding words, a few expensive dinners, and some gifts. The man did not become a pedophile AFTER he moved into the home. He was always a pedophile. He targeted that home and those children.

Many people are saying that "The Church" created predators. In their mind, it is because of celibacy or clericalism or the lack of female priests. Homosexuality gets the blame by some, who mistakenly believe that abuse of boys by men assumes that the perpetrator is homosexual. (Some ARE homosexual, but if they routinely violate children, they are pedophiles! Homosexuality and pedophilia are two separate things!)

The Church, like schools and day care centers and young mothers with underage children, represent opportunities in which predators hope to enjoy close access to prey. Access to prey doesn't CREATE the predators. Predators are the wolves. The Church is a pen that holds the lambs. The wolves do whatever they have to do to get access to the lambs.

But, whatever the cause of these crimes, I would suggest that everyone stop wasting their time trying to figure it out on Facebook. The public at large is not in possession of all the facts necessary to come to a proper conclusion, no matter how convinced we are of our accuracy in diagnosing the causes and cures of the problems the church currently faces. It is way beyond our pay grade.

So, what SHOULD we do? First, I recommend continual prayers for the victims and, if you have the ability, donate your time and your money to agencies that help with mental health concerns because people who have been assaulted by predators usually grow into adults with considerable emotional and psychological baggage. Some commit suicide. MANY go on to become abusers themselves, and that's a real tragedy. We should stay centered in love, care and concern for these souls who continue to suffer for the rest of their lives. The damage of abuse can be ameliorated, but it is never eliminated.

This is the jumping off point where research into the agencies that administer programs for adult survivors of abuse can be helpful. We do not have to find those specific people who suffered at the hands of these particular priests. Anyone who has been violated is in need of our prayers, and the community of sufferers in our society is huge.

There are many possible avenues of help, and this little blog is not meant to be exhaustive. I am just trying to get people to give some attention to the victims instead of pontificating about punishments.

It is worth noting, also, that many people are using this opportunity to trash Catholic moral teaching on sexual matters, wrongly claiming that celibacy is responsible for the assaults. There is absolutely NO evidence for that point of view whatsoever. Many religions advocate for the restraint of the sexual urges as a means of accessing higher mystical realms.

We can only have faith that, somehow, the institutional church will repair itself. Like everyone else, I have many ideas about how that might be accomplished, but it would be a waste of my time and yours to prattle on about it here.

I know several people who are leaving because of this scandal. My approach is to stay and fight Satan, but I understand some people do not feel strong enough to do it. They will learn, in future, that "The Catholic Church" did not create the predators and that Satan and his minions are everywhere. Perhaps the disaffected Catholics will return, once the overwhelming reality of the situation is demonstrated to them.

OF COURSE we should let our feelings be known and heard at the highest levels in the church hierarchy, but effective change will not be easily made, because this problem has been known for many many years, and the hierarchy is so clogged with perverts, little has been done.

But let us not forget to care for the victims. After all, when we happen upon a terrible accident on the highway, we take care of the injured first.

God save us all.

Silver Rose

THE CHAIR OF PETER, MODERNISM, AND THE LAITY

the chair of St. Peter in Rome

I would like to take a moment to clarify that, just because I have written lately that modernism has infected the Holy Catholic Church and we DO have a number of clerics spouting heretical ideas, and some living in luxury in palatial mansions, this does not mean that I think we should abandon Holy Mother Church. To the contrary, as Michael Voris recently said, we need to "step it up." What is meant by that? We can't sit around mooning about how much we looooove Jesus, batting our eyelashes and sighing over our great love for Him or, in the alternative, stomp out in a huff because the administrators of the faith are not protecting it and propagating it.

The Church is in crisis, and we have to get busy. Yes, we have to be busybodies. We have to actively energize our own faith and the faith of others. We have to study, pray and preach The Truth until Jesus comes again. We can no longer sit back in the pews and soak up the holiness and knowledge from the guy at the altar. There are some fabulous priests in the Catholic Church, probably some very holy ones, but there are a lot of guys at the altar whose Catholic education is faulty, or who disagree with aspects of the faith, or who have just lost their zeal. Some are struggling with ill health that would sideline someone working in the secular world, but they keep plugging away, delivering lukewarm homilies because they're exhausted.

Some priests work long past retirement age, pouring themselves out for the church because we aren't getting enough priestly candidates and/or the candidates that we ARE getting, many of them, are homosexuals intent on changing the church's teaching about this type of sin. Holy priests see this state of affairs and can't bear to remove their orthodox voice from the mix, and I am grateful for them.

The congregation is not an audience. Mass is not another piece of entertainment. We are participants in the mass, just as much as the guy at the altar. We are responsible for the faith and for our own education in it. We can't turn it off like a television show that gets boring. We don't change the channel for another faith because this one is too taxing. We don't throw up our hands in despair because "it's not our job" to help correct the errors in the church. It IS our job. We just have to do the right things in the right way. Most of all, we have to be prepared for backlash, and a lot of it.

We are not alone, however. The Holy Spirit is with us. The current batch of schismatic, heretic, and/or greedy prelates will be taken care of by Christ's church, in time. Sometimes it takes a long time, but I trust The Lord's Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, established by Jesus Christ himself upon "the rock" - Saint Peter - the first Pope. I will not leave it, even when the behavior of some of its ersatz leaders is alarming. Their behavior is not the fault of the religion, which is perfect. It is perfect because it came from Jesus Christ.

Christ infused His Church with authority, responsibility for souls, and with grace. He transmitted something real when he gave his breath upon the disciples. The faith came directly from Jesus. The church is administered by sinners like you and I. Of COURSE some of them are going to fall off the rails and land in a ditch on occasion. They're human. We have to lift them up, not stand at the sidelines saying, "Tsk, tsk, he had such promise!" They need our prayers and our voices, but we must have informed, educated voices that ring with the Truth of Christ.

Satan has always attacked the Catholic Church, from both within and without, yet it has endured for 2,000 years. The Catholic Church will prevail, even against the "gates of Hell." Jesus promised he would be with us until the end of time. Time has not ended, so He is still here, and I take comfort in that. I pray for his guidance in the steps that I take.

As long as I continue to study and practice my faith, I should be inoculated against the erroneous messages that come from some of the clergy. I will know my faith and I will recognize when I am hearing something else, and I can simply dismiss the crazy talk and stick to the Truth, while I pray for the church and for these misguided men. Sometimes I write about this process on this blog, but I wish to be clear that my intention is to be completely faithful to the Holy Mother Church and her magisterium and that I recommend that we remain respectful to the positions that these men hold while at the same time ordering our minds to the True Faith.

Yes, The Church may be in crisis at the moment, but it has always fought Satan in one guise or another. Satan would love nothing more than for us to become discouraged and abandon the faith because the discord and disobedience of those that should know better has reached a crescendo, but that isn't right. We, the true believers, are faithful to the church that Jesus started and we will not abandon it. We will study, pray and preach the Truth until Jesus comes again. We are to participate in the work of keeping the True Faith alive.

In order to know the faith, what it teaches and why it teaches it, I have previously recommended that we study as much as we can. There is so much misinformation flying around the media and in the parishes, you pretty much have to conduct an independent course of study, unless you are lucky enough to have access to a good educational system. I am poor and disabled, so I have to do what I can within the boundaries of my abilities.

In service of this goal, I am giving you a link to a list of recommended books to read and to keep in one's library as resource material. These are in addition to The Holy Bible, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Papal Encyclicals that are available on the Vatican website. This list includes the early fathers and mothers of the church, the doctors of the church, and some saints.

I have read many of these books, years ago, but do not currently have them in my library and wish to read them again and to make use of them when writing my blog, which is why I initially started this list.  I would like to share it with you, in case there are any offerings on it that you've not heard of. Perhaps some of us can read these books together and compare notes. Let's see how it goes.

You may find this list HERE

God bless you,

Silver Rose Parnell
(c) Copyright 2015
All rights reserved

THE FEAST OF CORPUS CHRISTI

I was about to write some comments about the Feast of the Holy Trinity when I was reminded by one of my friends that Holy Trinity was LAST weekend and that this weekend we celebrate Corpus Christi!  Just in the nick of time.  Technically, the feast day was actually Thursday the 4th, but in America we generally celebrate it on Sunday.  It became a feast day in about 1247, at the urging of St. Juliana of Mont Cornillon in Belgium.

"Corpus Christi" is translated as the body of Christ, and it refers to the Holy Eucharist which Catholics receive at every mass (with one exception during Lent.)  Saint Juliana was exceedingly devoted to this sacrament and worked hard to influence the Catholic authorities to make a feast day for it.

Why the Eucharist is a central aspect of our faith goes back to Christ himself. In fact, every doctrine in the Catholic Church goes back to Christ and the Bible.  Those unfamiliar with the Catholic Church often claim that men in The Church made up a bunch of rules that have nothing to do with Jesus or the Bible.  If you read the Catechism, each and every teaching refers back to the precepts originally found in the Bible.  Don't believe me, though.  Pick up a copy and read it. You'll see for yourself.

The Eucharist in the Catholic Church is definitely not the same thing that one may receive in a Protestant Church. First of all, the Protestant Churches do not have the apostolic succession by which the power to confect the Eucharist is conveyed.  So, it is a good thing that most of the thousands of Protestant offshoots view communion as a symbolic gesture and not Jesus Himself.  Churchgoers are being cheated by this, because it is no small matter.  The Eucharist goes to the heart of what Jesus came to earth to do.

Protestant communion plates with grape juice

and pieces of bread

Jesus did not wander around giving intellectual treatises to the intelligentsia of his day.  Nor did he come as a king or a high priest, something he could easily do, given that He was God.  He chose to be born in a poor family.  He was lowly, humble.  The popular story is that he worked as a carpenter with Joseph, his foster father.  But a "tekton," which is what he was called, simply meant someone who worked with his hands, whether it was with wood, stone or mud.  It was a gritty, earthy job, in any case.  His closest friends were fishermen, hard working, physical laborers who worked up a sweat with the stink of fish and sea in their nostrils.  Theirs was a primitive job, the most basic.

When giving talks, Jesus took care to feed the people real food in addition to the spiritual food he spoke to them.  There was the miracle of the 5,000 people and the miracle of the 3,000 people.  Small amounts of fish and bread miraculously fed them all, with some left over.

He came to us physically, engaged with us physically, baptized people not only with words but with water. In addition to the fish and the bread, he miraculously produced wine for the wedding at Canna.  He walked on the waters of Gallilee.  He touched earth and sea.  He touched us and healed us.  He gave us his breath when he breathed on the disciples, just as God had breathed life into Adam.  He was a hands-on guy.  So, when he said that this bread is my body and this wine is my blood, he wasn't giving the disciples some intellectual symbol.  He was showing them how He planned to come to all his disciples after His ascension into heaven; in a real way, a physical way, a nourishing and earthy way.  He was announcing that He was going to come to us in the guise of bread and wine.

He admonished us that anyone who did not eat of his body and drink of his blood had "no life in him."

Jesus gave his disciples authority and power, saying that whoever listened to them thereby listened to Jesus and the Father who sent Him.  He told them that the sins they forgave on earth would be forgiven in heaven, something only God could do, according to the Jewish understanding of the day. The apostles were the agents of God, with the authority of God.  With that authority, they could transmit the power that Jesus had given them to each succeeding generation of priests in the Church. This is apostolic succession, and this is how Jesus ensured that His commandments would be kept inviolate, and The Church would remain a place that was in harmony with Him.  This is how he ensured that his presence as bread and wine would continue to be given to the faithful, down through the ages.

What Jesus transmitted to them was not some intellectual idea or symbol or philosophy.  He transmitted an actual thing of some substance to them, and He gave them the power to transmit that substance to others.  Remember, he was a hands-on man, fully engaged with the physical world.  He smeared spit on the eyes of one man to cure his blindness.  You can't get any earthier than that.

When Jesus ascended into heaven, he re-entered the timeless world of God.  While we are conscious of almost 2,000 years passing since his ascension, Jesus is equally present at all times.  No time has passed for Him.  His Church is not an old, desiccated relic, dissolving into the sands of a middle-Eastern country.  It is still fresh and alive because He is still with us as much as He ever was, and perhaps more.

When we consume the Eucharist, the timelessness of God intersects with our puny, time-shackled world in this miracle that is Jesus, by the power of Jesus, by the express wish of Jesus, and by the specific intention and direction of Jesus.  That is what today is all about.

Silver "Rose" Parnell
(c) 2015