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isabella R

Bilgrimage: About Those "Non-Partisan" Stand Up Rallies Yesterday: One Reporter's Analysis - 0 views

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    It was a political event. A Republican politician was a featured speaker. Republican political operatives were on hand and sent out photos, such as the one above. Republicans called the roll on which Republicans were in attendance and Democrats who were not. Obamacare and abortion were much on the minds of the attendees. Catholic Bishop Anthony Taylor got a noticeably cool response when he mentioned the government's ill treatment of immigrants. Taylor, whose advocacy for immigrants was once a foundational interest, has become more engaged in sexual politics of late, and not just the all-out fight against contraception. He also recently punished a vital Latino assistance group because of its tangential relationship to an out-of-state organization that believed help to immigrant families should include those headed by same-sex parents.  In short: Friday's rally was primarily about people who want to defeat President Obama's health care policies and defeat Obama in the fall. A non-existent attack on religion was the bloody shirt.
isabella R

The Politics of Religion - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    the lawsuits filed recently by a number of Catholic dioceses and institutions against the Obama administration, and finds those lawsuits . . . all about politics.  Not about religion at all.
isabella R

Catholic bishops -- religious liberty, religion's shame | StarTribune.com - 0 views

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    Instead of being viewed as weak, they're flexing their ecclesiastical muscles politically in hopes of being seen as strong. Don't buy it. This summer, when bishops are claiming to be victims of a political system that has trampled on their religious rights, take a moment to remember that they had to be publicly humiliated 10 years ago into taking action to protect children from predaory clergy.
isabella R

Amen - Autobiography of a Nun, by Sister Jesme, alleges sexual abuse and corruption in ... - 0 views

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    A suicide note that accused another nun of sexual harassment Photo: Sister Anupa Mary Photo: Sister Anupa Mary On August 11, 2008, Sister Anupa Mary committed suicide in St. Mary's convent, in Kollam. She left a suicide note that accused a senior nun, in the convent, of sexual harassment. In a fit of uncharacteristic originality, the Superior of St. Mary's convent denied the allegations by saying that sexual abuse is impossible because the nuns sleep in a cubicle which is only 6 feet high. And two orphans try to kill themselves.. On August 26, 2008, two girls living in the Nithya Sahaya Matha Balika Mandiram, an orphanage for girls, tried to commit suicide. The orphanage is part of the Holy Cross order in which Sister Anupa was ordained. The two girls who had consumed poison and were admitted in a hospital run by the church gave a rather garbled explanation. They said that an apprentice priest Benedict spoke to them in a humiliating tone when he was counselling them and also told them that he had come to know that they were not good girls. Another girl who was also present at the counselling session told the Kerala State Women's Commission the priest had only blessed them by putting his hands over their heads and told them to be good girls.
isabella R

Santorum on Election of Muslim Brotherhood Candidate in Egypt... | Religion Dispatches - 0 views

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    Santorum recently complained that Egyptians had elected a Muslim version of himself.... Former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum issued the following statement regarding the election results in Egypt where Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, is the expected winner: "President Obama and his Administration contributed to the pushing out of a key U.S. ally in Egypt and unfortunately accelerated elections prior to laying the foundation for meaningful democracy. President Obama's confusion and ignorance over America's long-term interests in the world and the threat of Radical Islam has helped transform Egypt, who was a friend in a key region of the Middle East, into a center of leadership for Islamists. "The United States and its leaders should fight against Radical Islam and violent jihadism; and instead stand for freedom of religion and conscience and for the equality of women. In Egypt, strong advocacy by the United States for meaningful democracy which protects the rights of minorities, including Copts, would have promoted our security and interests and the security of our ally Israel. Tragically, a great opportunity has been missed. We cannot afford four more years of naive and politically-correct foreign policy under President Obama." I condemn the Egyptian people for voting the way they did. President Obama should stand up for American values and reject Egyptian democracy. How dare they pick the Muslim version of me?
isabella R

E F pastor emeritus - 0 views

  • The report cited a 1997 letter sent to the Irish bishops' conference by then-nuncio Archbishop Luciano Storero (1926-2000), who stated that the Congregation for Clergy considered the child protection guidelines outlined in "Child Sexual Abuse: Framework for a Church Response" as a mere "study document."
    • isabella R
       
      SAY WHAT???????
    • isabella R
       
      "the severity of certain criticisms of the Vatican are curious, as if the Holy See was guilty of not having given merit under canon law to norms which a state did not consider necessary to give value under civil law." CAN YOU SAY LOOPHOLE---LOOKING FOR ANY AND EVERY LETTER OF THE LAW....AND SURELY NOT USING COMMON SENSE...AND THIS CAT AND MOUSE GAME WILL GO ON FOREVER...OR AT LEAST THERE ARE AT LEAST 1 PRIEST AND A COUPLE OF LAITY LEFT IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
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  • . In fact, it warned against the risk that measures were being taken which could later turn out to be questionable or invalid from the canonical point of view, thus defeating the purpose of the effective sanctions proposed by the Irish bishops.
    • isabella R
       
      YOU WANT STATE STATUS AND TO PLAY WITH THE BIG BOYS?????   IF YOU THINK COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN STATES SHOULD BE POLITE, THEN YOU HAVE NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION....SHOW UP FOR A FEW MEETINGS AT THE UN (THAT DON'T INVOLVE ABORTION) AND LISTEN TO THESE "REAONABLE" DELEGATES AND THEIR POLITE DISCUSSIONS.
  • Referring specifically to the letter's objection to "mandatory reporting,"
  • "the severity of certain criticisms of the Vatican are curious, as if the Holy See was guilty of not having given merit under canon law to norms which a state did not consider necessary to give value under civil law."
  • Father Lombardi stated the text of the letter has been misinterpreted, and that "there is no reason to interpret that letter as being intended to cover up cases of abuse."
  • Not only is Mr. Kenny's language intemperate for any Prime Minister to use when  speaking of another State, or  Head of State, but what he says is UNTRUE.
    • isabella R
       
      AND NONE OF THE TAXPAYER MONEY GOES TO PAY FOR ANY ABORTION....NOT ONE RED CENT.
  • They have been invited to the meeting to discuss a €200 million shortfall in an expected 50:50 contribution by them to costs incurred by the State in compensating former residents of the institutions.
    • isabella R
       
      IS THIS THE "CHURCH BODY" THAT CLAIMS IT WAS THEM AND NOT THE STATE THAT "DISCOVERED" ABUSES????  JUST ASKING
  • American taxpayers are being forced to directly support this abortion-
  • I’m asking them for a 50:50 contribution. The taxpayer has already paid out the bulk of it. Their share should be about €680 million and they are half shy of that . . . they need to do far more.
  • The first the congregations heard about a 50:50 contribution was on April 15th, 2010, when they met then taoiseach Brian Cowen and ministers, the source said
  • Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the Education Finance Board.”
  • “Congregations are, understandably, unclear as to why they should be held responsible for the costs of the Ryan commission, etc. They would appreciate being given the overall costs of the redress board itself as an entity.”
    • isabella R
       
      I am appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy-I AM SO SICK OF THE CONSTANT "SURPRISE" OF THE VATICAN....No matter how many times it happens-they are always shocked!!!!!
  • am appalled by the depth of damage and suffering caused by a minority of clergy
  • The Report finds that the Diocese of Cloyne did not implement the procedures set out in the Church protocols for dealing with allegations of child sexual abuse in the period concerned.
    • isabella R
       
      I have looked at the materials written by churches to educate children about inappropriate "touching", but have yet to see A SINGLE INSTANCE of a "bad person" approaching the child to be portrayed as a PRIEST.....
  • apologised for their failures in the implementation of the Church procedures
  • Structures have been put in place to reach out to every corner of every parish in the Diocese of Cloyne so that people will have full and adequate information on the safeguarding of children and on what actions to take if suspicions arise in relation to child sexual abuse by clergy or Church personne
isabella R

Religion News Service | Blogs | Mark Silk - Spiritual Politics | Cardinal Dolan fibbed ... - 0 views

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    Timothy Dolan, when he was the Archbishop of Milwaukee a while back, approved a number of $20,000 settlements to rid the Church of abusive priests in a more time-efficient and expeditious manner - without long, drawn-out canonical or civil proceedings. The problem the story poses for Dolan is not that he did such a thing, however, but that he didn't tell the truth about it back in the day.
isabella R

Cover story -- Philadelphia: Shining light on a cover-up - 0 views

  • “They needed someone with my talent for drudgery.”
  • Molloy met victims in a small office on the 12th floor of the archdiocese’s Center City headquarters, which was located across the hall from the cardinal’s large office and a few doors down from the “Secret Archive” records room. The secretary for clergy, Msgr. Bill Lynn, was also present. One of the men would take notes while the other conducted the interview. To avoid giving the impression that the accused priest might be guilty, Molloy said he and Lynn were instructed not to treat complainants with excessive sympathy or compassion.
  • We were functionaries, auditors,” said Molloy. “Our job was to interview the victim and the accused priest, then write up a report for the archbishop. We didn’t have marching orders to do anything other than that.”
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  • One of the earlier cases Molloy handled was that of Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
  • Cudemo already had numerous allegations and subsequent reassignments on his record. Molloy told the latest victim that although he still had to talk with Cudemo, he had “no reason not” to believe her. He assured the victim the cardinal would suspend Cudemo if he contacted her family. Upon learning of his remarks, Molloy said, Cullen verbally reprimanded him for “overreaching.
  • The Cudemo case was when I truly realized that I couldn’t be sure that I could trust my superiors to do the right thing,” said Molloy. “So I decided to operate in a manner that would eliminate the need to trust anybody.” Molloy said he then went into “hyper-documentation” mode, taking great pains to make his files to Bevilacqua and Cullen as detailed as possible. At the time, he said, it was the best contribution he felt he could make to the situation, to history. If it all blew up one day -- and he was pretty confident it would -- he wanted as detailed a record as possible to exist. If his superiors were making the correct decisions in handling the abusers, they would be happy to have his reports. If his superiors were making the incorrect decisions, then his reports would help explain what went wrong.
  • “I wanted my memos to be there,” he said, “if the archdiocese’s decisions were eventually put on the judicial scales.” He was also motivated by self-protection.
  • Molloy said he never contemplated calling the press, alerting parishioners or contacting the authorities.
  • “The archbishop was still the archbishop,” he said. “He deserved the benefit of the doubt.”
  • Two of Gana’s victims informed the archdiocese of their abuse in the early 1990s.
  • In filing his report to Bevilacqua, Molloy strayed from his usual recitation of the facts and injected his own bit of advice, suggesting to the cardinal that a “forensic psychiatrist” examine Gana. In Molloy’s eyes, offering this common sense suggestion was some type of bold, defiant course of action. He was, he said, a “frustrated messenger.”
  • The secrecy surrounding the complaints had become too much for him. “It had gotten to the point where I felt like I was working for the CIA instead of the church,” he said.
    • isabella R
       
      Spade sat at the prosecutor's table, listening as another attorney asked Lynn to identify for the grand jury a batch of documents detailing the transfers of dozens of abusive priests. It was as if the courtroom had become an arena for the unimaginable. Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, "Tell me that you like it." When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy. Word of the attack then spread through the parish school. According to his testimony, one of Daniel's teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit."I can't be sitting here listening to this," thought Spade. "I must be imagining what I'm hearing." The names of the victim and Sr. Mary Loyola were changed for the report.
  • “I washed my hands of the place,”
  • There is John Delaney, who explained how the priest who began raping him when he was 10 years old made him believe that his own mother consented to the abuse.
  • “I’ve harbored this feeling toward my mom for going on 20 years,” Delaney testified, “only to come to find out the other night that it wasn’t true. She had no idea. She had absolutely no idea. I’ve been hating her for 20 years for no reason whatsoever, and that’s not right. That’s my mom.”
  • ome of the testimony is so shocking Allen wishes she could forget it as quickly as she heard it. “These were just babies, 9 or 10 years old,” said Allen. “And to think they had to live with the fear of this happening day after day and not knowing if it would ever end. It was heartbreaking.
  • Allen was shocked that the archdiocese didn’t conduct more serious investigations when allegations arose. Most times, if the accused priest denied what happened, that was good enough for the archdiocese. “They were feeding these kids to the wolves,” she said.
  • Lynn explained, was not only having sex with children. He was also sleeping with women, abusing alcohol and stealing church property. “You see,” said Lynn, “he was not a pure pedophile. Otherwise he would have been removed.”
  • “It must have fallen through the cracks.” “We all just gasped at that,” remembered Allen. “It was sickening.”
  • Bevilacqua as “arrogant and cocky”
  • “He would ignore every question and answer with the same refrain of ‘Our main concern was the safety of the children.’ It was angering because it was obvious that his main concern was protecting his priests and the church.”
  • Bevilacqua testified in front of the grand jury a total of 11 times. “You could tell how annoyed he was at having to be there,” said Allen. “His tone, his mannerisms, they never changed. He was always cold. And every time it was the same thing of ‘I’m the cardinal and I’m telling you our main concern was for the children.’ ” Allen wondered how someone could be in a position of power all those years and never do anything to stop the evil being committed against those children. “In the end,” she said with a sigh, “I guess he knew that regardless of what he did he’d always have people supporting him.”
  • In his final act as assistant vicar for administration, Molloy requested the alarm code to the records room be reprogrammed and that all the locks and combinations to the filing cabinets and safes be changed. He wanted to make sure no one could ever accuse him of coming back to steal or alter the reports he had written.
  • Fr. Nilos Martins, who in the mid-1980s was the assistant pastor of Incarnation of Our Lord in North Philadelphia, invited a 12-year-old boy, Daniel, up to his rectory room one Saturday afternoon to watch television. The priest ordered the child to undress and then anally raped him. Spade listened as Daniel, now a Philadelphia police officer, testified that as he cried out in pain, the priest kept insisting, “Tell me that you like it.” When the priest was done, he gave Daniel a puzzle as a present and told the boy to get dressed and leave.
  • A few days later, Daniel returned to the church to serve Mass as an altar boy. The pastor, Fr. John Shelley, had learned of the attack from a teacher Daniel confided in. He informed Daniel that he was no longer welcome as an altar boy.
    • isabella R
       
      This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done."
  • According to his testimony, one of Daniel’s teachers, a Sr. Mary Loyola, began to refer to him as Daniella, prompting laughter from the rest of the class. When Daniel begged his teacher to stop, she gave him a demerit.
  • He found himself becoming overprotective and paranoid about his own children’s safety. “I was dealing with all these cases where kids were betrayed by those they were taught to trust the most,” he said. “I was like, ‘My God, you can’t trust your children with your friends, teachers, or even other family members.’ I don’t think it’s healthy to be like that.” From the very beginning of the investigation, public relations spokespersons connected to the archdiocese condemned the probe as an anti-Catholic witch-hunt. The Catholic-bashing talk became a running joke among investigators. Three of the five frontline investigators were Catholic. “I was raised Catholic,” said former prosecutor Maureen McCartney. “I had 12 years of Catholic school. My family is very Catholic. It is a big part of my life. This was never an anti-Catholic project. It was just something that needed to be done.”
  • The investigation allowed Spade an opportunity to meet the noted Jesuit canon lawyer Ladislas Orsy
  • Over lunch, the Jesuit delivered a long discourse on how the general attitude of the Vatican, as well as the local hierarchy in Philadelphia, was to save the “institution” from scandal while the biblical precept to protect children went largely ignored.
  • “I was learning about canon law and the rituals and history and tenets of the Catholic faith,” he said. “And I found myself being drawn to it.” He began attending Mass. Spade would discuss his feelings with his wife, Karen, a lapsed Catholic. “I would tell her how I really liked the faith and she would say, ‘Are you out of your mind? You’re seeing what this institution has done to these kids and you’re saying you like it?’ And I’d say, ‘No, I don’t like the institution but I like the faith, I like the intellectual and spiritual part of it.’ “It’s funny,” he continues. “We were all being bashed as being anti-Catholic and here I was defending the church to my own wife, who was Catholic.
  • Once, while going over old documents, Spade had asked him, “Father, you’re such a nice guy, how could you have been a part of this? I mean you had to know what you were doing was wrong.” “He didn’t have any real answer,” recalls Spade, “other that it was his job and that he was trained to be obedient to his cardinal.” When it is all done, when the report is finally released, a single sentence on Page 41 will distinguish Molloy from others who participated in the handling of the complaints. It reads, “Molloy displayed glimpses of compassion for victims.”
  • He believes the scathing tone of the report was due to the investigators’ anger over the archdiocesan attorney’s “hardball tactics.”
  • “I look back and say what happened was insufficiently protective of the welfare of children,” Molloy said. “But I don’t want to say there was a lot of badly motivated men trying to conspire to achieve a cover-up.” As for his own regrets, he said, he wished he had shown more compassion, offered more assistance to the victims he encountered. “I regret that very much,” he said. “More than anything.” He said he sat down numerous times to write letters offering assistance to John Salveson, the president of the Philadelphia Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP. He said he wanted Salveson to know he would meet with the victims with whom he had had contact “to try to answer any questions they had about the way things had developed in the diocese with their cases.” But he never finished the letters.
  • I had to hesitate in the end because there is the possibility of lawsuits being filed down the road, and I did not want to create a situation which would be construed as an attempt to manipulate people’s opinion.”
  • At the time of the interviews with this writer, which occurred during the final three months of Molloy’s life, he said attendance at St. Agnes was strong and collections were increasing. “People have been supportive and understanding.” “After all,” he said. “I wasn’t the one making the decisions. I was just a frustrated messenger.” Would he have done anything differently? “I suppose that I would like to think that there could have been more insistence on my part that some of these perps could have been dealt with more severely.” Or maybe, he said, “I would find some polite way of convincing the archbishop that it would not be good for me to accept appointment to a position in such an office of the central administration.” But in the end, he said, “My job now is the same as it was then. To do the assignments I get from my bishop to the best of my ability.”
  • No mention was made of Molloy’s cooperation with the grand jury investigators. “I’m disappointed nothing was said about it,” Spade said after the funeral. “After talking with Molloy for a long time, I believe he was a good and decent man who was a product of the church he had committed his life to. I think he realized mistakes had been made and would have liked people to know that he helped get the truth out.”
  • “I’m beginning to believe it [the investigation] will amount to nothing more than just a scathing report which will set out in detail the way the archdiocese through Krol and Bevilacqua allowed child abusers to continually abuse children without removing them from their ministries.” “Prophetic, huh?” he asks now.
  • There was also another major obstacle to prosecution. Because of the way the archdiocese is set up legally, as an “unincorporated association” rather than a corporation, investigators realized that a loophole in Pennsylvania law most likely protected church officials from being prosecuted for crimes such as endangering the welfare of children, intimidation of victims and witnesses, and obstruction of justice. In short, Pennsylvania law did not seem to hold Bevilacqua or other church officials responsible for “the supervision of children.” Only the individual priests who committed the abuse could be prosecuted, but they were almost all protected under the statutes of limitations.
  • ivision developed within the district attorney’s office on how to proceed. Some believed the office should indict Bevilacqua and other church officials in the hope of creating new precedent. Others within the office viewed indictments as irresponsible and unlikely to succeed, given the narrowly defined laws. They feared failed indictments would tie the investigation up for years, which would delay them from releasing a detailed report, create sympathy for church officials, and open the office up to even more accusations of Catholic-bashing than the archdiocese was already hurling at them. “That’s where we had arguments,” said Spade. “On whether or not we should try and push the envelope.” Spade was among the most vocal calling for indictments.
  • “When someone is harmed, there should be retribution,” he said. “I thought that’s why we have a legal system.”
  • He still occasionally attends Catholic Mass and he and his wife have decided to send their children to a Catholic grade school in the Philadelphia suburbs run by the Sisters of Mercy but not directly associated with the archdiocese. “That was important to us,” said Spade. “We liked the ideal of service and charity that the sisters instill in the children, but we did not want any school that was actually run by archdiocese officials.
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    Fr. Nicholas Cudemo.
isabella R

The Progressive Catholic Voice: Here Comes Nobody - 0 views

  • “The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman,” he said.
  • I called Cuomo to see if, as his son Andrew weighs running for president, he felt the church had grown less tolerant.
  • “If the church were my religion, I would have given it up a long time ago,” he said. “All the mad and crazy popes we’ve had through history, decapitating the husbands of women they’d taken. All the terrible things the church has done. Christ is my religion, the church is not.
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  • “If they make the mistake of saying that a politician has to put the church before the Constitution on abortion or other issues, there will be no senators or presidents or any other Catholics in government
  • Absolute intolerance is always a sign of uncertainty and panic
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    Rev. Thomas Williams
isabella R

The Passion of John Wojnowski | People & Politics | Washingtonian - 0 views

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    Almost every day for the past 14 years, Wojnowski has stood on the sidewalk outside the nunciature with signs familiar to any Washingtonian traveling on Massachusetts Avenue in Northwest DC: MY LIFE WAS RUINED BY A CATHOLIC PEDOPHILE PRIEST or CATHOLICS COWARDS or VATICAN HIDES PEDOPHILES. He carries his signs, like some cross, for hours. He pivots when the stoplight changes, to face the onrush. He walks up to the windows of tour buses so passengers can see.
isabella R

Most of Obama's "Controversial" Birth Control Rule Was Law During Bush Years | Mother J... - 0 views

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    President Barack Obama's decision to require most employers to cover birth control and insurers to offer it at no cost has created a firestorm of controversy. But the central mandate-that most employers have to cover preventative care for women-has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church
isabella R

The Vatican against the Orthodox Church - A MUST READ FOR ALL CATHOLICS, ETC.... - 0 views

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    Excerpted from the book: Vatican Imperialism in the 20th Century by Avro Manhattan. GIANTS ACT LIKE GIANTS, hence their undertakings are on a gigantic scale. Years are reckoned by decades, decades by centuries. Geographical areas are made to embrace nations or even continents, while the histories of institutions and of races are seen in perspectives not easily comprehended. Because of this, their actions, being in harmony with their extraordinary magnitude, will escape the notice of individuals unable to size up the vast historical panoramas which, although clearly scrutinizable by retinas of gigantic forms, yet are partly blurred and often wholly invisible to others. The Catholic Church, the greatest surviving giant in the world, is a colossus with no peer in antiquity, experience and above all, in her determination to dominate the human race. To reach such a goal, she will suffer no rivals, tolerate no competitors, put up with no enemies.
isabella R

Bilgrimage: Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Paul Ryan and "Give Me Thomas Aquinas" - 0 views

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    Is Paul Ryan aware that Aquinas wrote,  When one man has excess wealth (that is, property and wealth which are beyond his legitimate needs) while another is in poverty (lacking material necessities), the rich man is a thief. The excess he possesses belongs to the poor man and, if he refuses to distribute his wealth accordingly, he plays the part of the "rich fool" in the Gospel parable (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 66)?
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