Anyone who has watched network or cable news, read a newspaper, logged on to a blog or a news website in the past couple of weeks has been inundated with information of the Catholic Sex Crisis. (I keep calling it a crisis, because “scandal” just doesn’t start to cover it. ) New revelations of bishops and their minions covering up sexual crimes by clerics around the world seem to come out on a daily basis. Add to that the statements by the Vatican about “gossip”, the passage of a South Dakota law to severely limit the ability for victims to seek out justice and the constant chatter on the Catholic message boards about who is at fault for the continuing “Catholic Bashing” and I really don’t know where to start.
Not knowing really where to go with all this, I decided to start with what I know. For me, that is my blog, my frustration with the Catholic Church, in general (both the hierarchy and the parishioners that continue to enable the pedophile protection policy); the Diocese of Scranton in particular; the number of people who are searching for priests, by name, and finding my blog. There is more of an interest in this crisis as evidenced by the tenfold increase in traffic to this blog. My concern is that the interest in the blog is fleeting. I just don’t think that Catholics get it. They continue to allow the hierarchy of the Church squander any remaining credibility the Catholic Church may have once had. Of course that credibility was based on fear, deception and the threat of hell. But many Catholics still buy into the infallibility of people who are coming to be seen as what they really are, mortal and seriously flawed.
In the past week I have seen a marked increase in the number of search engine searches for Father Robert Gibson (Gibson is the priest that raped me at age 13). We are not talking four or five searches, more like forty or fifty hits on this blog in the last week for that monster. I have no way to divine the motives of the person or persons who are searching for him, but if you are searching for this priest for the same reasons I did a few years ago, please contact me.
As for the Pope and his propaganda spin machine, I have to fall back on an often used statement. “I know he was lying, his lips were moving”. There are so many coming to Ratzinger’s aid pleading that the man did not have time to read memos while he was the Archbishop of Munich or he was unaware of cases while he headed up the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s department handling the canonical review of pedophile priests. To them I say, BULLSHIT! Again, I have to draw on almost 24 years of service in the Navy. When in command, COMMAND! Ratzinger is in charge, he is responsible for the actions of his subordinates, even if he was not read in. If he wants to blame someone else, maybe he should step down and retire to Berchtesgaden. He can sit around and sing some of the songs he remembers from his youth. Maybe, during his time wearing a brown shirt, he learned how to blame others to divert attention away from his own failures. If this man is only a “caretaker” pope, lets hope we don’t have to wait long for a change.
One final note before I wrap this up tonight. There may be another predator in the Diocese of Scranton who is still actively grooming potential victims. Be on your guard. If you are seeing the signs of a man who is acting very strangely around children, especially in light of all the recent revelations of pedophiles within the church world-wide , TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS. If you are right you may be saving the life of a child. If you are wrong (and I don’t think you are) it is better to err on the side of caution. More to come, one way or another.
Off My Knees - A Blog by Michael Baumann 
I wonder how many more people, how many more groups from parishes and from how many more countries have to come forward before the Catholic Church will be held accountable by not only civil authorities
but by the members of the church itself.
There’s no credible claim left for being a moral authority – which, when you look at history, it’s already a head scratcher that there was ever that impression.
nina
http://wp.me/pCMkk-7t
I am somewhat amazed at how some are going on about how the Pope is suffering. One guy compared him to Christ and that he was being scourged by the media. Too bad these men don’t have as much compassion for victims of abuse. I read about those schools in Ireland and the physical and sexual abuse. Those are the ones that got scourged. The innocent kids were the victims not the hierarchy. But I do think that Pope Benedict is getting the message. I read that the Vatican is going to issue a report on Father Maciel and I think that they may actually tell the truth. From what I read the Church is starting to de-frock a lot more priests and slowing going to a zero tolerance policy for this garbage.
Mark
I wouldn’t worry about the Pope suffering – that’s their fetish after all.
Plus, he’s working out his karma from all the years of protecting the pedos
There seems no end to these stories Michael…The latest story from the New York times shows again how the Pope handled child molesters–he didn’t and of course the Vatican denies this by saying times were different and it was handled expediently for that time. Huh? Do you think people actually believe this?
My local paper carried the story as did the Washington Post and New York Times but not the Scranton Times..Hmm why is that?
It’s all about accountability and failure to do the right thing. I just don’t get the responses that the pope is being targeted by the media.
If you go to gawker.com today, you’ll see the Vatican is defending Ratzinger’s active effort to slow down the defrocking of a convicted pedophile as “expeditious by the standards of the time.” However, the Pope did manage to excommunicate a Zambian archbishop who had ordained 4 married priests within 2 days of that event. That tells you which sin is graver in the church.