Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

Before being elected Pope in 2005, it was Cardinal Ratzinger who headed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department that enforced the rules.

The BBC documentary Sexual Crimes and the Vatican chronicles a 1962 directive from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “The document reaffirmed the inviolability of the seal of confession, but the BBC film said that it was intended to ‘protect and hide’ abusive priests….There was to be an oath of secrecy on the child victim, the priest, and any witnesses. The document was revised in 2001 to deal more specifically with sex abuse cases, but it still remained secret. It was sent as a confidential letter to every Catholic bishop in May of 2001.
According to The Observer of April 24, 2005: “It asserted the Church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood.” The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.” Thus Ratzinger made himself an accessory to every act of pedophilia committed by a priest, as well
as confirming that the Church as an institution officially shields pedophile priests.

Apparently the hush-up policy was not “limited” to cases of pedophilia. According to CNN, Father Joseph Feit, confessed to a fellow clergyman that he had raped and killed young women in 1960 at McAllen Texas. Instead of being told to turn himself in, he was shielded and counseled at Assumption Abbey Monastery in Ava, Missouri. Now, after almost half a decade, one of his “counselors” has told the story.

We have heard so much talk in Austria from Bishops Andreas Laun and Kurt Krenn about abortion, which they describe as “murder in the womb.”

According to Laun, if a child is raped and becomes pregnant, the child should have the child. Here’s Laun making comparisons: “Hitler would have been delighted with legalized abortion. May I venture to say that Hitler was not all wrong? For thirty years Austrian children have fallen victim to legalized abortion.” (Laun needs to brush up his history. In the Third Reich performing abortions was a capital crime.)

Yes Bishop Laun, Hitler was a genuine lover of children. So much so, that he had a million and a half murdered in concentration camps.

Pope John Paul II went on in the same vein and compared abortion with the Holocaust.
Speaking of “Holocausts”, according to APA, unsafe abortions cause 70,000 deaths a year internationally.

The great crimes on this earth are murder and rape. Pedophilia is rape of a child. Pedophilia can be effected by either violent means or by seduction.

By murdering you take the life of a human being. When you rape, you violate a human being.

The suffering of a murdered victim ceases after he has been killed. The practice of pedophilia is tantamount to murder, only the victim continues to live after he has been spiritually killed.

Perhaps clergymen should be more concerned about murder after birth. The suffering of a murdered victim ceases after he has been killed. The practice of pedophilia is tantamount to murder, only the victim continues to live after he has been spiritually killed. The word “Holocaust” would certainly be more appropriate to describe the fate of these victims.

Here are some humanistic views by two theologians concerning contraception and incest:

Monsignor Carlo Caffara: “According to Church Law it is ethical for a man to infect his whole family with aids, including his children. For it is Mortal Sin to prevent this from happening by the use of condoms….A man who has been infected with aids is justified in cohabiting with his wife. If he uses condoms, he is committing a Mortal Sin.”

Peter de Rosa: “Masturbation is a sin more grievous than the rape of one’s own daughter. The latter is more ‘natural’ since an incestuous rape can at least lead to the birth of a child.”

Let us give Chaffara and de Rosa the benefit of a doubt. Perhaps they real mean what they say, and perhaps they really think that they are speaking on behalf of the Deity.

If so, they are rigidly adhering to principles, even if it means the disregarding common sense and totally negating compassion.

I know that I’m letting my emotions get the better of me, but I say they are not on the side of the angels, but rather are trodding the straight and narrow path to perdition in seven league boots. On the other hand, you can’t condemn a man for not knowing any better, so their destination can’t be subterranean. It’s a delightful little terrestrial state known as the Land of Wicky-Wacky-Woo.

A considerable number American priests have been exposed as pedophiles and invariably American bishops have covered pedophiles in their dioceses. This may all be very embarrassing, but very few Church dignitaries are blushing publicly.

An example of religious law and order: Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston has been instrumental in protecting pedophiles from the law. In his Boston diocese, 60 churches were forced to close due to pedophile scandals. Law hightailed it to Rome where he is sitting pretty.

The Vatican got Law off the hook. In May of 2004, Law was designated as Archpriest of the St Mary Major Basilica, the third most important place of worship in Rome, Law is in charge of the basilica’s administration and has various ceremonial functions. Law was not only put on display, he publicly said a mass for the late pope and participated in the papal election.

Aside from the ethical implications, this is the chutzpa of chutzpas. And imagine, the Vatican has criticized the press in indulging in “sensationalism.”

Law in court in Boston, concerning a letter about the transfer of a pedophile priest:
Attorney for the plaintiffs: “Do you recall if you were you were troubled by the information in this letter?”
Law:” I do not recall having seen the letter at the time.”
Attorney: “Do you recall writing the note on the letter?”
Law: “I do not recall writing that note.”
Attorney: But that is your handwriting and signature.”
Law: “But I have no doubt that that is my handwriting and signature!”

Law was not only put on display, he publicly said a mass for the late pope and voted for the new one. Aside from the ethical implications, this is the chutzpa of chutzpas. And imagine, the Vatican has criticized the press in indulging in sensationalism. That’s the tactic! And it is used in every case.

And here’s an apt comment by Garry Willis on Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who holds the American record in shuffling pedophile priests from one parish to another: “The Cardinal was too deeply engaged with the fate of the unborn to care for born minors being abused by his priests.”

The Catholic Church is now constantly in the media, but it is getting the kind of publicity which is not bringing would-be converts knocking at its doors. Invariably the scenario goes like this: a priest is exposed as a pedophile. His bishop hushes the situation up and sends him elsewhere, where he continues his activities. And the procedure repeats itself again and again.

This is how the Holy See handles it: He just doesn’t. According to the BBC, there are about ten thousand victims of pedophile priests in Canada. I quote the Herald Tribune headline: “Pope declines to meet with victims of sex abuse in Canada.”

Head in the Sand: On Monday April 14, 2008, Prior to Pope Benedict XVI visit to the United States, the Very Reverend David O’Connell, C.M., president of the Catholic University of America and Rev. Thomas J. Reese, S.J., senior research Fellow, Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University and former editor of America magazine, stated that they knew nothing about the directive.

After apologizing for clerical pedophilia in the United States, Pope Benedict delivered another apology in Australia. The pope, however, keeps mum on the fact that he was instrumental in preventing pedophile priests from being prosecuted under the law.

Bishop Anthony Fisher of Sidney, however, did not want gloom of abused children to spoil the cheery mood of World Youth Day. Here’s the bishop on the upbeat: “Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying, delighting in, the beauty and goodness of these young people…rather than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds.”

Yeah, we don’t want those wounds to spoil our joy.

Another documentary on the subject is Deliver Us from Evil, directed by Amy Berg. In the film, Oliver O’Grady, a former priest, describes how he abused young boys and girls as young as 9 months for over 20 years central California, including a period in the 1980’s when Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney was O’Grady’s bishop in Stockton. Mahoney now heads the archdiocese in Los Angeles. O’Grady, who now resides in Ireland, said he was able to continue abusing children in part because Mahoney moved him from parish to parish in the face of abuse accusations.

The film features a taped deposition from 1997, in which Cardinal Mahoney denied having known that O’Grady was a pedophile.

Mahoney and the archdiocese reached a settlement worth $660 million for the abuse of 508 victims by priests.

Thus, the pedophiles are not brought to justice, but rather are shielded from justice by their bishops. You cannot avoid asking whether the pope, the cardinals, bishops and priests are above the law.

A cardinal law of the underworld
is that you don’t put a man on display
who has broken the law,
or who has been an accomplice
of those who broke the law.
You stash him away.

Cardinal Groer, the man who had been at the top of the Austrian clerical ladder had to resign when some of his former wards spoke out about their experiences under his tutelage. It seems that the statute of limitations prevented him from being brought to court. Of course all the former altar boys and one man, who became a priest, were telling fibs. At any rate Bishop Krenn and Helmut Zilk, the former Mayor of Vienna, and his spouse are convinced that he is innocent and the visit him annually. Zilk: “I consider the cardinal to be the victim of a calumnious campaign. I have a high opinion of him….He has a big heart!” The man with a big heart is now a candidate for sainthood.

Krenn helped cultivate the “Anderl von Rinn Legend,” an anti-Semitic concoction which claims that a Catholic boy ritually murdered by Jews in the Middle Ages.

The Catholic Seminary in St. Pölten, which was under the good bishop’s aegis, was a gay bastion, which may have been a Church problem, but not a societal one. The sexual behavior of adults is nobody’s business, but if the Catholic Church makes it their business, it is
“their” business. However, criminal acts are the business of society.

Years ago, a seminary student spoke to me in Cafè Hawelka, the artists haunt in Vienna. He told me how great was to be in the proximity of young men and to be able to wear skirts. I know he only represents a percentage.

The seminarians in St. Pölten downloaded child pornography from internet, thousand-fold, including videos of extreme violence. These future priests viewed the abuse of children with delectation and contributed to it by purchasing the videos. Thus, those who bought the videos were aiding and abetting the abusers.

A priest in Bad Goisern, Father Kurt Neulinger, used the cloth as a cover for engaging in pedophilia. For years allegations were dismissed. Father Nuelinger was never brought to justice, but simply transferred to a parish in Vienna. The case was presented on Austrian TV program Thema.

Two Austrian victims of pedophile priests can to be found in Internet. Michael Tfirst recounts his abuse and Eva Nowatschek recounts the abuse her son Manuel.

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn takes a stand: “My God these things do happen!”

Yes these things happen. And when they happen, the perpetrators should be brought to justice - not shielded and moved to other premises. Not reporting them to the authorities means being an accessory.

The present pope and the previous one, are accomplices, because they ordered things to be hushed up, and ditto for bishops who switched pedophile priests to other parishes.

Helmut Schüller, who was the head of Center Abuse Victims of the archdiocese of Vienna, lists three reasons for clergymen abusing children and teenagers: Mandatory celibacy, rigid sexual morals and the authoritarian structures in the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal Schönborn counters: “‘Sexualisation’ is partly to blame; that is a fact. Let us look back to 1968! Sexual permissiveness, the movement for sexual freedom pervaded all of society. Needless to say, the Mühl Commune serves as the best negative example. There was a time when that institution was very fashionable in intellectual circles.”

Obviously, the pedophile priests are pedophiles. They did not become pedophiles due to celibacy. They entered the priesthood, to a man, to have access to children.

And who, pray, promoted Otto Mühl? Answer: Otto Mauer! As a fledgling “actionist” Mühl enjoyed the support of Monsignor Otto Mauer. Otto Mauer, pater familias of the actionists, was the official Catholic “caretaker of souls” for artists.

Josef Dvorak about Otto Mauer: “He (Mauer) thought that Otto Mühl and Hermann Nitsch were much better suited to his gallery than mine. That is why his intrigue against me was unlimited.”

Quotations by Monsignor Mauer’s prodigies:

Otto Mühl: “Blasphemy, obscenity, charlatanism, sadistic excesses, orgies, the aesthetics of the cesspool are our moral means. That includes rape and murder. Murder is an integral part of sex. It will soon become an ethical necessity to rob banks and to shoot a random cripple down.”

Hermann Nitsch: “Mühl’s specialty is minors and sex, and my specialty is the agonizing torture of animals….I could well envision that murder could be a component of a work of art. Killing was and is beyond all moral judgments.”

The wildfire is also raging in Canada, Mexico, Britain, Australia, France, Germany, and in such Catholic redoubts as Poland and - Ireland.

Top of the morning, Father!

From Shawn Pogatchnik, Associated Press, May 20, 2009:
“Irish Reform Schools: Thousands Beaten, Raped. Church sheltered pedophiles and treated children like prison inmates, says final report from Irish investigation into residential school abuse. Dublin - After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children. Ireland’s Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades, and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation. A 600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.”

As we know it is traditionally the job of the rapist’s attorney to badger the victim and break her down by placing her integrity and veracity in question. The victims are easy prey, since have come to loathe themselves for having been victimized, and they loathe their bodies for having been abused. I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a buggered body.

The clergy, all the way up and down, doesn’t seem to give a damn about how they feel. And they have no qualms of conscience about causing them additional suffering. Everyone knows that if you work a victim over, there is a possibility of making him insane or causing him to commit suicide.

Ed Fagan achieved notorierty in Austria as a hard-nosed and ruthless lawyer, but there isn’t only one Ed Fagan in the States. There’s an army of Ed Fagans. Some of the Ed Fagans are Jews, but you don’t have to be Jew to be an Ed Fagan. The Ed Fagan who headed a team of Ed Fagans who got O. J. Simpson off the hook happened to be black. There are plenty of WASP Ed Fagans of the Catholic faith..
Some Ed Fagans placed themselves at the disposal of those who were victimized as minors by men of the cloth. At first the Catholic Churched decided to pay compensation to the victims. However, after the Church accountants presented their estimate of what the sum might be, the dignitaries realized if they ever paid it, the next receptacle for contributions would be a tin cup. So the alternative seems to be to hire a passel of Ed Fagans, who incidentally happen to be “practicing” Catholics, to get them off the hook. These devout Ed Fagans are representing the Church for altruistic reasons, not for profit, and are charging cut-rate prices for their services. The method of the Catholic Ed Fagans is to cow the victims and their families into withdrawing their suits. Here’s how this should work. They are trying to make mincemeat of the victims who have come to court.

From the Herald Tribune: “Church lawyers make no apologies for their tactics. They argue that their ethical obligation is to their client, not to some abstract moral standard.” And here’s one from the horse’s mouth, namely Church attorney Joseph Sweeney: “I’m not just going to lay down and die just because I represent the Church. I attempt to be decent, but I’m not going to give away the store.”

This is the way that “decency” works: I go to the Herald Tribune again. “A diocesan attorney confronted a 22-year-old former altar boy who accused a local priest of abuse. The attorney portrayed the man as a homosexual, a liar and an alcoholic. The diocesan lawyer asked at one point if the man blamed himself for the abuse.”

That’s how the Catholic attorneys are dealing with the victims of priests, who may now be men, or even may still be boys, and that’s how they are dealing with their families. Can you imagine that? Who or what do the dignitaries think can be salvaged? And there is another aspect they haven’t taken into account. Americans are not softies. They can’t be cowed. They are tough and they stick to their guns.

Cardinal Egan of New York likes to have his cake and eat it too. Egan admitted that when he was bishop of the diocese of Stanford Connecticut, the Church covered up pedophilia by one of his priests, but Egan testified that the Church did not bear responsibility for the priest’s actions.

According to: “Priests are self-employed contractors working for autonomous parishes.”

Apparently Egan’s patron Saint is Pontius Pilate.

The bishops are using methods they claim would comprise a one-way ticket to Hell for members of the flock. But perhaps they think that wearing the cloth will get them special celestial treatment

Well, a few old ladies with dented hats might buy what they’re trying to sell. Being devout is not necessarily synonymous to being idiotic.

Let’s go back a bit! Here’s a key quotation by Pope Plus XII: “Dear friends do not forget that millions of Catholics serve in German armies. Shall I bring them into conflict of conscience?”

The Vatican preferred the Third Reich to the Soviet Union. That makes sense: Christian monsters are preferable to atheistic ones.

Harboring criminals is nothing new for the Catholic Church. At the end of World War II
Pope Pius XII opened the Vatican doors to Nazi mass murderers and Ustascha-men like Ante Pavelic. The Ustascha engaged in creative arts and crafts such as making necklaces out of eyeballs.

The Vatican “Rat Line” helped these “good Catholics” and other Nazis to escape to Spain and South America. Monsignor Otto Mauer in Vienna and Bishop Alois Hudal, who was located at the Vatican, were the Austrian members of the Rat Line.

Here’s a quotation by Mauer in 1948, three years after the Holocaust: “The Jews have immense influence on communism and capitalism. They pass themselves off as defenders of humanity…but they are nothing but a depraved people with a perverted spirit….They have been condemned to eternal damnation….They invariably choose the evil path.”

And here is Hudal in action:

Bishop Alois Hudal, Christmas, 1945: “I am delighted to greet 110 wanted war criminals. They can be hunted far and wide. Here they are safe.”

“The bishop (Hudal) entered the room and greeted me with outstretched arms
and said, ‘You must be Franz Stangl. I’ve been waiting for you.’”
(Franz Stangle was Commandant of Treblinka Concentration Camp.)

When Chilean putschist and dictator Augusto Pinochet was detained in London in 1998, Pope John Paul asked for clemency and his return to Chile. Chilean Cardinal Angelo Sodano on Pinochet: “Masterpieces can also have small errors. I would advise you not to dwell on the errors of the painting, but concentrate on the marvelous general impression.”

(Yes, Angelo, there are a few small errors in the masterpiece like mass-murder, rape and torture. But who cares about that!)

Here we go again: Hague-based War Crimes War Crimes Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte was on the track of former Croatian General Ante Gotovina, a war crimes suspect. The suspect was reported to be in hiding in a Franciscan monastery in Croatia. Pope Benedict XVI kept mum about the matter, but Carla is no softie. She’s as stubborn as they come. Thank God!

When they got Gotovina, the Croatian streets were filled with his fans. Among the demonstrators were high Church dignitaries and in Split, the seminary, to a man, was on the streets.

Yes it’s an old story. The Church always seems to have soft spot for mass murderers, if the happen to be anti-Bolshevists, and in this case that spot seems to be for those who do away with Orthodox Serbs.

A mass-murderer, who is a Catholic, can be a good Catholic, as far as the clergy are concerned, as long as he does what he does for the right cause.

I quote a cynic named Frederick Hunt: “If the Church adhered to its own principles, it would have lasted for the period it took the Deity to get the show on the road, namely one week.”

I’m not sure whether there is somebody up there, but if there is, I don’t think He has done a very good job. If He’s there and sees and hears everything his representatives are doing and saying, He has my unlimited compassion.

I have no doubts about the existence of Satan. He must be stoking the coals and turning Hellfire up to its highest level right now, and he’s whistling and humming while he’s at it. He can’t wait to receive the guys who are interpreting the Good Book while they live according to the Satanic Book.

Something I wonder about is how the Sacrament of Confession fits into all this. What are the pedophile priests telling their confessors? Are they mentioning their grievous sins in the confessional? Are the priests who are committing serial pedophilia revealing that sin again and again in their confessions or are they leaving it out of them? And what are the priests hearing Confession saying to the pedophiles? According to Catholic doctrine, a priest cannot reveal what he has heard in the confessional, but it certainly is his duty to urge the penitent who has confessed a crime to surrender himself to the law.

And imagine, pedophiles wearing the cloth have used prayer as a prelude to seduction and the seduction chambers used have been the rectory, the sacristy, and even the confessional!

At the semiannual bishops meeting on June 13-15, in Dallas, some Bishops want limit the definition of pedophilia to genital contact. That would discount kissing on the lips, providing pornography or engaging in obscene calls. Some wanted to exempt priests who had committed only one act of abuse and repented it. Why should whole lives be affected by a single act? Joseph Galante, the coadjutor bishop of Dallas provided the answer. “The victim’s whole life has been affected, why should the priest’s not be?”

(There is, of course, a shortage of priests, and we need every man we have.)

Perhaps this leniency should also apply to homicide. If a one-time murderer repents, why not just let him go off scot-free?

Here’s something I’d like to throw in. Let’s say the guys in black hats and kaftans were doing what the guys in the tri-corns and frocks are doing. What would be happening? I’ll answer that. We’d have a world pogrom, and there wouldn’t be a temple left standing.

Before I close, here’s a personal aspect. I do not have an axe to grind. I had good experiences as a child in parochial school. During my family’s emigration, there were nuns and a priest who were very good to us. Mother Batchelor in Britain, Sisters Ellenita and Mary Anne and Father Rey, who later became Monsignor Rey, in the United States. I loved those wonderful nuns and I could never forget them. They gave me so much care and affection! Monsignor Rey was a liberal priest who played a part in the Vatican Council under Pope John XXIII. He was kindness personified.

I visited Sister Mary Anne at McCauley Hall in Watchung, New Jersey, with my friends Buddy and Albert, when she turned a hundred. We were in her class at St. Paul’s School in Princeton and our friendship has lasted over the years.

I’m glad that Sister Mary Anne is dead now. I wouldn’t want her heart to have been broken.

If indeed there is a post-mortem place of eternal combustion, it must be filled to the brim(stone) with men of the cloth, but I’m sure that new arrivals will not be turned away.

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