TWILIGHT
ZONE
***Who’s screening the screeners? One of
the major reasons the Church in the United States is in such a mess is
the bishops’ enabling of dissent, a problem dating back in the short
term to Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae. Our bishops
failed to promulgate it and stayed silent as dissenters, many of them
clergy, publicly ridiculed and opposed its teachings. The response to
the sex abuse scandals is similar. Public dissenters are playing major
roles as screeners to evaluate strategies and programs being put in place.
They're on the National Review Board (Leon Panetta, Robert Bennett, and
Alice Bourke Hayes) and Bishop Loverde has named at least one, retired
State Senator Joe Gartlan, to our local board.
***What’s wrong with Joe Gartlan? Plenty!
In 1996 he sent a letter endorsing Mark Warner (current governor) for
Senate. It read: “Mark shares our vision for Virginia…He believes
in…a woman’s right to choose.” Gartlan said the statement
was a staff mistake, but never repudiated his endorsement of Warner, a
pro-abort extremist who champions partial birth abortion and supports
same-sex marriage. Gartlan frequently endorses pro-abortion democrats.
In ‘93 and ‘96 he opposed the rights of parents and local
communities to control the content of Virginia’s K-12 Family Life
Education (FLE) program which promotes contraception, “safe”
sex, and “alternative lifestyles.” (This alone should disqualify
him.) In ‘93 he nixed an amendment that would have allowed local
schools to omit contraception from the course content. In ‘87 he
opposed a bill requiring school principals to inform parents if their
children were using illegal drugs in school. In ’91, in a key procedural
vote, Gartlan said no to parental notification before a minor’s
abortion. He hired the VA president of Planned Parenthood, Susan Dull,
as his legislative assistant. His disgraceful record proves he’s
no friend of Catholic parents. Avery Cardinal Dulles says trust in the
bishops is at an all time low. Is it any wonder? We call on the bishop
to remove Joe Gartlan from the board.
***Good Touch Bad Touch? – Don’t Touch! Parents are saying they want nothing to do with Good Touch Bad Touch (GTBT), the so-called “safe environment” program the diocese is “considering” to “protect” children from sex abuse. Nearly 300 people attended a meeting January 12th at All Saints in Manassas to express concern over the program content and the way parents have been left out of the loop. The diocese insists GTBT is not a done deal and that they care about parents’ input, but the facts raise questions: 1. Sixty “facilitators” have been trained to teach GTBT at a cost of $65 per person (actual cost is much higher, but it was underwritten by ChildHelp USA). [That’s a serious commitment of time and money for something just “being considered.”] 2. GTBT is already in use at several diocesan schools. 3. No other programs are available for review; [Seems like a decision’s been made!] 4. Parents were not informed until recently that a program was in the works and the original parents’ meeting was scheduled for the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend with almost no prior notice. [Looks like an end-run around parents!] 5. Fr. Paul deLadurantaye is working on the program to make it “more Catholic.” [Do you change what you haven’t adopted?]
***But isn’t protecting kids from sex abuse a good thing? Sure. But will GTBT do it? Remember Planned Parenthood’s mantra that sex ed would eliminate abortion and create a utopia of well-adjusted, happy folk? Skyrocketing abortion, STDs, depression, and teen suicide followed. Now comes GTBT developed by Pam Church who has an undergraduate degree in psychology. In the introduction to the facilitator’s manual, Church says she was working with “troubled adolescents” at a “community crisis center.” GTBT came from this “victim population,” modeled on abusive rather than normal, families. What may not be commonly known is that the good touch bad touch concept came from ETR Associates, a California publishing company formed in 1981. Focus on the Family says, “ETR Associates began its corporate life as the Education Department of the Santa Cruz Chapter of Planned Parenthood.…ETR Marketing Director Steve Bignell, editor of the Family Life Education curriculum and Family Life Educator magazine, served as education director at Planned Parenthood–Santa Cruz….In fact their publications frequently have a Planned Parenthood credit line” [Citizen Magazine December 1989]. Church says she was attending abuse conferences in the early ‘80s which influenced her work. Was ETR among the presenters? So-called “child abuse prevention” is one more way for Planned Parenthood to insert its sex ed philosophy into our schools.
***But the Diocese and the author say it isn’t sex ed!
Let’s see – it’s all about
“sexual abuse” and includes drawings of children being groped
by adults – and it’s NOT sex ed? What would you do if a stranger
at the playground showed your five-year-old the GTBT picture of a man
with his hand in a little boy’s crotch? [Got a baseball bat handy?]
Part of the “grooming” process by abusers is using immodest
pictures. GTBT has a non-family member, who may be a stranger, discussing
“private parts” and showing drawings of abuse. An authority
figure doing it in the classroom gives it an aura of respectability. How
can this not undermine the innocence and security of a child? In fact,
an articulated goal of the program is to desensitize children, making
them less embarrassed to use terms like “sexual abuse.” [So
they can testify more effectively in court?] This clearly violates
a child’s natural modesty. If a priest acted like these trained
“facilitators,” he could be arrested and removed from ministry
according to the Charter. Other bad things about GTBT: the mantra –
“It’s my body!” – contradicts Catholic teaching
that we belong to God, the principle that the child decides whether a
touch is good or bad [If it “feels good” is it okay?],
the statement that children never lie about abuse. [Are these people
really unaware of the many false accusations?] Visit the website of
Parents United to Respect Innocence in Teaching the Young (PURITY) for
more detailed information about GTBT: www.chaste-environment.org.
***Were parents really as rude at the Jan. 12the meeting as the media
said? Meeting organizers used
conflict-management techniques for control. Cathy Nolan, Victim Assistance
Coordinator who is on a leave of absence from the Dept. of Health and
Human Services [Now there’s a bastion of pro-life sentiment!]
gave a long presentation and parents had to submit their questions on
cards. This is a common strategy to manage input, limit disagreement,
and bring about a desired outcome. Questions can be screened and the “most
controversial” omitted. After another long presentation and as time
for the meeting’s end drew near, parents grew restless, afraid their
questions and concerns would not be addressed. Some demanded to be heard.
State Delegate Bob Marshall warned it would be a grave mistake to adjourn
the meeting, and it continued several hours longer, but still left many
parents dissatisfied. Some expressed anger later about the summary posted
on the diocesan website. As one father said, “What planet do they
live on?” (The Herald article was more accurate.) Among the
questions asked at the meeting was one from a concerned dad. If, God forbid,
one of his children were molested by a priest and he sued, would diocesan
lawyers accuse him of negligence for opting his child out of GTBT? Good
question. It remains unanswered.
***If you want to hide a big tree, put it in a forest. While the bishops focus on “safe environment” programs [whatever they are], they continue to cover up the issue of homosexual priests. Bishop Wilton Gregory says the February report detailing the extent of sex abuse in the U.S. will shock the faithful. Most cases (over 90%) involve priests molesting adolescent boys (i.e. homosexual abuse), but you’d never know it. The word homosexual never appears in the bishops’ Charter! Instead the document frames the issue in the broader context of generalized sex abuse, hiding the giant redwood in the pine forest. Protecting children by banning homosexual predators from the priesthood doesn’t even rate a footnote. Instead, the bishops adopt programs focused on heterosexuals and make children responsible for interrupting their own abuse by adults. We’re definitely in The Twilight Zone!
***And while we’re speaking in metaphors the
elephant in the sacristy is trumpeting and swinging his trunk. In December,
23 Chicago priests published an open letter to the hierarchy calling Vatican
language about homosexuality “violent and abusive…mean-spirited…vile
and toxic.” [Whoa! Must be bad!] What exactly has the Vatican
said? Documents describe homosexuality as a “troubling moral and
social phenomenon…serious depravity…approval or legalization
of evil…grave detriment to the common good…harmful to the
proper development of human society…intrinsically disordered.”
[Vile? Toxic? – Sounds like truth to us.]
What’s “vile and toxic” are depraved acts that shorten
homosexuals’ lives by decades [skip the next six lines if you
have a weak stomach]: anal intercourse, fellatio that results in consuming
semen and fecal matter, “golden showers” and “fisting”
[use your imagination], anonymous sex in bathhouses and public
restrooms, etc. And if you’re a “leather gay” add cutting,
slashing, whipping, and other “intrinsically disordered” acts
of “serious depravity.” We hate to be explicit, but the homosexual
community has sold the lie that their “love” is no different
than that of a heterosexual. Pray for those ensnared in sodomy, but keep
your kids as far away from them as possible. Groups like Parents and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) which affirm this diseased lifestyle “love”
as much as “friends” who buy drugs and needles for addicts.
God forgive them!
Incidentally, a Dutch study published last May in the British Journal, AIDS, found that same-sex unions last an average of 1-1/2 years and even those in “committed” relationships average eight partners a year. There’s no such thing as homosexual fidelity. It’s an oxymoron!
***More elephants in the sacristy. Now that the Chicago priests have trumpeted, others are running to join the herd. Three priests from the Diocese of Rochester – Fr. Bob Kennedy, Fr. Joe Marcoux, and Fr. Gary Tyman forwarded the Chicago letter to their brother priests in Rochester asking them to sign on as well. All are members of the Catholic Gay & Lesbian Family Ministry (CG&LFM). These so-called “ministries” advance the gay agenda as these priests amply demonstrate. The exception is Courage, Fr. John Harvey’s program for those with same-sex attractions who are committed to chastity. As sodomite “marriage” looms on the horizon expect this sick promotion to escalate. There is one advantage, however. As dissident priests sign these letters the faithful will clearly recognize them as wolves in sheep’s clothing. One can hope that, after this, the USCCB will adopt Bishop Bruskewitz’s recommendation to study the link between dissent and the sex scandals. [But don’t hold your breath.]
***And while we’re on the USCCB here’s
a comment from a priest who works for them who has somehow managed not
to be corrupted in the process: “I’m grateful when any utterance
made by a Catholic bishop, upon examination, can be shown not to weaken
the deposit of the Faith. Let them issue pastoral letters on solving crossword
puzzles and improving lawn care and making sour cream-vegetable dip. On
the same lines, whenever anyone from the Right or Left suggests that the
U.S. bishops are conservative I ask them to consider the fact that every
orthodox Catholic would be delighted if, at their national meetings, the
U.S. bishops did nothing – nothing whatever – and left the
Church no worse than they found it the week before. Even when the good
guys manage to muster the vote to block a 2/3 majority on liturgy or doctrine
we feel a wild urge to celebrate – like Vietnamese villagers when
a napalm canister comes through the roof of the cottage and fails to explode."
***Bishop Raymond Burke, a glorious exception! Amid
the silent hordes and the few toothless statements from bishops saying
pro-abort politicians should not receive Communion comes a canonical rebuke
and bold affirmation of truth. Bishop Burke of La Crosse, WI, who has
been named to take over the St. Louis Archdiocese, issued a notification
recently that reads: “Catholic legislators, who are members of the
faithful of the Diocese of La Crosse and who continue to support procured
abortion or euthanasia may not present themselves to receive Holy Communion.
They are not to be admitted to Holy Communion should they present themselves,
until such time as they publicly renounce their support of these most
unjust practices. [Hear the angels singing the Halleluia Chorus?]