"The Gloves are Off"

That's how many in the media are referring to Cardinal William Levada's forceful response to the scurrilous New York Times hit pieces on the Holy Father. He offers a point-by-point refutation of the endlessly rehashed, drive-by accusations against Pope Benedict XVI, which have been featured most prominently in the increasingly discredited and uber-liberal newspaper.

Now, how many will actually read the response? Send it on to friends.

Some excerpts:

Goodstein’s account bounces back and forth as if there were not some 20 plus years intervening between reports in the 1960 and 70’s to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and local police, and Archbishop Weakland’s appeal for help to the Vatican in 1996. Why? Because the point of the article is not about failures on the part of church and civil authorities to act properly at the time. I, for one, looking back at this report agree that Fr. Murphy deserved to be dismissed from the clerical state for his egregious criminal behavior, which would normally have resulted from a canonical trial.

The point of Goodstein’s article, however, is to attribute the failure to accomplish this dismissal to Pope Benedict, instead of to diocesan decisions at the time. She uses the technique of repeating the many escalating charges and accusations from various sources (not least from her own newspaper), and tries to use these “newly unearthed files” as the basis for accusing the pope of leniency and inaction in this case and presumably in others...

The Times editorial wonders “how Vatican officials did not draw the lessons of the grueling scandal in the United States, where more than 700 priests were dismissed over a three-year period.” I can assure the Times that the Vatican in reality did not then and does not now ignore those lessons. But the Times editorial goes on to show the usual bias: “But then we read Laurie Goodstein’s disturbing report . . .about how the pope, while he was still a cardinal, was personally warned about a priest … But church leaders chose to protect the church instead of children. The report illuminated the kind of behavior the church was willing to excuse to avoid scandal.” Excuse me, editors. Even the Goodstein article, based on “newly unearthed files,” places the words about protecting the Church from scandal on the lips of Archbishop Weakland, not the pope.

Emphasis added

Who was in total control of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee during the late 1970s, all of the 80s, 90s, and right up until 2002? ARCHBISHOP WEAKLAND. The effects of his unfortunate reign are still reverberating. In my opinion, the negative consequences resulting from his tenure in Milwaukee are incalculable. More than anyone else, he should be questioned regarding all of this.

Milwaukee's new leader Archbishop Jerome Listecki recently offered his thoughts to local Catholics on where blame lays in this whole mess:

Mistakes were made in the Lawrence Murphy case. The mistakes were not made in Rome in the 1996, 1997 and 1998. The mistakes were made here, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, in the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s, by the Church, by civil authorities, by Church officials, and by bishops.

Emphasis added

Anyone interested in learning more about Archbishop Weakland's legacy should read an excellent article written by Russell Shaw: Rembert Weakland's Oprah Ecclesiology