Monday, February 14, 2005
E-MAIL FROM LEE PENN - BISHOP BURKE
A few blogs down is one titled "The Courage of a True Leader" which links a LifeSite article about Bishop Burke's support of pro-life and family issues. We need some good news, and especially about bishops. He looked to me like one of the good guys.
Now comes this email from Lee Penn which I would like not to be true, but...
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Lee writes:
A collection of four stories about a neo-con RC hero. Forward or blog this as you wish:
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First, this:
Several days ago, I saw the following story about Archbishop Burke and his prediction of a pending persecution:
St. Louis Archbishop Warns of Upcoming "Persecution" over Abortion and Homosexuality
Here are some quotes from the story, with my commentary interspersed in square brackets:
Money quotes, with emphasis added:
"the archbishop stated clearly in a meeting held by the diocesan pro-life office, "When we go to vote, we must take into consideration all of the stands politicians make. But procured abortion, that has to be our first question."
[Comment: yeah, right. Torture, aggressive/pre-emptive war, looting Social Security, shredding the Bill of RIghts. and transferring the wealth of the nation to the corporate class are all just "prudential judgment." Abortion, however, is DOCTRINAL.]
"In his diocesan paper Burke wrote, 'There is a tendency to accept same-sex relationships because we do not want to deal with the embarrassment and hurt of recognizing same-sex attraction as disordered,' he said. 'The fact that our American culture more and more fails to make any distinction between same-sex attraction and heterosexual attraction does not justify our failure to make the distinction, respecting God's gift of human life in its integrity and helping others to attain the perfection to which we are called as true children of God.' "
[ Comment: And from this, we can assume that there are no pederasts, pedophiles, ephebophiles, and practicing homosexuals among the priests in his jurisdiction ... and that the Bishop has been forthcoming in dealing with survivors of clergy abuse. Yeah, tell me another one.]
[ Comment: And just today, I got my confirmation of my suspicions ... see the following stories.]
"It's intimidating because we live, as our Holy Father says, in a society of a culture of death where people want to convince us that everything should be convenient and comfortable and they don't like to hear a voice which says 'this isn't right', he said."
[ But when abuse survivors and writers and trial lawyers tell the Corporation that the Scandal is a great evil, and that what the Hierarchy has done "isn't right," these critics are just out for the money, and are motivated by anti-Catholic bias and the desire to subvert Church Teaching.]
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Story # 2:
The foregoing should get you ready for this story:
Here is a story from the St. Louis alternative press about him, including the revelation that he let a transsexual become a nun - with Vatican knowledge:
riverfronttimes.com Bishop Takes Queen 2004-08-25
Here is the key part of the story, with my emphasis added:
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But it was his gathering of fringe religious orders to the diocese that alienated many priests.
"He brought in any number of people -- hermits we called them, or consecrated virgins and religious orders of one and two and three people," says the priest who requested anonymity. "They were just -- forgive me for saying so -- but to most of us they were wackos. They're just psychologically not well equipped, and he brought these people in because theologically they agree with him."
At times his theological allegiance with these orders placed Bishop Burke in some compromising positions. Most striking, perhaps, was the case of Sister Julie Green, a member of the Franciscan Servants of Jesus:
"Julie Green is living a lie!" writes Mary Therese Helmueller in an October 25, 2002, letter to Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo, Papal Nuncio to the United States. "[She] is a transsexual, a biological male. He is really Joel Green, who had a sex operation to make him physically appear as a woman.... I fear that The Church in America will suffer another 'sex scandal' if Julie Green continues to be recognized as a Catholic Religious Sister, and if Bishop Raymond L. Burke receives his final vows, as a religious sister, on November 23rd, 2002."
Montalvo forwarded the letter to Burke, who on November 20, 2002, replied to Helmueller. "With regard to Sister Julie Green, F.S.J., the recognition of the association of the faithful which she and Sister Anne LeBlanc founded was granted only after consultation with the Holy See," he writes. "These are matters which are confidential and do not admit of any further comment.... I can assure you that Sister Julie Green in no way espouses a sex change operation as right or good. In fact, she holds it to be seriously disordered. Therefore, I caution you very much about the rash judgments which you made in your letter to the Apostolic Nuncio."
Adds Burke: "I express my surprise that, when you had questions about Sister Julie Green, you did not, in accord with the teaching of our Lord, address the matter to me directly."
Green and the Franciscan Servants weren't the only controversial religious order with which Burke allied himself. In the late 1990s, the bishop combined the parishes of St. Mary and St. James in Wausau, Wisconsin. The two parishes formed the Resurrection Parish at what was formerly St. James' Parish.
St. Mary's was sold. Burke then asked the conservative Latin-rite religious order, Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, to perform the Tridentine Mass at what was formerly St. Mary's. In February 2002, the order's superior, Monsignor Timothy Svea, pleaded guilty to exposing himself to and molesting teenage boys.
"What never really got any attention was that Bishop Burke brought them in," says a second priest who asked not to be named. "That's really a sore point for a lot of people in Wausau."
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Who could make this stuff up?
The response of the Nuncio and the Bishop to the complaint was so typical.
Here, as an instance, is what happened to me 3 years ago:
In January 2002, I wrote to Abp. Levada, my Diocesan (I live in San Franciso) asking that he disassociate himself and the Archdiocese from the United Religions Initiative (URI). I got a prompt "thank you for sharing" reply from him, with a note that the letter had been copied to URI board member Fr. Gerry O'Rourke ... Levada's man in charge of ecumenism and interfaith affairs. A week later, I got a call from O'Rourke, and received a long, weepy, growly Irish tongue-lashing from him. Evidently, it was my fault for complaining ... but the Archdiocese is ever more deeply involved in URI.
Moral of the story: complain to the Corporation about an abuse - whether it be sexual abuse, or liturgical abuse, or theological error - and the default response of the Temple Masters is to castigate the complainant.
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Story #3:
But hey, you might say, Story #2 is from a liberal underground paper, and they hate the Church and want to promote decadence.
Very well, have it your way. Here is corroboration from Roman Catholic Faithful, a very conservative organization that exposes hierarchical corruption:
AMDG Spring 2003.pub
This is from the Spring 2003 issue of AMDG, the magazine issued by Roman Catholic Faithful. On p. 24, you will find the following item -- again, I have put some of it in bold:
Quote:
"TRANSSEXUAL NUN IN WISCONSIN DIOCESES
In January, 2003, a concerned parishioner from St. Paul, Minnesota notified us that a transsexual (man to woman) had been a religious Catholic sister for 18 years, ten years in the Milwaukee Diocese under Bishop Weakland in a women's Franciscan order. Then in 1993 this transsexual nun went to the LaCrosse Diocese under the Bishop and received permission to found his/her own religious Catholic Women's Order called "Franciscan Servants of Jesus". On October 4, 1997 Bishop Raymond L. Burke elevated the order and was going to hear the final vows of Sr. Julie Green (Joel Green) on November 23, 2003.
The concerned parishioner sent copies of all papers that had been collected on Sister Julie to various authorities in Rome, but received no reply. Finally, the parishioner went to Rome and only when publicity was given to the case, was any action taken by the Church. Bishop Burke commented in a letter dated January 27, 2003 that unfortunately the situation had been publicized, denied that Sister Julie became a nun or was the mother superior of the religious order, and that "…such a person has been unable to emit valid vows except to the sex of his or her birth".
According to the Arlington Catholic Herald dated January 23, 2003 an article by John Norton of Catholic News Service, "After years of study, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has sent Church leaders a confidential document concluding that 'sex-change' procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the Church." "
So the underground paper was not making it up ...
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Story #4:
Back, then, to the underground paper .... they did a LONG story about ++Burke's dealings with abuse survivors.
riverfronttimes.com Immaculate Deception 2004-08-25
"But some members of Raymond Burke's former flock paint a far different portrait of the erstwhile bishop of La Crosse. If cases of clergy sex abuse were few and far between, they say, it was because Burke was a master at keeping a lid on them. Several victims who claim they were abused by priests in La Crosse tell Riverfront Times they were stonewalled by Burke, who declined to report their allegations to local authorities. And while some of his fellow church officials nationwide were reaching hefty settlements with victims, Raymond Burke was unyielding in his refusal to negotiate with victims' rights groups. He declined to make public the names of priests who were known to have been abusive, and he denied requests to set up a victims' fund. Most strikingly, Riverfront Times has learned, while bishop in La Crosse Burke allowed at least three priests to remain clerics in good standing long after allegations of their sexual misconduct had been proven -- to the church, to the courts and, finally, to Burke himself.
His critics say Burke's ability to conceal the diocese's dirty laundry was abetted by Wisconsin's unique civil code, which makes it virtually impossible for someone to sue the church for the actions of an individual priest.
"He stands with his fellow bishops in Wisconsin as having had the ability to just rebuke and ignore our victims," says Jeff Anderson, an attorney in St. Paul, Minnesota, who specializes in clergy abuse cases. "He has a long history of making pastoral statements that they care, that they want to heal, that they want to help. They are very long on words, but very short on actions."
"We don't exist, for him," seconds Peter Isely, a Wisconsin leader of the national Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). "Loyalty to the church is of the highest order for him, and his response to victims' claims has been lethargic and slow and reluctant and bureaucratic and impersonal."
Then again, if success is measured in money saved and avoidance of scandal, Raymond Burke possesses a sterling record. At a time when dioceses are reaching million-dollar settlements with individual victims and filing for bankruptcy, Burke reported in January 2004 that between 1950 and 2002 the Diocese of La Crosse paid out a grand total of $15,807.38 to victims seeking counseling for clergy sexual abuse."
There is lots more ... go read the whole thing.
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And consider all this as a sign of the state of the Roman Catholic Church in these times.
And remember again that Burke is seen by many conservative Catholics as proof that a new, orthodox generation of bishops is being put in place - gradually - by the Vatican.
Kyrie eleison.
Lee
