To illustrate the situation, imagine a roulette which accepts CHILDREN’S fake money and delivers real gold to the winners. How much money has been paid so far and would be paid in the future by Catholic institutions?

How many allegations proved to be unfounded have been closed with a casual “I AM SORRY”? Would Monte Carlo, Macau, and Las Vegas create such an infernal machine? Praised be Christ who embraces sinners who repent. Praise be the Christians who support and comfort accused priests either with founded or unfounded allegations.

It has lined the pockets of uncounted miscreants, and ruined several dioceses, but most damagingly it has created an abyss between accused priests and their superiors who deprived them of all civic rights: no Miranda, no habeas corpus, no statute of limitation, nothing!!!

I humbly believe that only the Blessed Virgin can save the Church. She has many titles to her credit; but in this case I would call HER “the BIBLICAL WOMAN” mentioned by Genesis 3:15. The Book says, “I will make you enemies…you and the WOMAN, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.

Our Lord Jesus himself has identified this WOMAN with his Own mother Mary – not once, but twice – the first time at the Cana wedding in Jn 2:4; and the second time minutes before he died ( Jn 19::36). From the cross Jesus commended his Church in disarray at the time, of which John was an eloquent representative – because John himself had lost his faith which he would recovered only later when he witnessed the empty tomb (Jn 20:9).

Therefore the offspring from Mary “THE WOMAN” must not be identified with Jesus – who cannot be vulnerable to the “serpent’s” attacks in his heels or anywhere – but this offspring of the SECOND EVE must be the CHURCH itself that Mary, the WOMAN has rebuilt later (see the 1st chapter of Acts). Only The Church made of fragile human beings,can be occasionally wounded by the Satanic serpent.

Anyhow, at the end, thanks to the protection of Mary, THE CHURCH ITSELF will crush the head of the devil, because Mary would never abandon the Church, her second offspring that she has once saved with the power of the Holy Spirit on the Pentecost Sunday.

– St. John Henry Cardinal Newman

In this life we cannot always expect justice nor even compassionate mercy from our fellow men. It is difficult for our human nature to undergo even slight misunderstandings and judgments from others, whether they are true, partically true or completely false.

How much more difficult it must have been for Fr. Richard Lower to live with the voices of accusation, voices which have a way of reaching deep down in to a person’s conscioiusness and like a kaleidoscope present many new and varied unbearable consequences not only for the individual but for others, for family, for friends, for the Church, for believers and unbelievers, for those we have helped and those whom we have harmed, etc..

One would have to be a God to fully understand all this, to endure all this, even death itself; and yet find meaning in it all; and to both forgive and meet the demands of justice in bringing hope and salvation to both guilty and innocent.

Thanks be to Jesus Christ for staying with us through it all, through the terrible experience of the many forms of victimhood, through His compassion and tears for both the tortured victims and those who perpetrate such suffering, wittingly or unwittingly. One of God’s greatest sadnesses must be the way we treat each other at times, and one of His greatest joys, among us human beings, must be the way we believe Him, trust Him, and love Him and each other though it all.

In my former parish, there is a 78 year old retired priest who was accused of exposing himself to a woman in confession. A good, holy man is he and the diocese reacts as if this is true even though the woman was judged, even by her husband, as mentally unstable.

He was told never again could he visit the children in the parish’s Catholic school because of this accusation. The custodian had to build a wooden confessional for this priest so that he could hear confessions in the aisle of the church because he was not permitted in the regular stalls (Why he just might be accused again of exposing himself in that darkened area, is their thought !!)

He came to me for solace because he knew I had been falsely accused ten years before by a student and went through a ten month nightmare before it was found she was lying. Why couldn’t the diocese have counseled him? The folks in the pews, like me, just wish the bishops would fight for the priests instead of just giving in, like they usually do.

http://www.thesestonewalls.com/gordon-macrae/my-final-post-for-2009/#comments

Every man, every priest has a right to be acknowledged as innocent when accused. In these case of sexual abuse, I have a problem primarily because I believe a large number of them were made out of hysteria. The news media had a great deal to aggravate the situation with its daily columns.

Of course, I do not condone the acts done by priests who have actually been convicted of such acts, but, my heart goes out to those who have falsely been accused. There is no way we can imagine the suffering that these men have gone through . . .loss of their ministry; no place to reside; no income, no one to help …

Great article and one all priests should read that reside in rectories today.

Happy and Blessed New Year Father..may God bring you many good blessings in 2010.

As a lay person I am saddened by how quickly these men who answered God’s call have been abandoned; yet I know I should not be surprised or even disappointed. Did not Peter and the others do the same when Christ was the subject of a public trial, condemed as a common criminal, brutally beaten, publicly shamed and let die as the worst of criminals between a thief and a murderer.

Jesus was The Innocent One just as some of our religious are totally innocent caught up in the climate of the times where any allegation( no matter how far back it goes or how unreliable the accuser ) is treated as gospel truth and many priests and religious have been abandoned without any attempt to properly defend them because everyone is terrified of being associated with them and caught up in costly litigation.

It used to be people were innocent until proven guilty but now if you are a priest or religious you are guilty until proven innocent.

This is not to deny the immense suffering and pain of true victims of abuse and the existence of truly guilty and unrepentant abusers amongst us but we all know that even if they have managed to elude human justice they will one day meet Perfect Justice and I can hear Christ’s words so clearly “Woe betide those who scandalise my little ones” and in the meantime all those falsely accused and abandoned by all will be met by a loving Saviour who alone knows the depth of the pain, bewilderment and sense of loss they have been forced to endure and the pain and suffering of the family and friends who love them.

In this Year of the Priest may we unite in prayer and support our priests in every way possible .