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Clergy Sex Abuse Still Haunts the Pope
Several recent events have refocused the world on the Vatican's failure to deal with clergy child sex abuse. Earlier this year, Pope Francis visited Peru and Chile and proceeded to apologize to the victims there of a priest, Fernando Karadima, who made sex abuse of teenage boys part of his parish activities during the 1980s and 90s. He was finally exposed and removed to a life of "prayer and penance" but escaped prosecution because of the statute of limitations. The situation was worsened recently by the appointment of Karadima's close associate, Juan Barros, as Bishop of a Chilean diocese. Victims claimed Barros was a direct witness to Karadima's crimes. The Pope's visit did nothing to help the Chilean church. Before he left, he denied that there was evidence against Barros and accused the victims of slander. Where 74% of Chileans identified as Catholic in 1996, only 45% do so today. In January, a Chilean court dismissed charges against another former bishop, Marco Ordenes for abusing an altar boy. The boy claimed that the abuse began when he was 15, but the priest said he did not meet him until he was 17 and the "relationship" began after he was no longer "underage." Which highlights another set of facts discovered during the thousands of investigations of priest abuse world wide: Most are with teenage boys, the favorite for aggressive homosexuals; some studies have shown that homosexuality is common in the Roman priesthood; calls continue for the elimination of the celibacy requirements for priests. In addition to permission to marry, elimination of the confessional is also the recommendation of a commission who conducted a years-long study of tens of thousands of child abuse cases in Australian institutions. Although the study included many institutions, they identified the Catholic Church as the largest perpetrator. The commission recommended that laws be changed to require church leaders to report suspected abuse to police. This runs counter to the Vatican's procedure of secrecy of the confessional using penance and absolution to resolve the problem. Two unbiblical, pagan practices are highlighted by these stories: celibacy and auricular confession. From ancient Egypt, "forbidding to marry" has been a standard practice of bondage by many heathen religions (Islam does go the other way and approves multiple wives.) God made them male and female for a purpose. Any system that perverts this foundational relationship will encourage sinful alternatives. And, as Charles Chiniquy points out in his book, The Priest, the Woman and the Confessional, the confessional only makes it worse. When a female (or male) "penitent" bares the deepest secrets of the soul to an unattached man, sex is too fundamental to be ignored. Those who have accepted Roman Catholicism as "just another worship style" are woefully uninformed of the many other practices contrary to scripture. Putting the Virgin Mary goddess in the place of Jesus as our advocate is just one of two pillars that support this unholy edifice. The other is worship of the wafer-god, the Eucharist. To accept that any man has the power to change a simple wheat wafer into an object of worship is the most blatant idolatry. But then to claim that it becomes the very "body, blood and divinity" of Jesus is the rankest blasphemy. No wonder "Christianity" is the laughingstock of the secular world. For the evangelical church to accept this counterfeit as part of the Kingdom of God makes us complicit in the damnation of all the one billion plus souls roped into the Pope's deception. Chick Publications has produced many tracts, comics and books for your use in exposing Rome's lies to your friends, relatives and anyone else who will listen. |
