The Unfortunate Futility of Acquainting Religious Hierarchies with Genuine Spiritual Development — Cardinal Roger Mahoney’s Puke-Inspiring Vision of Himself as a Victim of the Children whom His Church Abused

20 February 2013

Background — who is Cardinal Roger Mahoney — and why should decent people care?

Roger Mahoney used to be Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles. Until the Church maneuvered him out of the inconvenient spotlight that he had created by directly cooperating with evil:

Fifteen years before the clergy sex abuse scandal came to light, Archbishop Roger M. Mahony and a top advisor plotted to conceal child molestation by priests from law enforcement, including keeping them out of California to avoid prosecution, according to internal Catholic church records released Monday.

The archdiocese's failure to purge pedophile clergy and reluctance to cooperate with law enforcement has previously been known.

But the memos written in 1986 and 1987 by Mahony and Msgr. Thomas J. Curry, then the archdiocese's chief advisor on sex abuse cases, offer the strongest evidence yet of a concerted effort by officials in the nation's largest Catholic diocese to shield abusers from police.

The newly released records, which the archdiocese fought for years to keep secret, reveal in church leaders' own words a desire to keep authorities from discovering that children were being molested.

The New York Times added this nuance:

Rather than defrocking priests and contacting the police, the archdiocese sent priests who had molested children to out-of-state treatment facilities, in large part because therapists in California were legally obligated to report any evidence of child abuse to the police, the files make clear.

Cardinal Mahoney then had the audacity to write the following self-serving bit of narcissistic trash —

His Pedophilia-Concealing Eminence wrote:

Given all of the storms that have surrounded me and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently, God's grace finally helped me to understand:

I am not being called to serve Jesus in humility. Rather, I am being called to something deeper--to be humiliated, disgraced, and rebuffed by many.

I was not ready for this challenge. Ash Wednesday changed all of that, and I see Lent 2013 as a special time to reflect deeply upon this special call by Jesus.

To be honest with you, I have not reached the point where I can actually pray for more humiliation. I'm only at the stage of asking for the grace to endure the level of humiliation at the moment.

In the past several days, I have experienced many examples of being humiliated. In recent days, I have been confronted in various places by very unhappy people. I could understand the depth of their anger and outrage--at me, at the Church, at about injustices that swirl around us.

Thanks to God's special grace, I simply stood there, asking God to bless and forgive them.

Over the coming days of our Lenten journey I hope to explore with all of you some deeper spiritual insights into what it really means to take up our cross daily and to follow Jesus--in rejection, in humiliation, and in personal attack.

Let’s dissect His Eminence’s ability to miss the spiritual point

Narcissism is incapable of spiritual development.

Self-involved Cardinal Mahoney has somehow managed to turn his sin of actively cooperating in the concealment of pedophilia — into an implied attack on the spiritual wrongfulness of his wounded accusers.

Even if the Cardinal had not actively covered up what had happened in his bailiwick, he would still be responsible for supervisory negligence in letting sick priests abuse defenseless youth and get away with it.

In either case, the man should be humbly begging for forgiveness, rather than parading himself around as an example of spiritual humility.

To get the full puke-inspiring effect of the Cardinal’s hypocrisy and shriveled soul — read this subsequent pseudo-holy blog entry

The style of writing is characteristic of spiritual pretenders:

I have tried to live out--poorly and inadequately far too often—his [Father Ronald Rolheiser] two implications of humiliation:

1. the acceptance of being scapegoated, pointing out the necessary connection between humiliation and redemption;

2. this scandal is putting us, the clergy and the church, where we belong--with the excluded ones; Jesus was painted with the same brush as the two thieves crucified with him.

His example of Mary at the foot of the cross pondering all that is happening has meant so much for me, and I turn to her daily seeking her help to carry this scandal as she carried the scandal of Jesus' cross with such inner strength.

The not so esteemed Cardinal thinks that he is being scapegoated for the justice-denying actions that he actively participated in.

And he presumes himself to be an exemplar for how we should carry ourselves.

A deeper form of spiritual blindness it is difficult to conjure.

This is perfect example of why bureaucratic hierarchical position and spiritual development generally do not overlap

The personal ambition that goes into authority-seeking strengthens the inner noxiousness that prevents us from spiritual insight.

For spiritual seekers, authority over others — and others’ authority over oneself — are both hindrances to accurate seeing.

Cardinal Mahoney’s is an especially revulsive example of spiritual corruption.

The moral? — Humility is not a separable adjunct of being

It is Being.

Without soul-founded humility, we lack accurate self-awareness and spiritual insight.

With rare exceptions, hierarchical church authorities lack both. Ambition and self-deceit are the problems.

PeteFree.com

The Unfortunate Futility of Acquainting Religious Hierarchies with Genuine Spiritual Development — Cardinal Roger Mahoney’s Puke-Inspiring Vision of Himself as a Victim of the Children whom His Church Abused