Liberal prelates who negligently discarded 20 centuries of solid, established Catholic Tradition in favor of new, unreliable, and untested concepts of priestly formation opened the door for what may well be the greatest scandal and the greatest challenge that the Catholic Church has ever faced.
Prior to the 2nd Vatican Council, the Church had managed to keep the liberals and religious anarchists at bay. But amazingly, in the wake of that council, it took the liberals a little less than a decade to exert control over virtually all the key structures and offices of the church.
Seminaries, which once effectively screened out men with sexual and other dysfunctions, now did just the opposite. Open homosexuality became accepted (perhaps even required.) Now, it was the good men who were subjected to rigorous screening, with many of them being summarily “washed out” by those in control … the ones who had long intended to remake the Catholic church in their own intrinsically disordered image … and who now had the motive, the means, and the opportunity to do so.
The sexual revolution of the ’60’s and ’70’s added fuel to the fire, and the widespread confusion in the church over abortion, birth control, and virtually every related matter, only served to make things much, much worse.
With the Catholic church effectively neutralized, the gay lobby began to successfully prevail against the medical establishment, convincing them to reclassify a host of homosexual and other sexual disorders as “normal”.
The bishops, faced with numerous breaking scandals, chose to rely on the advice and opinions of these newly reoriented mental health “professionals”. Having already summarily discarded two thousand years of established church discipline, what else could the bishops do?
But somehow, it’s only the Catholic Church that is being held financially accountable for the decrepit and shameful outcome. Where are all the multimillion dollar malpractice suits against the psychiatrists , the psychologists, and all the various treatment facilities?
It’s time we all took a long look at this mess, called it exactly what it is, and got busy fixing our church. If it means the laity needs to take a more active role, then so be it. If it means we have to withhold funds from the church until the hierarchy begins to “comes around” that’s OK too.
We may even need to initiate a comprehensive class action suit against all the various medical professionals and perhaps, even some bishops, who failed so miserably to act in the best interest of those who relied on their judgment and expertise.
There’s not even a hint of divine providence in this mess. The near total rejection of all that came before, lies at the heart of it.
The one thing we can no longer afford is business as usual.
I’m pretty sure the Pope is coming around to that point of view, too. Let’s watch and see what happens next. But let’s not stand around watching, for too long. There’s important work to be done!
Doug Lawrence's Catholic Site 