Oh my gosh! Is this the messaging that’s going to come out of the “Meeting on the Protection of Minors?” Are they actually going to go with blame the victims?! This is insane. https://twitter.com/MassimoFaggioli/status/1097857305712967681
Massimo, what kind of drugs are you on??? “Unpopular opinion?!?” That’s the understatement of the year. You just said the Catholic laity should apologize for priests who can’t handle their vows and promises of celibacy and chastity. Un-flippin-believable. I would have thought you could just look around and think that the “She asked for it!” argument is kind of sorta disgusting, but I guess I should know better by now. You’ve got issues. For the guy who is supposed to be an expert in the “role of the laity,” you seem to think that the role of the laity is that we are supposed to be the scapegoat of the immoral clergy. Nice try.
You might want to run your tweets past your compadres first, because we’ve gone from “The laity should never be asked to do penance for the sins of others!” to “The laity is responsible for the sins of others!”
Your buddy, Fr. Martin, SJ, told us the former not long ago:
However, in this case, to imply that the laity, in any way, should perform any kinds of penances, including fasting, is simply wrong. The laity should not have to do one minute of penance for the crimes, sins and failings of the hierarchy and the clergy. https://onemadmomblog.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/fr-martin-dont-be-that-guy/
Let me help you both out. You’ve both got it totally wrong. This is in no way the fault of the faithful, and yes, we should be doing all of the fasting and penance we can to make up for those who aren’t doing it themselves. If you’re going to scapegoat the faithful on behalf of the depraved, you, Massimo, are part of the true problem.
One Mad Mom 
I went to the twitter links of Cupich (earlier blog post) and Faggioli and read the responses. Oh my – perhaps it is not good of me, but many responses had me laughing through my tears. Some people have such creative ways of showing their righteous anger.
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Sometimes it takes a lot to move people to act which is why I think Card. Cupich and Faggioli underestimate what happens when you abuse our young and seminarians.
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Ha! Thanks for the heads up post! Didn’t know that these priests are holding the laity (even partly) responsible for the sex abuse crisis! It’s Bizzaro World…
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2019/02/the-bizzaro-world-of-franciss-sex-abuse.html?m=1
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Didn’t you know we’re responsible for clericalism? It’s all our fault. Massimo, however, isn’t a priest. His buddies are.
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Here’s my only apology, speaking as a mother: “I’m very sorry that castration is illegal.”
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Ditto!
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It appears that the devil has taken over the Church… when are we going to take it back??
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This doesn’t surprise me. Don’t you remember when Cupich stood up at the USCCB Conference and said that some of this abuse issue was probably sex between 2 “consenting” adults? Yep they are trying to put some responsibility on US!
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You, dear, are a veeery sloooooooow learner. Our steady effort to deconstruct your false and divisive black and white paradigm and to replace it with the unifying grey, all got lost on you. Bad, bad, bad Mad Mom. A perception where there are minors an adults or victims and perpetrators of evil is causing our Church division and I proclaim it the greatest sin. For Satan’s sake, even the Mohammedan is in unity with us now. Look, some children are very mature, and some adults playful. Some like it grey, and others – grey. By the way, you have not heard? – Age and gender are just a social construct. Papacy and sodomy are not. Capisce?
– Your increasingly impatient Humbleness-Holiness Papa.
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Maybe someone here can help me out. I don’t even understand what Maximum Beans is trying to say. For what exactly are the laity supposed to be apologizing? Participating in a culture of clericalism that made abuse possible? Being too deferential and trusting priests to be in close proximity to their children? Directly engaging in or ignoring abuse? What’s his point? Seriously?
If his point is that laity is itself too lax in upholding Church teaching on sexual morality, then actually I might agree (though I doubt that is his point!). Speaking of which, a topic suggestion for OMM… the Shelly Fitzgerald/ Roncalli High story that Jimmy Martin SJ was trumpeting yesterday.
As a Church, we really do seem to be heading for some kind of a split over the whole LGBT thing. We have some priests and laity who think a lesbian “married” to another woman is a perfectly fine choice to counsel teens at a Catholic high school… and then there are some of us who think that a woman leading a life completely at odds with Church teaching on sexuality is an inappropriate person for the job. As they say in divorce proceedings, we are dealing with a situation of “irreconcilable differences.”
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I’ve seen more than one reason we’re supposedly responsible for clericalism. They’ve started with the most benign thing like calling a priest “Father.” Yes, that is now clericalism in the mind of some.
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I’d posit that there is already a cold schism in the Church. Parish A and Parish B are 10 miles apart from where I live. They are radically different in their liturgy and what they preach. There also seems to be a deliberating fear of schism amongst the more orthodox that prevents anybody in a position of authority who could do something for the Church from doing anything.
It is as if the parable of the wheat and the tares has been taken to mean that inaction, turning and blind eye, and saying how the emperor’s clothes are so rich and fine is the proper mode of dealing with rot.
It is not and only leads to such widespread decay that eventually breaks into revolution lead by the hotter heads amongst the oppressed and abused. Which is what is desired in the first place by the social anarchists and Marxists.
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I think scapegoating the faithful meshes very well with the “don’t blame homosexuality in the priesthood” message. When you accept a lifestyle of mortal sin between consenting adults in the clergy, lots of things become “grey area.” I think that’s what we call the weakening of the will and the darkening of the intellect. It has become very dark, indeed!
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It is obvious, don’t you see? Those abused have to apologize for just being too darned sexy for homosexual priests and bishops to resist. The priest/bishop is just as much of a victim.
/sarc
Of course, the move is to blame the victim. That is always the case especially with those who engage in sexual abuse and those who enable it. They, and their enablers, see the victims as causing the abuse as well as that their victims are better off for having received the abuse. It is both the duty of the abuser to abuse as well as the abuser being a victim of the temptation of the one abused.
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