A Special Place in Hell

The former No. 2 official of the Catholic church in Chicago admitted that he knew 25 priests broke the law by sexually abusing children but did not report them, according to depositions made public Tuesday.

Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus Raymond E. Goedert's statements show "the lengths they went to to protect their reputation and the priest at the peril of the child," said attorney Jeff Anderson, who represents men who have sued the archdiocese over alleged childhood molestation.
Raymond E. Goedert says he and other priests relied on "common sense" to deal with abuse.




"I knew the civil law considered it a crime," Goedert said in the deposition. "But I'm not a civil lawyer. I think we just relied on -- a lot on our -- we knew it was wrong, what was done. And we used our common sense and prudence with the help of people -- expert in the field to assist us in resolving these cases."

Goedert, the past president of the national Canon Law (Catholic Church law) Society, said families of the victims were not seeking to get the police involved and have the priests criminally charged -- they simply wanted to prevent any other children from being victimized. So while now the church calls police when it learns of credible allegations of abuse, in those days --the '70s and mid-80s -- it did not.

"I simply would not talk about it to anyone except those who had a right to know because of their position in the diocese," Goedert said

"Grasping at things can only yield one of two results:
Either the thing you are grasping at disappears, or you yourself disappear.
It is only a matter of which occurs first."
Goenka

"The Love of Morning" (Denise Levertov)

It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves
back to the love of morning
after we've lain in the dark crying out
O God, save us from the horror . . . .

God has saved the world one more day
even with its leaden burden of human evil;
we wake to birdsong.
And if sunlight's gossamer lifts in its net
the weight of all that is solid,
our hearts, too, are lifted,
swung like laughing infants;

but on gray mornings,
all incident - our own hunger,
the dear tasks of continuance,
the footsteps before us in the earth's
beloved dust, leading the way - all,
is hard to love again
for we resent a summons
that disregards our sloth, and this
calls us, calls us.

Episcopal Prayer before Communion

"Deliver us from the presumption of coming to this Table for solace only, and not for strength; for pardon only, and not for renewal."

Help us to be the always hopeful
Gardeners of the spirit
Who know that without darkness
Nothing comes to birth
As without light
Nothing flowers.

Mary Sarton

This deserves to be highlighted

"One of the tragedies of institutions is that they so often betray their mission to preserve their structure."

---Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG