Richard Malone, Bishop of Buffalo and enabler of child molestation, has finally “resigned”, by which I mean, “was fired”, since he was defiantly denying that he was going to resign two weeks ago. Let’s look at his hometown paper:
When Malone, 73, returned from the “ad limina” visit in Rome, he issued a statement Nov. 18 restating his position that he had no intention of resigning.
In the statement, Malone said “… it was clear that the pope understands the difficulties and distress we here in Buffalo and I, personally, have been experiencing.”
The Buffalo Diocese has been in crisis since February 2018, when the Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, a retired priest, told The News that he had molested probably dozens of boys, an admission that led to revelations of cover-ups of clergy sex abuse complaints against other priests. The diocese paid $17.5 million to 106 childhood victims through a compensation fund. It is now facing more than 220 lawsuits filed by others who allege they were molested as minors by area priests. More Child Victims Act lawsuits have been filed against the Buffalo Diocese than against any other defendant in the state.
The diocese also is the subject of an FBI probe that includes the subpoena of diocese records and interviews of several dozen potential witnesses and a civil investigation by the state Attorney General’s Office.
Is it possible that someone in the church hierarchy will finally face some criminal charges? We can only pray for that.
OzarkHillbilly
I keep hoping this will bankrupt the church. I know, dreams I’ll never see.
germy
https://www.evangelist.org/Content/Default/Opinion/Article/The-enduring-value-of-celibacy-/-3/135/27880
germy
@OzarkHillbilly: They’ve got centuries and centuries of wealth piled up. They’ll never go broke.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: GACK! ACK! HURL! You now owe me breakfast.
@germy: Hence the “dreams I’ll never see.”
Alien Radio
@germy: And they are still actively Laundering Money right? that’s probably just walking around cash.
delk
In 2009 he ordered all churches in the state to have a second collection to fund an anti-same sex marriage referendum.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: That’ll teach ya not to eat before reading Balloon Juice.
germy
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The instructions on this blog clearly say “Take on empty stomach”
germy
The hearings have just begun. Nadler’s up.
germy
Amir Khalid
@germy:
When you look at the long and sometimes shameful history of illicit sexuality among the Catholic priesthood, all “celibate” but not all chaste, you realise that that argument is just so much pretty-sounding bullshit.
oldster
Well, the entire Catholic hierarchy has my thoughts and prayers.
May they do them as much good as thoughts and prayers usually do.
cmorenc
@germy: (quoting
It definitely takes a “supernatural reality” for priests to suppress their sexuality for the rest of their life. OK, the theory is they sublimate and transform that constructively into religious devotion, but in practice, it takes a bit of a supernatural leap to believe that out of a group of men pledging to forego/sublimate sexuality for decades, there aren’t going to be at least a substantial plurality among them who can’t contain their sexuality for years, decades even, without their sexuality forcing its way into their behavior.
NeenerNeener
Somewhere I read that Catholic priests used to marry back in the middle ages, but then their families wanted to inherit their property when they died and the Church flatly refused and so banned marriage for clergy.
Sab
@NeenerNeener: The eastern rite Catholics ( mostly Croatians) have always been allowed to marry if they did it before ordination. I know many children of married Catholic piests.
Tony Jay
@NeenerNeener:
Yup. No hereditary Priesthood.
What about nephews?
Well that didn’t last long.
opiejeanne
@germy: Meh. This is ridiculous.. Celibacy as a rule for priests sprang from the fear that if a priest married and had heirs, they would inherit the wealth of the priest’s church.
I view celibacy as unnatural and unhealthy.
opiejeanne
@NeenerNeener: I read the same thing. The church has been greedy in the worst sense of the word for centuries.
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Have an acquaintance whose wife was an airline stew and they traveled around the world for the cost of the insurance. The got to visit the Vatican once and got a behind the scenes tour. He said there were things like rare stone encrusted gold crosses laying against the wall because there was no place else to put them. All that money from around the world put in the donation baskets? Almost all of it sent to Rome. I have seen the Los Angeles cardinal, in 1961, drive up in Rolls Royce limo, with driver and silk robes and rare stone rings on every finger, probably worth enough then to pay the debt of many of the third world nations they hand those donation baskets around in. They tell you it’s about saving your soul when it’s actually about raping your wallet. Mormons are pikers, only asking for 10% of your income.
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
I believe that it actually makes not focusing on it worse. They see their followers having sex, actually being told to have as many kids as possible so that the basket is fuller every Sunday and they are continually told that their sexuality is wrong. Talk about your mixed messages….
Boris, Rasputin's Evil Twin
“Vicars of Christ: the dark side of the papacy” by Peter de Rosa, is a great study of celibacy and many other things. The author is an ex-Jesuit, for bonus points.
Uncle Cosmo
Amazing, innit, that the One Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church didn’t pay a bit of attention to sexual abuse by priests until the lawsuits hit.
Having grown up in the OHCAC I learned fairly early that figuring out what they’re about only requires 3 words: FOLLOW. THE. MONEY.
Just One More Canuck
@Uncle Cosmo:
not true – they shuffled the priests off to another parish
patrick II
@opiejeanne:
Falwell Jr. and Graham Jr. give that worry some credence.
Gin & Tonic
@Sab: Many Ukrainians are also Eastern Rite Catholics. I know quite a number of priests who are married and have children. In my view, it is not only natural, it works to the benefit of their pastoral duties, as they can more easily empathize with parishioners experiencing marital/familial challenges.
FlyingToaster
@mistermix
I predict a Town Car at 5am that will be in the Alitalia terminal at JFK in time for the Bishop to catch the 4:45pm to revisit the pope.
laura
Suffer unto me the little children so that I can make them suffer even more and suffer all through their days.
jonas
@NeenerNeener: The Latin Church never technically permitted clerical marriage, but various “arrangements” between priests and female companions were more or less winked at for many centuries. Division of church property among a priest’s children was one issue, but there were other, ideological, concerns as well about ritual purity and the clergy’s relationship to lay society. Clerical celibacy would become a symbol of the church’s superior moral status in the world. By the end of the eleventh century, a series of papal encyclicals and church councils had firmly declared that priests — like monks — must abstain from all sexual relationships.
jonas
@Ruckus: Keep in mind that until 1870, the pope was the absolute ruler of a big chunk of central Italy — the Papal States, one of the wealthiest realms in Europe, which paid taxes that flowed directly into the papal coffers. A lot of previous popes had also been powerful Italian princes with massive libraries, art collections, estates, and other valuables that came into the church. So yes, tons of treasure, but not all of it looted from some poor widow putting her mite into the donation basket.
Ruckus
@jonas:
It was all still about the money. And where and from whom do you think those taxes were collected from, the few wealthy, or the many poor?
JanieM
On the road and haven’t read the whole thread, but Malone was the bishop of the Portland/Maine diocese when the legislature’s judiciary committee hearing was held on the first same-sex marriage bill in 2009. The hearing was held in the August Civic Center because the crowd was expected to be so big on both sides, and indeed it was. I wish I could post some pics……
Anyhow, there was a system. Everyone who wanted to speak was able to. Each person got 3 minutes, alternating sides. The hearing lasted from morning, well on into the evening, with a break for lunch. Malone was dressed in black, like priests dressed when I was growing up Catholic in the 1950s: no relaxed standards for him. He seemed to think it due to his dignity that he be the first to speak on the “anti” side, but he was edged out by a backcountry preacher (we have a lot of those in Maine) in a leather jacket. Funky leather jacket was no less homophobic than the bishop, but I have a vivid memory of that dry stick of a self-important POS and his dry hateful 3 minutes of talking.
Same-sex marriage lost the referendum that year but that was a great day regardless. And f#nk Malone and all his black-clothed and black-hearted ilk. Glad to see he’s been booted.
Procopius
@germy: That writer does not understand how tests are evaluated. Writing tests in a school setting is hard. The first hurdle a test must pass is called “face validity.” That is, it must be clear “on its face” that the test actually does measure what it is supposed to be measuring. Celibacy does not measure God’s existence, it measures the priest’s belief in God. My opinion, after years of struggling, is that God is an axiom. Either His existence is obvious and unquestionable to you or it is not. It cannot be proven by reason. It is not, to me, but that doesn’t refute the belief of hundreds of millions of people who do believe passionately.