You tell me

I’ve sent out two SOSs re my Google search engine problems.  Hopefully I will have an answer tomorrow – I’ve had it with trying to sort it out 🙁  Meanwhile the default search engine is operational (the second one down) as is the Google search engine on www.theinquiry.ca.  The latter searches both theinquiry.ca and Sylvia’s Site, the former searches only Sylvia’s Site.

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Have you ever seen the like of the nonsense over the Vatican’s efforts to dismiss the lawsuit which now threatens it?

18 May 2010:  Abuse victims target Vatican ‘employees’

Bishops aren’t Vatican employees?  and they aren’t officials?

What are they then?  Why I wonder have we laity been sending our complaints about bishops off the the Vatican all these years?

Granted, it all gets a bit confusing when we consider that a raft of  bishops haven’t  acted much like they’re answerable to anyone over the past 30 or 40 years, God and the Pope included.  But, whether they like it or not  the bottom line is that there is a hierarchy in the Church, and the Pope is much farther up the ladder than they are.

All the legal head games gets to be a bit much.  Just head games.  Wherein lies the truth?   Never mind the head games.  Never mind the chance to line pockets.  Never mind the chance to save face.  The truth.  Are bishops employees of the Pope?  Even if they aren’t paid by him, are they answerable to him?

I say yes.  I think this debate is akin to trying to sort out what the definition of “is” is.  Or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

What a sorry waste of money and energy and common sense.

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A day or so ago I blogged about Bishop Fred Henry saying he had done “due diligence” in hoisting convicted clerical molester James Kneale on his unwitting flock.  I also said that Henry had  taken in Father Mark Buckley and allowed him to serve in the Diocese of Calgary even after he, Henry,  knew there was a warrant out for Buckley’s arrest.

As promised, I have since added Mark Buckley and a link to Friends in High Places  to the Accused page yesterday.

It’s a lengthy article, but an almost surreal tale.  A Roman Catholic priest who opened not one but two pet shops, helped himself to parish funds, lived the life of Riley, frequented gay bars and bought $26 tubes of lipstick for a drag queen friend, borrowed over $200,000 from an elderly widow – her nest egg! – and has yet to pay it back,  declared personal bankruptcy, hightailed it out of town when enraged parishioners refused to have him in their parish, got his quals to teach, headed off to and was taken in by his former seminary prof. Bishop Fred Henry, won a $200,000 home and failed to send a penny to the widow.

And a Roman Catholic bishop who allowed a college student to deal with marriage annulments, and then allowed that man to be ordained for his diocese despite a prior conviction of theft, and then allowed the priest to open up a pet shop, and then tried to force parishioners to tolerate this priest in their sanctuary after they learned he had been merrily depleting their  parish coffers, and then allowed the priest to head off to another diocese to teach Roman Catholic children and serve as a parish priest, and then intervened to save the priest’s hide when word finally got out into the public milieu that there was a warrant out for the priest’s arrest, and refused to intervene to see justice done for the widow.

And another Roman Catholic bishop who harboured a priest wanted by the Onario Provincial Police, and allowed that priest to teach in Roman Catholic schools, hear confessions and say Mass.

It’s a disgusting saga.

The widow, by the way, is now in her mid 80s.  She finally got something akin to a widow’s mite from the Diocese of Peterborough.  And that only after legal action.

And believe me, it was a widow’s mite – from “the Church.”

Were she younger and in better health Barb MacKerrow would probably  have fought on, but  she has  serious health issues and she just didn’t have it in her fight anymore.

Anyway, read the sordid tale.  I get annoyed every time I think about it.  That the bishops would protect the likes of a Buckley and turn their backs on the widow whose back account was depleted because she was conned by a Roman Catholic priest  is beyond me.

Friend in high places indeed!

I wonder if Buckley has paid his debt to the Diocese of Peterborough?  does anyone know?  I know he hasn’t repaid the widow, but, has he paid back what he “borrowed” from the diocese?

I scanned the article – there are inserts in there which are relevant and part of the story.  I will however post a text only version – easier to read.  I will do that sometime today.

Did Bishop Henry do “due diligence” here?  You tell me.

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More on Father Lorne Whalen today.  I needed a break from it.

Enough for now,

Sylvia

(cornwall@theinquiry.ca)