Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 6/22/19

• Disgraced ex-cardinal ‘Mr. McCarrick’ remains at Kansas friary, one year later

Prior to the Boston Globe’s 2002 investigation, cases of abuse by pedophile priests were treated as infrequent and dissociated anomalies, if they were covered by the press at all. The newspaper not only revealed a large number of predatory priests in the Boston archdiocese, but also exposed the systematic cover-up of the abuse by the diocesan hierarchy. Over the following sixteen years, stories of clerical abuse and cover-up were published across the entire country, but last year at this time, the flood of articles crescendoed into a tsunami, with reports that high-ranking church prelates, such as powerful cardinal, Ted McCarrick, were not only covering up the abuse, but were/had been abusers themselves. He may have been “defrocked,” but eighty-eight-year-old McCarrick is still being generously cared for by the Catholic church.

• Investigation into Catholic bishop finds sexual harassment, gross misuse of funds
• Catholic layperson asks, “Why should I continue to support the Catholic Church?”

This story of Catholic bishop and sexual predator, Michael Bransfield, is an increasingly familiar tale of abuse by Catholic prelates.

• Pope Francis’ ‘flirt’ with heresy could provoke ‘schism’
• Pope Francis Forgets

As pope Francis continues to “flirt” with heresy, Catholic conservatives increasingly flirt with schism. But what is the tipping point? What line must Francis cross before conservatives will say, “No more!”? He has already craftily nullified two doctrines held to be inalterable by conservatives and traditionalists; the ban on communion for remarried divorcees and the ban on intercommunion with Protestants.

• Vatican Opens Door to Limited Ordination of Married Men as Priests

The Vatican continues to pursue the possibility of ordaining married men in regions where priests are extremely scarce. This is already a “done deal,” but Francis must go through the motions. Married priests will be yet another reason for Catholic conservatives to squawk. Catholic internecine squabbles aside, the New Testament does not teach a sacerdotal priesthood or mandatory clerical celibacy.

• NYC archdiocese agrees to move Fulton Sheen’s remains to Illinois

The Catholic dioceses of New York City and Peoria, Illinois (via Sheen’s niece) tussled in court over media pioneer, Fulton J. Sheen’s corpse for decades. As soon as the cadaver is in Peoria, the Vatican will put the wheels in motion for the once-popular Sheen’s canonization.

• German court says Catholic church can keep billions secret

I’m so glad reformers in America kept chipping away at vestiges of Roman error that continued in Europe, such as the state church.

• Vatican cardinal calls on Catholic charismatic renewal to share Catholic faith, foster Christian unity

Looking back over the last seventy years, perhaps the three most significant developments in furthering ecumenism with Rome among some evangelicals were 1) Rome’s shift in its approach to Protestants at Vatican II, from militant opposition to mollification, 2) the pioneering accommodation and compromise of Billy Graham, and 3) the birth of the Catholic charismatic movement.

• Bachelorette on show’s sexual relations: ‘I can do whatever, I sin daily and Jesus still loves me’

Popular television shows like “The Bachelorette” are “problematic” for Christian viewers because they condone/propagate a lifestyle that is opposed to God’s Word. Hannah Brown’s self-serving theology is not that far off the mark of some doctrine-lite mega-churches.

• Millennial Drops Support For Socialism After Learning How Hard It Is To Get Avocado Toast In Venezuela (satire)

It’s quite amazing to me that many of today’s popular politicians are trying to outdo each other as far as who is the most devoted socialist.