Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 8/24/19

• Celebrity Jesuit priest who starred in ‘The Exorcist’ accused of sexually abusing student in the 1980s

Rochester Jesuit priest, William O’Malley, was the “toast of the town” after he appeared in the popular 1973 film, “The Exorcist.” O’Malley was teaching at McQuaid, the “prestigious” local Jesuit high school for boys, when he wrote a favorable review of the horror novel, “The Exorcist.” The book’s author, William Peter Blatty, took notice and a friendship ensued, which eventually led to O’Malley’s role in the film adaptation. A former McQuaid student has recently filed a lawsuit in conjunction with the Child Victim Act, charging that O’Malley, now 88, sexually abused him multiple times in 1985 and 1986, before the priest was unceremoniously whisked away to Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York City. Whenever I watch a movie or television show that includes an exorcism by a Catholic priest, I always quip to whoever’s listening that the priest character is actually more dangerous than the demon.

• Cardinal George Pell denied appeal on conviction for molestation of choirboys

Cardinal George Pell, the former Vatican finance minister, lost his appeal in Australian court and must serve his 6-year prison sentence for sexually abusing children. Catholics are shaken by the recent revelations that even their bishops and cardinals were preying on children.

• Will Rome finally intervene in the troubled Diocese of Buffalo?

Pope Francis talks about cracking down on pedophile priests and their enablers, but Richard Malone is STILL the Catholic bishop of Buffalo, New York, ten-months after the investigative journalism television show, “60 Minutes,” outed him as a serial-enabler. Buffalo-area Catholics are dumbfounded.

• Jesus is truly present: Do most Catholics need to go back to second grade?

In last weekend’s round up, I posted that a whopping 69% of Roman Catholics do not believe in their church’s transubstantiation doctrine, instead believing that the consecrated wafer and wine are merely symbolic. As might be expected, the reaction in the Catholic media this past week was one of anguish and despair. Catholics generally don’t go to obligatory Sunday mass, don’t go to obligatory confession, don’t believe in transubstantiation, and use banned contraceptives.

• When an Influx of French-Canadian Catholic Immigrants Struck Fear Into Americans

This is another article about American Protestants’ supposedly irrational paranoia in previous centuries in regards to Catholic immigrants, with no mention whatsoever of the larger context involving the severe persecution of Protestants in Catholic-dominated countries.

• Catholics closely ‘mirror’ rest of U.S. population in support for abortion, survey finds

Catholics are famously known for being “anti-abortion,” yet surveys reveal the Catholic membership supports abortion to the same degree as the general public.

• Jesuit superior general: Satan is ‘symbolic’ not real

A large percentage of Catholic priests and prelates view the Bible as myth and allegory rather than God’s literal Word.

• Disaffected Catholic: The Catholic Church I Imagined Never Existed

The pedophile priests and cover-up scandal tsunami has shaken the confidence of millions of U.S. Catholics in their institutional church. May many of them turn to Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ alone.

• Is Purgatory in the Bible?

This past week, the blogger at “Triablogue” posted this informative article about Catholicism’s false doctrine of Purgatory.

• Hobby Lobby Releases Line Of Shiplap Personally Anointed By Chip And Joanna Gaines (satire)

It’s sadly comical how some evangelical churches play follow-the-leader and also put up shiplap behind the pulpit in an effort to appear as  non-traditional trendy and “edgy.” I’ve even seen dilapidated commercial wooden pallets secured to church interior walls as an economy version. Huh?