Mark 16:15-20 | |
 | |
Saint Mark the Evangelist, Illuminated miniature from Les Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne, Illumination painted by Jean Bourdichon (1456-1521), Executed 1503-1508, Tempera heightened with gold, on parchment © La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris | |
Gospel Reading | |
Jesus showed himself to the Eleven and said to them: ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptised will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils; they will have the gift of tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and be unharmed should they drink deadly poison; they will lay their hands on the sick, who will recover.’ And so the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven: there at the right hand of God he took his place, while they, going out, preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word by the signs that accompanied it. | |
Reflection on the Illuminated Miniature | |
Today we celebrate the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist. Our illuminated manuscript miniature was executed circa 1503 by Jean Bourdichon (1456-1521), one of Europe’s most accomplished miniature painters. It is taken from the book of hours ‘Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany’, Queen of France to two kings in succession. In the history of illuminated manuscripts, this is a very late book. The miniature in fact looks more like a painting than a book illustration. The highly intricate detailing, especially in the gilding, is particularly exquisite. We see Saint Mark depicted at his desk, writing his Gospel. Mark was a companion of Saint Peter and is said to have survived being thrown to the lions, which is why he is shown with a lion. He is often also shown with a winged lion, as another legend has it that Mark, while taking refuge from a storm in the city of Venice, was visited in a dream by an angel in the form of a winged lion. In addition to writing his Gospel, Saint Mark is credited with founding the Church of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the original Apostolic Sees of Christianity (along with Rome, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem). I always find it fascinating that already at the time, people such as Mark evangelised the word of Christ by traveling such great distances. The Gospel of Mark is the oldest of the four Gospels (Matthew and Luke based a lot of their writings on Mark; these three Gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew are also called the ‘Synoptic Gospels’). Mark, whose cycle we are reading in this current liturgical year (Cycle B), doesn’t include a Christmas story. What is striking in the Gospel according to Mark is that Jesus is portrayed as a man of action who hits the ground running, with no time to waste. The start of today’s Gospel reading ‘Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation’ reflects this sense of urgency… An urgency we are all called to act upon. | |
by Father Patrick van der Vorst |
And, lest we forget, the repulsive hypocrisy of some practitioners of the Catholic faith - people like Gene "Fetherlite" Vincent - was also seen in action at St Joseph's Church, Penole, in California in 1985. And what an example it set to the rest of the world...
ReplyDeleteHad Ratzinger unfrocked Kiesle in 1985, the abuse of children at St Joseph's would not have continued for a further three years. That is a FACT, no matter how often you try to deny it.
Ratzinger's apology in full reads as follows [my footnotes}:
“I can only express to all the victims [1] of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness. I have had great responsibilities [2] in the Catholic Church. All the greater is my pain for the abuses [3] and the errors [4] hat occurred in those different places [5] during the time of my mandate."[6]
1 ALL THE VICTIMS, Gene: victimS, plural: you can tell this by the S on the end of the word. All the victims of sexual abuse that occurred during Ratzingers time as Archbishop of Munich [1977- 1982] and later head of the Congregation of the Faith and Pope - that is, 1985 - 2013. The phrase "ALL THE VICTIMS therefore must include the victims of Stephen Kiesle between the years 1985-1988, when Ratzinger failed to unfrock Kiesle. [2] I HAVE HAD GREAT RESPONSIBILITES [see 1 above]: and one of those was to detect, root out and expel priests and others in the Catholic Church whose favourite hobby was buggering small boys and raping little girls. These GREAT RESPONSIBILITIES obviously include those children abused by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him in 1985. [3] THE ABUSES - these must include the abuses committed by Stephen Kiesle after Ratzinger failed to unfrock him [unless you can prove differently, Gene?].
[4] THE ERRORS - these must include Ratzinger's failure to unfrock Kiesle in 1985 and probably his failure to alert Fr Thomas Ryan that he was allowing a convicted paedophile rapist to minister to the young people in his church.
[5] THOSE DIFFERENT PLACES - except, of course at St Joseph's Church, Penole, CA, where Stephen Kiesle, still a priest, continued to abuse children during the years 1985-1988 - Ratzinger made it clear that his apology did not include this, didn't he, Gene, and you can prove that, can't you? What's that? oh, you can't? Dear me, and YOU call ME a lying tosser... [5] DURING MY MANDATE: that is, during the years 1985 - 2013.
It is clear to anyone whose mind has a greater ratiocinatory capacity than a pair of skid-marked underpants that Ratzinger was apologising for all the sexual abuse committed on his watch 1985-2013 by priests whom he failed either properly to oversee, accurately to diagnose and condignly to punish, as well as arranging for their being unable to access children and young people ever again.
"I can only express to ALL the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness." It's that word ALL that gives it away, Gene: I'm sorry if it's confusing. Stuff your pissy little opinions up your arse. I will not apologise for telling the truth, and I will go on telling it until you acknowledge that it is the truth. In the meantime, I continue to wait for your answer to this:
"Detters can we leave A.N. WILSON and ARIANNA HUFFINGTON behind?"
Not until you have dealt honestly with this example of your lying bastardy:
'Gene writes beautifully - something not always the case with authors of trail-blazing literary works.' [A.N. WILSON]
"The genius of James Joyce is alive and well and living amongst us. His name is Gene Vincent." [A.N. WILSON]
'I was enthralled. A new star has shot into the literary firmament. [ARIANNA HUFFINGTON]
When you are going to admit that you have made these reviews and their authors up? Make no mistake: I am going to keep on asking until you tell the truth, or I lose patience, inform Mr Wilson and Ms Huffington and let nature take its course.
FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, APRIL 18th 2010:
ReplyDeleteTHE ABUSER WHO WANTED TO BE DEFROCKED [1]
BY VICTORIA KIM APRIL 18, 2010 12 AM PT
In the early summer of 1978, police arrived at a Union City church looking for the younger of its two pastors, Stephen Kiesle. He was away, so officers informed the senior pastor, Father George Crespin, that Kiesle was wanted for molesting six children at the church and that there was a warrant for his arrest. When Kiesle returned to the city south of Oakland, Crespin confronted him with the allegations. Kiesle sighed. He seemed relieved, as if he had been waiting for this day to come, Crespin recalled. Kiesle surrendered to authorities and eventually pleaded no contest to criminal charges of molesting children. A few years later, in 1981, he asked to be defrocked, something that would require Vatican approval. Crespin thought Kiesle’s request, which was supported by the Diocese of Oakland, would be quickly granted.
But in a 1985 letter made public last week, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then the Vatican’s chief enforcer of doctrine and now Pope Benedict XVI, declined to immediately defrock Kiesle, citing the priest’s young age and the “good of the Universal Church.” It would be two more years before the Vatican finally granted the request. Crespin was shocked by Rome’s reluctance.
“We didn’t anticipate the obstacles that we were going to have to face in Rome,” Crespin recalled in an interview with The Times at his current church in Berkeley. “It was like a friendly divorce. . . . We thought, as they say in the sports world, that it was going to be a slam dunk. . . . It was so clear that this is what should be done, and to have [the Vatican] not see it that way was frustrating.”
The letter has become a flash point in the current debate over the pope’s handling of priestly abuse cases. But it was only one element of the response by the church hierarchy -- stretching from the East Bay to the Vatican -- to years of abuse at the hands of Kiesle. There remain questions today about how the case was handled. While the diocese was trying to have the priest defrocked, a pastor in the town of Pinole, north of Oakland, allowed Kiesle to volunteer at his church for seven years in various youth programs. He continued to serve at the church even after the Vatican finally removed him as a priest in 1987. The diocese insisted this week that it had no idea Kiesle was volunteering there until the matter was brought to Bishop John Cummins’ attention in 1988. Cummins then sent the church pastor a letter demanding that Kiesle immediately be removed. The pastor, who is now deceased, defended his decision at the time, telling the diocese there was no evidence Kiesle abused anyone while volunteering.
Kiesle was eventually removed as a church volunteer that year. Seven years later, authorities said he was again abusing. Kiesle grew up in San Jose, and acquaintances said he was drawn to the priesthood in part by his mother, a devout Catholic. When he was a young priest in the early 1970s, people said he resembled a 6-foot-tall teddy bear. He quickly became known for his empathy with children, playing guitar, telling engaging yarns and seeming to connect with young people in a way not many priests did. Across the Oakland Diocese, pastors called on him to help set up programs for children in their congregations.
“Kids followed him,” recalled Msgr. Antonio Valdivia, who worked with Kiesle briefly in Union City. “He was known for his work with the youth . . . energizing the kids, speaking their language, relating and connecting with them.”
continued
CNN REPORT: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, whose death at 95 was announced Saturday, was a powerful intellectual force who shaped the Catholic Church’s theology for more than a quarter century before shocking the world by resigning in 2013.
ReplyDeleteBenedict also came under fire for his handling of the sexual abuse crisis that engulfed the Catholic church during his years as a senior cleric. A damning report published in January 2022 found that he knew about priests who abused children but failed to act when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982.
Ratzinger was dean of the College of Cardinals in 2005 when he became the sixth German to be picked as pope, the first since the 11th century. At the time, the church was facing several pressing issues, including declining popularity in parts of the world and a growing crisis over its role in handling sexual abuse accusations against priests.
Benedict became pope at the height of the molestation scandal involving Catholic priests, as complaints of sexual abuse and related lawsuits tore at the church and threatened its moral standing around the world.
The late Barbara Blaine, the former president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said:
“I would hate for him to be remembered as someone who did the right thing because from our perspective, Pope Benedict’s record has been abysmal,” said Blaine, who died in 2017.
In 2010, The New York Times reported that church officials, including Ratzinger, had failed to act in the case of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting up to 200 boys. The Times reported that church officials stopped proceedings against the priest after he wrote to Ratzinger.
Also in 2010, the Times reported that the future pope – while serving as the archbishop in Munich – had been copied on a memo informing him that a priest accused of molesting children was being returned to pastoral work. At the time, a spokesman for the archdiocese said Ratzinger received hundreds of memos a year, and it was highly unlikely that he had read it.
Twelve years later, a Church-commissioned report into abuse by Catholic clergy in the diocese found that Ratzinger had as archbishop been informed of four cases of sexual abuse involving minors – including two that had taken place while he was in office – but failed to act. In a letter published by the Vatican in February 2022, Benedict issued a general apology to survivors of abuse, writing: “Once again I can only express to all the victims of sexual abuse my profound shame, my deep sorrow and my heartfelt request for forgiveness.”
Over the years, victims’ groups pressed the International Criminal Court to prosecute Benedict in the sex abuse scandal.
So?
ReplyDelete