Reputed Freemason Cardinal Casaroli's warning to American K of Cs was grim!!


Adapted from this source: Homiletic & Pastoral Review, October 2008, page 29.

Mr. Charles Molineaux's review of Philip F. Lawler's THE FAITHFUL DEPARTED. The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture.

"In discussing the disgraced Cardinal Law, the author comments on one particular episode: a victim of abuser Father Birmingham asserted that at the priest's wake, he had a conversation with Law about the abuse in which Law told him to remain silent, under the seal of confession.

"If it happened, this imprecation (also described in the Boston Globe book, Betrayal), would itself have been abuse, bordering on sacrilege; Lawler readily imagines the conversation because he remembers Law saying something similar to him in another context.

"Lawler see ongoing, condescending clericalism, vis - a - vis the laity, as part of the problem - as inhibiting efforts by the laity to be constructive, to be more than passive pray, pay, obey Cathoics.

"He cites the outrage within the Knights of Columbus over its pro - abortion members and whether expulsion was an option; the controversy was met by this response from Cardinal Casaroli:

Don't you dare make a move without the approval of Church authorities.

"But, says Lawler, reform of the Church cannot occur until the hierarchy recognizes its corruption.

"[H]e says, lay Catholics who criticize their bishops are not showing disrespect for the bishop's office. Quite the contrary ... [Our] faith teaches respect for the office, not the individual...

"This is an excellent book -- a survey of leadership failure and the distorted priorities of careerist bishops -- that gives us a broader perspective than a mere chronicle of horrific behavior and an evangelization disaster.

"It should be in every chancery of the leaderless Church in America..."


Amen, brother, amen! :)