C.J. Doyle Gives His Perspective On The Alleged Vatican Scandals

By PAUL LIKOUDIS

What are Catholics to think of these endless media reports of alleged scandal, immorality, and infidelity at the Vatican? ( See the item in this week’s News Notes column about the report to the Pope from the Commission of Cardinals.) The Wanderer posed this ques­tion to C. Joseph Doyle, execu­tive director of the Catholic Ac­tion League of Massachusetts, for some insight and historical analy­sis on the upcoming conclave to elect a new Pope in the midst of nearly- unprecedented hostile me­dia attention. “ What are ordinary, faithful Cath­olics to make of this barrage of negative media attention on their Church?” The Wanderer asked Doyle.

“ There are two things they should understand about this,” he answered. “First, the Church is always at war with the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and the world, the flesh, and the Devil always reciprocate.

“The elite powers of this world despise the Catholic faith, and ac­tively seek its destruction. That has always been so, and will always be so until the end of time. We should also realize, however, that the reason the Church’s enemies, especially in the press, are so em­boldened at this time in history, is that the Church itself is undergoing one of the worst periods of heresy and immorality since the Protestant Revolution 500 years ago. “Dissent, which is to say heresy, is now normative in countless Catho­lic institutions: our Catholic colleg­es and universities, their parent re­ligious orders, our elite secondary schools, our Catholic charities and health- care systems, our Catholic fraternal orders, and even many of our ordinary parishes. The clergy and religious who govern these institutions have conformed to the culture, embraced secularism, and compromised their Catholic iden­tity. It would not be reckless or ir­responsible to say that a majority of Catholic institutions — in this country at least — are functionally pro-abortion and pro-homosexual.

“Compounding this is the scandal of sexual abuse, which in reality is a scandal of homosexual molesta­tion, and homosexual immorality in our clergy and religious. “ In fact,” Doyle adds, “if there is a common thread which ties together many of the problems afflicting the Church, it is this sin of impurity against nature — not only the acts of sexual abuse themselves, but the bad moral theology which rationalizes it, the bad dogmatic theology such as the heresy of universal salvation and God’s unconditional love for sinners, and the failure of the Church as an institution to root out these problems.

“One could also add the bad liturgies where the priest is the narcissistic animator and presider over the people.”

At the times of the Church’s greatest crises — in the so-called Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution — there has always been “the unspeakable” problem, that is clerical immorality, especially the sin of sodomy, he noted.

“One of the characteristics of Counter-Reformation Popes, such as Pope Paul III and particularly Paul IV, St. Pius V, and Sixtus V, was their willingness to employ the most severe and stringent means available to exorcise this problem from the Church. Interestingly, these moral reforms were accompanied by exacting financial reforms. Paul IV even said he would see the Vatican reduced to penury rather than have bishops and cardinals wallowing in wealth,” Doyle continued.

“Their methods to root out clerical sodomy and clerical immorality ran the gamut from deprivation to imprisonment to execution. Whatever you think of their methods, one thing is clear: These Counter-Reformation Popes were serious about reforming the Church,” Doyle said.

“It is sad to point out,” Doyle said, “that the Church’s sometimes tepid and ineffectual response to the great moral challenges of our time — the assault on the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life and the effort to deform the bedrock institution of marriage, can often be traced to these sodomite fifth columnists in the priesthood and episcopacy.”

What does Doyle think of news reports about a “lavender mafia” in the Curia?

“In the 16th century, the Roman Curia was a cesspool which, like the Pontine Marshes, needed to be drained. It may be, after 500 years, that a second draining of the swamps is necessary. Catholics, even the most uninformed, should not be discouraged or disheartened that scandals are coming to the surface; like lancing a boil, it is necessary to expel corruption.

“The problems in the Curia are not of recent vintage; they date back, at least, to the Pontificate of Leo XIII. The modernist cabal, which went underground in the reign of St. Pius X, began to reappear as early as the pontificate of Benedict XV, and became a serious fifth column in the latter part of Pius XII’s reign.”

The Wanderer next asked Doyle if he saw a connection between the attacks on the Church, and the Holy Father in particular, and the obvious signs of a broader social collapse, exemplified by the financial crisis, expanding wars, and the rise of the police state in many Western countries.

“ The greatest current threat to Western civilization,” Doyle responded, “is demographic, namely, the failure of European and North American societies to have a reproductive birthrate. This, in turn, is directly related to secular society’s rejection of Catholic morality in the matters of abortion, contraception, divorce, and homosexuality.

“Also, however, the increasing expansion of state power poses a threat to the Church, as Catholicism has always been the principal counterbalance to what would otherwise be the omnipotence of the state. Historically, the Catholic Church has always been the enemy of tyrants, whether they were Roman emperors, English kings, or Communist dictators. Moreover, the Church has always believed, as Irish President Eamon De Valera said, that the family has imprescriptible rights which are antecedent and superior to those of the state.

“That is the real issue behind the media’s attacks on the Church. As the late Joseph Sobran said, the courtier press is simply the state’s megaphone.”

What should the cardinals be looking for in a candidate to replace Benedict XVI?, asked The Wanderer.

“Someone who has the youth, vigor, zeal, and resolve to begin the systematic reform of the Church.

“The Catholic Reformation and the Counter- Reformation began when a Pope, Paul III, who was previously viewed as a typical Renaissance prelate, surprised the world with his determination to appoint holy men of piety and rectitude to the episcopate and to the College of Cardinals. These men included the Venetian Gaspar Cantarini, the first general of the Theatines and future Paul IV Gianpietro Caraffa, the English theologian and royal family member Reginald Pole, Jacob Sadoleto, and Matteo Giberti. The Catholic Church is a monarchical organization; once you have reforming Popes, who intended to promote reforming bishops and cardinals, that reform becomes a reality,” Doyle said.

The Wanderer asked Doyle to explain the difference between a Catholic notion of reform and the notion broadcast by a secular media.

“Modernist groups, such as Boston’s Voice of the Faithful, talk a great deal about reform, but what they really mean is surrender to secular culture, moral laxity, and revolutionary change,” he explained.

“The Catholic conception of reform, on the contrary, is rooted in repentance, interior conversion, and the personal pursuit of holiness. It is restorative, not innovative. It is purifying, not experimental. It believes not so much in structural change as in changing the human heart. What liberal groups call reform is actually tantamount to inculturation and the corruption of the Church,” Doyle said.

“Pope Benedict understood, profoundly, intuitively, and reflexively,” said Doyle, “that the Church believes in the good, the true, and the beautiful. This is what Benedict sought to restore. He tried to bring truth and beauty back to our liturgy, by restoring the Traditional Mass and Divine Office, by improving the translations of the New Mass, and by Catholicizing the ‘great and tempered beauty’ of the Anglican Prayer Book.

“The attempt to defame him by alleging his complicity in the sexual abuse scandals was wholly unfounded and utterly unjust and is an unadulterated example of odium fidei.

Benedict did more to address this problem than anyone else in the Church. ”As the world awaits the election of a new Pope, there is one thing to keep in mind," said Doyle.