My Catholic Lament: Failure of My Faith

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office this week released the results of a lengthy, indepth investigation into previously alleged charges of sexual abuse by priests of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The grand jury findings proved to be shocking and abhorant, showing dozens of priests over a multi-decades span sexually molesting and abusing young children.

To further compound the scandalous findings, the Church leadership and their representatives appear to be trying more of the same recipe that has proven disastrous to the victims, and to the Church body: deny, deny, deny.

No, there is no denial that molestation and abuse has gone on, that would be ridiculous in light of the now incontrovertible proof.

The denial aspect comes into play when Church leaders, particularly Cardinal Justin Rigali, put out vehement defenses for Cardinals John Krol and Anthony Bevilacqua, his immediate predecessors.

In the grand jury findings, the two Cardinals are specifically singled out for a failure of leadership. They are accused of handling the problems as they surfaced over the years largely by sweeping them under the rug.

As the allegations would come to light and be found credible, priests were shuffled from parish-to-parish in a sort of shell game that did nothing to solve the problems, only serving to expose even more individuals to the predator priests practices.

It is long past the time for the Church to stop playing the same old game of denial, and instead it is overdue that the Church and it’s leaders take on the full measure of their responsibility for these grave sins against it’s own membership.

Team Eddis as Mike Tyson: FOP or Bust-er

There is a fight brewing within the ranks of Philadelphia’s police officers, one that likely will be battled across the state and around the country. For the first time in over a decade, we have “union” trouble, and as with previous bouts of this type, the likelihood is that the bout will end in a knockout.

The Executive Board of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, representing thousands of Philadelphia police officers and retirees, has suddenly found itself in an unusual position, back on it’s heals and being used as a punching bag, ala Mike Tyson in his famous 1990 bout with Buster Douglas.

In that bout, fought in Tokyo, Japan on February 10th, 1990, the previously unbeaten and seemingly invincible Tyson, a boxing machine, a man seemingly born and bred to be the heavyweight champion of the world, an animistic monster, came in typically disrespectful of his opponent, the journeyman Douglas, but also uncharacteristically out of shape.

Coming into the bout, Tyson was 37-0 with 33 knockouts and 9 successful defenses of his heavyweight crown. He dispatched many of his opponents so quickly, that fans were becoming almost disinterested in his fights, one of the reasons for the move overseas. But Tyson went down that night, a victim of his own largess, and of making the classic mistake of underestimating his opponent.

The still unbeaten, and previously untouched, regime of President Bob Eddis, handpicked successor to the lodge’s longtime bombastic leader Rich Costello, is used to feeding on lesser opponents, such as the game but outmatched lightweight Donnell “Homicide” Hobbs.