Obama's devilspeak; Islam and terrorism; Monsignor Stephen Rossetti

By Matt C. Abbott

Before getting into some very serious stuff, I offer the following bit of good Christian humor courtesy of the bulletin of St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago:

Last night, my friend Jacque and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her: 'I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug!'

She got up, unplugged my computer and threw out my wine.

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Good golly – wonders never cease.

President Obama recently told an audience of Planned Parenthood supporters:

'As long as we've got to fight to make sure women have access to quality, affordable health care, and as long as we've got to fight to protect a woman's right to make her own choices about her own health, I want you to know that you've also got a president who's going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way. Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you.' (Source)

Is there any doubt that this man is a precursor to the Antichrist? Not in my mind. To be fair, the president is no different than a number of his fellow Democrats; they pretty much believe and say the same things.

Still, I can't help but think our president is, and has been, a puppet of sorts. As to who might be pulling his strings, well ... I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

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Very little is written about Islam in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. In fact, there is only the following brief paragraph:

841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. 'The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.'

In the book Christianity, Islam, and Atheism – featured in my Nov. 23, 2012 column – author William Kilpatrick writes:

...This book is intended, in part, as a wake-up call. That in itself is revealing. It's amazing that eleven years after 9/11 and eighteen thousand terrorist attacks later, wake-up calls are still needed. Yet the majority of people in the West still do not seem to have grasped the supremacist nature of Islam, let alone the threat it poses to them. What is it that has served to delay that awakening? As I've said, part of the responsibility lies with the Western faith in cultural equivalence. Any evidence that Islam is markedly warlike and intolerant would undermine the doctrine that all cultures and religions are roughly equal. Consequently, Western societies have ignored and even suppressed the facts about Islam and the important differences between it and Christianity.

Unfortunately, many Christians have also fallen into the habit of ignoring the differences. The Islamic faith is founded on a blunt rejection of basic Christian beliefs, but you would hardly know it from reading official Church statements or from listening to leading prelates. Instead of informing their flocks that Islam rejects Christ and requires its faithful to work toward the eventual subjugation of Christians, many Christian leaders have been more intent on emphasizing the common ground that Christians and Muslims share. For example, the Second Vatican Council's declaration Nostra Aetate focuses almost exclusively on the similarities between Muslims and Christians. That approach was in keeping with the spirit of change and openness that marked the Council; moreover, it seemed to fit with the prevailing circumstances in the Muslim world at the time. The search for shared beliefs and values arose at a time when the militant side of Islam was kept firmly in check by secular rulers. But it now seems that the Islamic world the Council Fathers were familiar with was an aberration – a brief departure from the path laid out by Muhammad when he called for Muslims to make the whole world submit to Allah....

Food for thought.

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Catholic journalist Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World News, has penned a very interesting commentary on Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a key adviser to the U.S. Catholic bishops on the subject of sexual abuse.

Lawler writes (excerpted; click here for the full commentary):

'Just as the banishment of lepers was fueled by medieval myths, the hysteria surrounding child sexual abusers is exacerbated by myths about those who suffer from sexual deviancies. Child molesters incarnate our deepest childhood fears... Our myths about child molesters come more from the projections of what lies within our own inner psyches than from the truth about who these men are.'

Does that quotation suggest that the author is motivated primarily by a desire to protect children from sexual abuse? Would it surprise you to learn that the author was – and to this day remains – one of the most influential voices advising Catholic Church leaders on the handling of sex-abuse cases?

The quotation comes from a 1995 article by Msgr. Stephen Rossetti in America magazine, with the revealing title: 'The Mark of Cain: Reintegrating Pedophiles.'

'Reintegrating Pedophiles' was, in a sense, Msgr. Rossetti's job from 1996 through 2006, when he served as director of the St. Luke Institute, the most prominent of the facilities treating American priests accused of abusing children. When the sex-abuse scandal erupted in the U.S., we learned that dozens of priests were released from such facilities and returned to ministry, only to molest children once again. Today, looking back regretfully on their decisions, many bishops explain that when they returned abusive priests to active ministry, they were following the best advice given by experts – experts like Msgr. Rossetti.

'Generally speaking, the results of treatment of priests and religious who have sexually abused children are excellent,' Msgr. Rossetti wrote reassuringly in 1994. 'Pessimism about the effectiveness of treatment is simply not warranted.'

Nearly a decade later, having paid more than $3 billion to settle lawsuits brought by sex-abuse victims who persuaded courts that the bishops should have known better, do you think the American hierarchy should still be listening to that advice, or even to that adviser? Well, they are.

Msgr. Rossetti was a key adviser to the U.S. bishops in 2002, when they developed the 'Dallas Charter.' He helped develop the 'VIRTUS' program that has been adopted in many dioceses as an abuse-prevention system. As the American bishops have come to be seen (rightly or wrongly) as models for Church leadership on the sex-abuse question, Msgr. Rossetti's fame has spread abroad. In 2003 he addressed an international symposium in Rome sponsored by the Pontifical Academy for Life. Last year he was a featured speaker at a symposium on sexual abuse organized by the Gregorian University in Rome, and attended by bishops and religious superiors from all over the world....

I've emailed Monsignor Rossetti for comment on Lawler's piece, but have received no response as of the time this column was submitted for posting.

(For two informative articles on the clergy abuse scandal, see "Homosexuality and the Church Crisis" and "A Crisis of Saints.")

© Matt C. Abbott