Catholic League Pres. Donohue: “There’s a Connection Between Homosexuality and Sexual Abuse of Minors” As ThinkProgress noted yesterday, the conservative Catholic Leauge placed a full-page ad in the New York Times on Tuesday that claimed that the sexual abuse scandal currently roiling the Catholic Church is a crisis of “homosexuality,” not “pedophilia.” On CNN yesterday, Catholic League President William Donohue defended the assertion by pointing to a study that found that “three out of every four” of the male victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests were “post-pubescent, meaning that it’s homosexuality driven.” “It’s not a matter of my opinion to say that this is a pedophilia crisis. It’s been a homosexual crisis all along,” said Donohue. He then asserted that “there’s a connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse of minors“:
SANCHEZ: Well, let me just stop you right there, because immediately as you say that, there are people watching this show, and I can hear them saying this, Bill Donohue, shame on you. Are you saying all gays are pedophiles?
DONOHUE: As I said in the ad, which I wrote, most gay priests are not molesters, but most of the molesters have been gay. And I also said, that there’s no such thing as a — that homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior.
Let me give you a quick example. I’m Irish. Everybody who has half a brain knows that the Irish have a bigger problem with alcoholism than the Italians or the Chinese, for example. Does that mean because you’re an Irishman, therefore, you are driven to become an alcoholic? Of course, not.
What it means, though, if your group is overrepresented in a particular problem area, you ought to explore it. Yes, there’s a connection between Irish and alcoholism, and, yes, there’s a connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse of minors.
Our Father, who art in pixels, linked be Thy name, Thy Web site come, Thy Net be done, on Explorer as it is on Firefox. Give us this day our daily app, and forgive us our spam, as we forgive those who spam against us, and lead us not into aggregation, but deliver us from e-vil. Amen.
Nothing is sacred anymore, even the sacred. And even that most secret ritual of the Roman Catholic faith, the veiled black confessional box.
Once funeral homes began live-streaming funerals, it was probably inevitable. But now confessions are not only about touching the soul, but touching the screen.
With the help of two priests, three young Catholic men from South Bend, Ind., have developed an iPhone app to guide Catholics through — and if they are lapsed, back to — confession.
It shot to global success, ranking No. 42 on the best-selling app list, according to iTunes.
The trio got the idea, surprisingly, from the pope.
When I was little, the nuns urged us to find the face of Christ in pictures of landscapes — snowfalls and mountains.
In a letter last May, Pope Benedict XVI urged priests to help people see the face of Christ on the Web, through blogs, Web sites and videos; priests could give the Web a “soul,” he said, by preaching theology through new technology.
“Confession: a Roman Catholic App” is not a session with a virtual priest who restores your virtue with a penance of three Hail Mary’s and three extra gigabytes of memory.
Rather, its developers say, it’s a “baby steps” program that walks you through the Ten Commandments, your examination of conscience and any “custom sins” you might have, then after confession (purportedly) wipes the slate clean so no one sees your transgressions.
“We tried to make it as secure as possible,” said Patrick Leinen, a 31-year-old Internet programmer who built the app with his brother, Chip, a hospital systems administrator, and Ryan Kreager, a Notre Dame doctoral candidate.
You still have to go into the real confessional at church to get absolution, and, hopefully, your priest won’t be annoyed that you’re reading your sins off of a little screen and, maybe, peeking at a football game or shopping site once in awhile.
“The whole point is to get you to go to church,” said Leinen. He and his fellow programmers got help from two priests, the Rev. Dan Scheidt, the pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Ind., and the Rev. Thomas Weinandy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
They also got an imprimatur — billed as the first for an iPhone and iPad app — from Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne in Indiana.
The app offers different questions depending on your age and gender.
For instance, if you sign in as a 15-year-old girl and look under the Sixth Commandment, one of the questions is: “Do I not treat my body or other people’s bodies with purity and respect?” If you sign in as a 33-year-old married man, that commandment offers this query: “Have I been guilty of masturbation?”
Children are asked if they pout or use bad language. Teenagers are asked if they are a tattletale or bully. Women are asked if they’ve had an abortion or encouraged anyone to have an abortion and if they’re chaste. Men are asked about the latter two, as well.
The app also tailors the questions if you sign in as a priest or a “religious.” For instance, if you say you’re a female and try to select “priest” as your vocation, a dialogue box appears that says “sex and vocation are incompatible.” So much for modernity.
Under the Sixth Commandment, men and women are asked: “Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity?” Priests, however, are not. They are asked if they flirt.
Father Scheidt assured me that the app “isn’t a morality textbook. It’s just meant to prompt discussion.”
“I have always allowed cheat sheets in the confessional for people who want to be sure they get all of their sins,” he said of the ritual that can prompt so much anxiety. “Essentially, this provides an electronic list. Human relations are shifting more and more to being mediated by some of these gadgets. If this is the bridge for people to have a more meaningful encounter about what’s deepest in their heart, I think it’s going to serve the good.”
He said when he was giving confessions on Tuesday evening, he was surprised when a parishioner came in with a phone glowing with the Confession app.
“Seeing somebody looking back and forth is initially a little strange,” he said. “But I found that it really caused the person to focus and recollect more.”
At least we know now that Nietzsche was wrong. God isn’t dead. His server may be down though.
Are you a Catholic sinner? There's an app for that
By Michael Trei 4:26AM on Feb 9, 2011
We've seen all kind of weird iPhone apps [ http://dvice.com/archives/2010/02/got-zits-theres.php ], but few seem quite as incongruous as this Catholic Church endorsed app that lets you confess your sins to your iPhone.
Confession from Little i Apps isn't designed to replace the traditional type of confession to a Priest, but more to be used as an aid when going into the confessional. It sets up a personalized profile based on you age, occupation, and an "examination of your conscience", then delivers custom tailored advice. Thankfully, the profile is password protected to prevent unauthorized snooping.
As a non-Catholic this all sounds kind of kind of creepy to me, but I guess observant Catholics are used to spilling their guts. At least with this you can do it to an inanimate object, instead of some guy you'll be seeing every Sunday.
Confession for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad is available for $1.99 in the iTunes store.
BY Corky Siemaszko DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Tuesday, February 8th 2011, 1:56 PM
A forbidden apple got Adam and Eve evicted from the Garden of Eden, but a new Apple app could lead sinful Catholics to repentance.
It's called, aptly enough, Confession: A Roman Catholic App.
And at $1.99, it offers Catholics with iPhones, iPads, and troubled consciences a cheap and easy way to get right with The Lord.
As an added bonus, it's got the blessing of the Vatican.
"This app invites Catholics to prayerfully prepare for and participate in the Rite of Penance," claims Little iApps, the Indianapolis-based developers of the app.
It lets the sinner pick a commandment - and then tick off his or her sins.
So say goodbye to those awkward silences in the confessional when the penitent rattles off the "Bless me father, for I have sinned" intro - and draws a blank.
The new app keeps a running tally of slip-ups so that no sin goes unforgiven.
It also keeps track of just how much time has elapsed since the penitent's last confession.
Because it's password protected, what's said in the confessional stays between the penitent and the priest.
The app also makes it easier for Catholics to do a "examination of conscience," which is when they privately review - usually at evening prayers - how they've lived up to their faith.
Taking account of the person's age and - for reasons unclear - occupation, the app then suggests a possible penance and comes with seven acts of contrition to choose from and recite.
The new app doesn't, however, doesn't replace the priest.
Only priests have the power to forgive sins here on earth, according to the Catholic faith.
DENVER — It's a controversial iPhone and iPad application that claims to help Catholics confess their sins. Instead it's stirring up controversy.
It's called, Confession: A Roman Catholic App [ http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/confession-a-roman-catholic/id416019676 ]. Relesed earlier this week, it was initially well received by the Catholic church but now the Vatican itself is putting its foot down over the idea of "confessing" by iPhone.
Tuesday night, comedian Conan O'Brien cracked a few jokes on the apps behalf.
"The Catholic church has approved a new app that lets you make confessions over your iPhone," Conan said on his late night talk show on TBS. "It`s the first technology that makes accidentally butt dialing God a possibility."
App developer, Patrick Leinen says he and his two business partners spent weeks developing the app.
"We worked hand in hand with a lot of priests and we`ve tried to do things in such a way that people are comfortable with it."
Leinen says it was created to be a helpful tool not a replacement for the sacrament of confession.
"You can actually bring the application into the confessional and sit down with the priest," says Denver Catholic priest, Michael O'Loughlin.
"This should be a guide and not the end of some one`s examination of conscious," Father O'Loughlin says.
The application walks you through the confession process.
"We`ve built this app that personalizes confession and literally will walk you through an actual confession," Leinen ads.
The app was approved by a Catholic Bishop and launched the app into the spotlight.
"The first iPhone application that a bishop has said there is nothing morally false with this," says Father O'Loughlin.
A statement from the Vatican on Wednesday says;
"Confessing your sins to modern technology is not a substitute for speaking to a priest in person."
Developer, Patrick Leinen says that's not the apps intention.
"Yes, you have to go to confession with a Catholic priest. This is simply an aid," he says.
"It is not a way of going to confession on your phone confession is a much more personal experience that you cannot just do over a phone or over an application," ads Father O'Loughlin.
The district attorney is burning a eucalyptus-spearmint candle on his desk.
“I think the press looks down upon the D.A. drinking Jack Daniels during the day,” R. Seth Williams says with a broad smile, “so I light my little stress-relief candle.”
It’s understandable if the former altar boy at St. Carthage in West Philly needs to light a votive. The 44-year-old Catholic, who still attends Mass with his family at the same church, now called St. Cyprian, is the first U.S. prosecutor to charge a church official for a sickeningly commonplace sin: Endangering children whom the Roman Catholic Church was supposed to protect by shuffling pedophile priests to different parishes where they could find fresh prey.
Williams, the first African-American elected district attorney in Pennsylvania, was an orphan given up by his unwed mother. He was put into two foster homes before he was adopted at 20 months old by a Catholic family.
“I grew up treating the hierarchy of the church kind of like rock stars,” he said in his 18th floor aerie, where he keeps a small iron crucifix and a cross fashioned from Palm Sunday fronds. “If you’re going to meet the cardinal, you’re supposed to kiss the guy’s ring, all this stuff. But it is what it is. I wish I knew the Latin translation for that.
“There’s no get-out-of-jail-free card for raping, sodomizing, groping, doing anything wrong to kids.”
Msgr. William J. Lynn, who served from 1992 to 2004 as the secretary of clergy reviewing sexual abuse cases for then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, appeared in court Monday. He is charged with felonies for allegedly helping the cardinal cover up molesters and transferring them to other parishes.
“It was a conspiracy of silence to ensure the church’s reputation and to avoid scandal,” said Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos.
Monsignor Lynn, a round, ruddy man in black priest’s garb, sat silently in court behind his two lawyers — paid by the archdiocese — as a cheering squad of priests and parishioners watched.
Lynn’s co-defendants sat beside him: a rabbity-looking Rev. James Brennan, 47, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy named Mark in 1996 in his apartment; and the unholy alliance of a priest, the sepulchral Charles Engelhardt, 64, a defrocked priest, Edward Avery, 68, and a former Catholic schoolteacher, Bernard Shero, 48 — all charged with raping or sodomizing the same 10-year-old altar boy 12 years ago.
Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, told reporters that the charges against his client were “a stretch” and that he was pleading not guilty.
And Richard DeSipio, one of Brennan’s lawyers, went on the attack against his client’s accuser, now 29. “Their witness is in prison in Bucks County for stealing his sister’s credit card and using it,” DeSipio told Mensah Dean of The Philadelphia Daily News. “He’s a convicted liar.”
On a local radio show on Tuesday, Brennan — a priest suspended by the church in 2006 — said he was uninterested in a plea deal, and his lawyer continued to paint the accuser as troubled.
Even with a global scandal that never seems to stop disgorging disgusting stories, the Philadelphia grand jury report is especially sordid.
It tells the story of a fifth-grade altar boy at St. Jerome School given the pseudonym Billy. Father Engelhardt plied him with sacramental wine and pulled pornographic magazines out of a bag in the sacristy and told the child it was time “to become a man,” the report says.
A week later, after Billy served an early Mass, the report states that Engelhardt instructed him to take off his clothes and perform oral sex on him. Then the priest told the boy he was “dismissed.”
“After that, Billy was in effect passed around to Engelhardt’s colleagues,” the report says. “Father Edward Avery undressed with the boy, told him that God loved him,” and then had him perform sex. “Next was the turn of Bernard Shero, a teacher in the school. Shero offered Billy a ride home but instead stopped at a park, told Billy they were ‘going to have some fun,’ took off the boy’s clothes, orally and anally raped him and then made him walk the rest of the way home.”
Billy fell apart and turned to heroin.
The report says Brennan knew Mark from the time he was 9. When he was 14, the priest arranged with Mark’s mother for a sleepover. “Brennan showed him pornographic pictures on his computer, bragged about his penis size and insisted that Mark sleep together with him in his bed.” Then the priest raped him as he cried, according to the report.
Mark also fell apart and attempted suicide.
Out of the church’s many unpleasant confrontations with modernity, this is the starkest. It’s tragically past time to send the message that priests can’t do anything they want and hide their sins behind special privilege.
In Seth Williams’s city, the law sees no collars, except the ones put on criminals.
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