Date: 4/17/02
For Immediate
Release.
Catholic Watchdog Group Calls on U.S. Cardinals to Affirm Church
Teaching While In Rome
An international group of faithful Roman Catholics has contacted
Vatican prelates and all active U.S. cardinals and asked them to publicly
affirm the Church’s 1961 pronouncement against admitting homosexuals or
pedophiles to the priesthood.
Stephen G. Brady, the president of Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF)
issued a statement on Wednesday that was directed to 8 active U.S.
cardinals as well as a number of additional American and Vatican prelates.
The American cardinals include Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, Francis George
of Chicago, Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., William Keeler of
Baltimore, Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia, Edward Egan of New York
City, Adam Maida of Detroit, and the currently embattled Bernard Law of
Boston. They will be traveling to Rome next week with National Conference
of Catholic Bishops president Bishop Wilton Gregory and others at the
summons of the Holy Father. They will be participating in closed-door
meetings with Vatican representatives to address the scandal and damage
the Church in America is undergoing due to an increasing number of sexual
abuse cases coming to light. A number of prelates have been accused of
protecting abusive priests and moving them to other areas, where they have
repeated their predatory acts with new victims. An overwhelming number of
offenses have involved homosexual acts.
“As a measure of their sincerity in addressing this horrible crisis
inflicting so much damage on the souls of the innocent,” Brady charged,
“we challenge each and every one of these princes of the Church to sign a
statement agreeing they will follow the direction of a letter issued by
the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome.” Brady is asking each
prelate to affirm the following declaration: “I, ________ Cardinal
________, hereby agree to follow the direction of the letter issued by the
Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome in 1961, which states: ‘Those
affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should
be excluded from religious vows and ordination’”. The Church directive has
never been rescinded and is still officially in force.
“If a cardinal is not willing to sign this document,” Brady stated,
“then there is no point in his traveling to Rome. Moreover, if he travels
to Rome and doesn’t sign it, I wish he’d do us a favor and just stay
there.”
Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) is a not-for-profit lay
organization, with many religious members, dedicated to promoting orthodox
Catholic teaching and fighting heterodoxy and corruption within the
Catholic hierarchy.
-End-