The Holy Father has been taking a beating lately on behalf of his sinful sons in the priesthood. “The pope will have much to suffer,” Our Lady told the children at Fatima. This has been realized in every pope since the time of the apparitions, but we wonder if Our Lady had these days and this pope particularly in mind.
None of us should be particularly surprised or even disturbed by the assaults of the enemies of the Church. This is nothing new or unexpected. For if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry? Our Lord said on the day he died (Lk23:31). History has played itself out, just as he predicted.
It is the height of hypocrisy for secularists to act horrified by unnatural vice within the Church when they are its biggest advocates. But it is even worse for a wolf to cloth himself in the robes of a shepherd. We have put the rope in our enemies’ hands.
En route to Portugal on Tuesday, Benedict was asked if the suffering of John Paul contained in Fatima’s third secret could be extended to encompass the suffering of the church today concerning the clerical abuse scandal.
Benedict affirmed it could, arguing that the Fatima message doesn’t respond to a particular situation or time but offers a “fundamental response” to the constant need for penance and prayer.
“In terms of what we today can discover in this message, attacks against the pope or the church don’t come just from outside the church,” he told reporters. “The suffering of the church also comes from within the church, because sin exists in the church. This, too, has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way.”
The evil within the Church is especially terrifying because it has not done more to restore our militancy. Where has been the outrage? Why did the Church not protect the innocent once pastors knew what was happening? Leon Podles has written on the subject of anger and the sex scandal. Katie van Schaijik at The Linde has an interesting commentary on Podles’ article.
The ethics of chivalry originally arose out of the need to moderate the ferociousness of masculine aggressiveness. Today it needs to be restored in order to validate masculine authority and the role of fathers. This is not to say that the moderation of chivalry is not necessary today. Militancy and Chivalry are not necessarily identical and there are many divisions within the Church that exist because of arrogance and a lack of charity. But child molestation is a no-brainer.
The way of Chivarly is the hard road. It admits of no extremes and makes demands on all sides. No rest for the weary. No convalescing for the wounded. On your feet and fight. On your feet and tend to the needy.
Here is an interesting take on the culture of Twitter which is appropriate to this subject. Fight the good fight, with the emphasis on good.
Mary Victrix 
As for Hawkins’ hopes to have the Pope arrested … well, why not include all school administrations who turned a blind eye on cases of child molestation during those years … and why not bust up all families who’ve had incest or friends molest their children? Where will it end? The psychology of the day was that these people could be cured … period. We now know it was a huge mistake, but we cannot return the clocks. My heart bleeds for these kids and the families. But, i think the issues are so entrenched in our cultures that it will be YEARS before we’ve healed. (I read an article recently that said incest is HUGE. I had no idea. Now, when I think of incest, I think of the father molesting his daughter … I know of 2 women who suffered this. But, the article discussed a mother who was pregnant via her teenage son. I was dumbfounded. I cannot fathom a nurturing mother ‘coming on’ to her little boy! (I don’t care if he’s 8 or 18 .. .he’s her little boy.) ) The point is, arresting the Pope would be the beginning of putting probably 30percent of people in prison. The atheists don’t get that it’s immorality that is the root of all of this.
As for van Shaijik’s article, I”m speechless. I really don’t know how we got to the point where our bishops can be completely stoic. To be stoic to me is to be heartless. And to be heartless is to be completely void of Christ. How do we have men how have committed themselves to Christ and yet be devoid of him? How does any man sit in a bedroom and remain silent at the little child nextdoor being molested? How does a Christian do that?
I am so glad at the purging within our Church, to be honest. We need to be painfully purged and flogged so that we can recognize evil when it’s staring us in the face. It’s hard enough at times to fight evil or not to get sucked in when you do recognize it … but if you don’t even recognize it, it’s impossible to fight it.
I truly wonder how such stoicism would react to Our Lord as He drove out the money-changers in the Temple (Mk 11,12f).