New York Archdiocese responds to Cardinal Spellman groping allegation

Michie said:

*You are in the Catholic forum*

Lucian J. Truscott IV, a longtime journalist and writer, made the claim about the former archbishop of New York in a February 9 essay.

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New York Archdiocese Responds to Cardinal Spellman Groping Allegation

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It's been another of those 'open secrets' that there was something there. Apparently no 'proof' but lot's of rumors. We do ourselves no good by not outing clerical misbehavers.

Truscott IV is a fine novelist, writer, and military man. A person of honor he fought relentlessly to get the Hemings full entry and acknowledgment into the Thomas Jefferson Family Line activities, of which Truscott himself is a member.

If Lucian says look into it, then that is the true and moral way to go.

Spellman tried to destroy the career of Venerable Fulton Sheen. Because Spellman wanted to take the money destined for the poor that Venerable Sheen raised.

Shudder.

Michie said:

Cardinal Mary

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It is possible that Spellman was not as in control of his faculties as Truscott assumed. It is well known that people in the grips of dementia can become sexually aggressive, having lost their inhibitions. Still, his story is credible, and corroborates stories about Spellman that have been around for decades. I heard a number of them when I was living in New York and writing about the abuse scandal. I’ve told in this space before a tale that a New York friend shared with me back in 2002. It was from back in the Sixties. A gay male friend of hers took her to a private party at the home of “Bubbles” — the nom de gay of Cardinal Spellman. She was the only female there. She said that the famously right-wing cardinal archbishop of New York gave her a personal tour of his mansion — including showing her the floor-to-ceiling smoked-glass mirrors he had had installed in his bathroom suite.

Cardinal Spellman was confident that he would never be outed, and that if someone tried, no one would believe it. And they wouldn’t have, until today.

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So Rod Dreher knew all about it, having an abundance of story to tell, but mum was the word. No 'investigative reporting' here, just saving it all away for later. Rod Dreher admitted after the fact that he knew all about McCarrick too. Rod Dreher left the Catholic Church, presumably over what he had found out about the sexual abuse by clerics, but it wasn't important enough to him to do much but protect the abuser's secrets. Color me irritated. Maybe even enraged. This should have hit the light of day a LONG TIME AGO and maybe it wouldn't be so bad today. The Lavender Mafia has deep roots. This guy Spellman should be unearthed, tried in a court of canon law, convicted, and reburied in unconsecrated ground. Rod Dreher has 'protected' us too long, and should get over himself and be a muckraking journalist. Spill it all. Or just move on.

What other secrets are you keeping Rod? Waiting to say that you knew about it all along? I could scream. McCarrick was by no means the first of his kind. But there were people who knew and did nothing.

An aside: Father Patrick was kind to all the children of our small beach town growing up, Catholic or not.

But . . . yes, adults at church and at school were the ones who assaulted me as a boy and a young man. Not Catholics, though I heard stories from my friends (not about Father Patrick). For me, a female counselor got me in the 5th grade, and it was a Methodist pastor who kissed me when I was 19. I did not understand either of those incidents for many, many years.

JacobKStarkey said:

An aside: Father Patrick was kind to all the children of our small beach town growing up, Catholic or not.

But . . . yes, adults at church and at school were the ones who assaulted me as a boy and a young man. Not Catholics, though I heard stories from my friends (not about Father Patrick). For me, a female counselor got me in the 5th grade, and it was a Methodist pastor who kissed me when I was 19. I did not understand either of those incidents for many, many years.

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The shameful thing is that this is all over. There is no glee in seeing the Baptists finally get caught at it, at covering it up, at denying it. Satan has his claws deep into society and deep into Christianity, twisting everything he can for his own benefit. So no surprise that it is in public schools, in the Methodists and Baptists too. Not just the Catholics. It's a sicko problem where it does no good to pretend to be better than someone else because it's everywhere. The solution is faithfulness, following Jesus, making the Christian moral teaching (that old thing Catholics used to be taught) an internal thing where we actually are formed by it and live it instead of excusing ourselves and then others from keeping it.

For you, even if you never become Catholic, do learn Catholic morality (the old thing that Catholics used to be taught) and figure out why even contraception is wrong. Figure out how the virtues are the antidote to the vices. There is way too much of a slouching towards Gomorrah, and an excusing of all sorts of indecency. Please resist it.

The "old morality" is still taught throughout Christendom, even in the RC.