Customer Reviews

Vatican II, Homosexuality & Pedophilia

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This is the Holy Grail. A methodical, systematic review of the origins and outcomes of the priest sexual abuse scandal from the viewpoint of a devout Catholic rather than an atheist on the faculty of a journalism school.

Guimaraes has created a work that should be referred to both today and in 50 years by:

- presenting the complete Scriptural and Magisterial proscriptions against homosexuality

- outlining the documents from Vatican II used to rationalize the more lenient Vatican documents to follow

- demonstrating how bishops and seminary rectors believed lenient statements from the Vatican in the 1970's and 1980's provided cover for their recruitment of homosexuals to the seminary

- reviewing how the breakdown of morals associated with homosexual activity in the seminaries resulted in ordained priests believing that the same license should extend to boys they came in contact with

- providing a list of every single publicly identified case of clerical sexual abuse in the United States from 1985 until 2003

- perhaps most disheartening, revealing how the Curia actually demanded that the proposals of the USCCB after the June 2002 meeting be changed so that it would be more diffcult to remove abusing priests from ministry

- demonstrating (in the 'sophisms' section) how a return to orthodoxy will be the only successful way to prevent a re-occurence of this scandal and how "liberal" proposals are doomed to failure in that regard

I wish the distribution of this was better, because it deserves to be regarded as the definitive historical document of the most tragic episode in the history of the church in the United States. Buy this for every one you can afford to, and lend it to everyone else.

If this book was not so thououghly researched and footnoted a reader might suspect the author's intentions. If one thinks that the pedophelia scandal has gone away or that simply a few bad priests that slipped through the cracks into the priesthood, buy the book! Remember that 85% of the victims were young males! Of course, the priests who victimized these boys were homosexuals! And, you might ask why bishops protected them! Within the ranks of the clergy lives a pink elephant and this beast is protected by a lavender mafia. If you are curious as to the orientation of the clergy, buy the book. You'll be shocked.