Columnist irate at suggestion pre-Vatican clerics guilty of child abuse

Gerald Warner is, to say the least, upset. In an article yesterday, "Let's get it straight: Irish child abuse was perpetrated by the trendy, modern post-Vatican II Catholic Church" (Telegraph.co.uk, November 27, 2009), he writes:

A spin is being put on the shocking revelations in the report on abuse in the archdiocese of Dublin to implicate the “pre-Conciliar” Catholic Church in the wrongdoings of post-Vatican II pederasts. In the process, the name of a good man has been dragged into the cesspit, for political purposes.

The Most Reverend John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin (1940-1972) was a great Catholic prelate. Under his pastoral leadership, the numbers of clergy and religious increased by more than 50 per cent, he created over 60 new parishes and built over 80 new churches and 350 schools....

Most unjustly, his name has been dragged into this scandal. The official Commission’s Report states: “During the period under review, there were four Archbishops – Archbishops McQuaid, Ryan, McNamara and Connell.” Not so. The “period under review” is set out in the Commission’s Terms of Reference as “the period 1 January 1975 to 1 May 2004”. Archbishop McQuaid retired in 1972....

Revealingly, the Report says: “As is shown in Chapter 4, canon law appears to have fallen into disuse and disrespect during the mid 20th century.” Yes; and we all know why – the post-Vatican II anarchic denunciations of “legalism”, of “oppressive” sexual morality and Church teaching generally, promoted by the modernists. As regards implementing canon law against abusers, the Report concedes that Archbishop McQuaid “set the processes in motion but did not complete them [difficult to do when you are dead]....

Well, who ever did, in the trendy, let-it-all-hang-out 1970s and 1980s? The image that has sedulously been propagated is of Irish child abuse perpetrated by priests in soutanes and birettas, cowled monks muttering Latin incantations and nuns in starched wimples and mediaeval habits.

On the contrary, the nightmare orgy of relentless mortal sin recorded in this report was committed by modern priests ....

[Hat tip to Rorate Caeli]