His sin?
He "joined a June ceremony in Lexington, Ky., to ordain Janice Sevre-Duszynska, a member of a group called Roman Catholic Womenpriests."
http://www.ajc.com/...
Prior to that, Maryknoll ordained Father Roy Bourgeois, born in Lutcher, Louisiana in 1938, founded in 1990 the School of Americas Watch, an office which researches the US Army School of the Americas (SOA), now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation or WHINSEC, at Fort Benning, Georgia.
http://www.soaw.org/...
Father Bourgeois was given 30 days to recant his participation by the the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, also to be known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition:
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) (Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei), previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and sometimes simply called the Holy Office is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial departments, it oversees Catholic doctrine. The CDF is the modern name for what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI:
The former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - once known as the Holy Office of the Inquisition - from 1981 until his election. His defence of church doctrine led to him be called "the Pope's enforcer" and "God's rottweiler".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Ordaining women as priests is absolutely verboten under the rule of the Holy Rottweiler.
However, protecting priests who practice pedophilia....:
In a confidential 2001 letter, the new pope ordered bishops to keep allegations of pedophilia secret...
Apr 25, 2005 | Pope Benedict XVI faced claims Saturday night that he had "obstructed justice" after it emerged that he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims would be carried out in secret. The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by the Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.
It asserted the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II's successor last week.
Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a "clear obstruction of justice."
http://dir.salon.com/...
One of my favoritest theologians is Hans Kung:
Hans Kung has written eloquently on the nature of the church, and the need to recognize that "those who hold office do not stand over the people of God but are within it; they are not rulers but servants."
Nowhere is that need more evident than in the current sexual abuse scandal. The hierarchy's inability to understand the depth of the problem and their own culpability in it is mind-boggling. At issue are not only their actions, but the values underlying them.
To understand those values, it's helpful to compare their responses to two very different groups of ordinands: women acting on their calling to be priests, and men acting on their compulsion to be pedophiles. The seven women, ordained in June 2002 by a dissident archbishop in Europe, were quickly excommunicated, and their appeal was denied a few months later. The men, hundreds of them, were coddled for decades, allowed to be not merely communicants but priests in good standing, and only removed from their so-called ministries when their crimes could no longer be covered up.
http://findarticles.com/...
It is to be noted that Ratzinger aka Benedict XVI, doesn't like liberation theology either, as in 1997:
As prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is one of the church's most formidable teachers, if not its most persuasive. Earlier this month the pope, on the recommendation of Ratzinger and the congregation, excommunicated (latae sententiae, or automatically) Sri Lankan liberation theologian Tissa Balasuriya, a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, for heresy. Balasuriya's contumacy concerned his purported views on Original Sin, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, papal infallibility, and the nature of salvation outside the church. According to news reports, Balasuriya's fifty-five page response to the CDF's questions seeking clarification of positions taken in his Mary and Human Liberation (1990) was judged "unsatisfactory." He was then asked to sign a profession of faith not only pledging loyalty to the pope but also endorsing the church's prohibition on the ordination of women. He refused.
This is a tragedy for Balasuriya and for the church. Balasuriya's more than forty years as a priest, his manifest concern for the poor, and his endeavors to bring Catholicism into a respectful dialogue with Asian religions deserve the church's regard and thanks.
http://findarticles.com/...
Geesh!
Women? Liberation theology?
Yes, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger cast a malevolent eye upon the very idea of "liberation theology":
Magno Marcieta, 28, hopes to become a priest next year, taking 11 years of quiet religious study into the poverty-stricken streets of the country with more Roman Catholics than any other.
Because he's a dedicated student, he knows his Saint Augustine and his Thomas Aquinas. Because he's from Brazil, he also knows his liberation theology.
The movement, which took root throughout Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s, focused on helping the poor and oppressed, even if that meant confronting political powers. In the 1980s, it was blasted as a "fundamental threat" to the church by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who has now become Pope Benedict XVI. As a result of such internal criticism, the movement gradually faded.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Hey, Joe, yer esteemed holiness. This is the 21st century. It's time for you to recant your 17th-century religious beliefs.