Statement of James Grein

Statement of James Grein

(Sexual abuse victim of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick)

For years I have suffered, as many others have, at the hands of Theodore McCarrick.  It is with profound sadness that I have had to participate in the canonical trial of my abuser. Nothing can give me back my childhood and I have not taken any pleasure in testifying or discussing what happened to me. There are no winners here. With that said, Today I am happy that the Pope believed me. I am hopeful now I can pass through my anger for the last time. I hope that Cardinal McCarrick will no longer be able to use the power of Jesus’ Church to manipulate families and sexually abuse children.

This great historical and holy situation is giving rise to all Catholics and victims of abuse across the world. It’s is time for us to cleanse the church. Our Lady’s work is in process.

McCarrick has haunted the church for the last 50 years.  A church which has been cut off from Jesus. Run by men who have chosen to worship money, power, greed.  The exact opposite of God’s Holy Teaching.

This has to change. It’s Jesus’ Church – I want to return.

I must thank my family for without their belief and guidance I would be somewhere else.  I must thank my lawyer Patrick Noaker for helping me through the legal world. I must thank the important journalists who have listened to me and believed me.

We must continue to pressure state AG’s and senators to open the statutes of limitations. It’s these SOLs that has kept all of the abuse hidden from us.  Hundreds of priests, bishops and cardinals are hiding behind man made law. It is Time that we opened the books and expose the pure evil of these men.

Again, it is Jesus’ Church – I want to return.

Stand Up For Jesus and walk with me

James Grein

Jesus is my savior

Vatican laicizes Theodore McCarrick

BREAKING: Vatican laicizes disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick

The Vatican today announced that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been stripped of the clerical state for crimes against minors and adults, with no possibility for appeal.   Read the article here...

Mr. James Grein — McCarrick’s most well-known victim – has issued this statement through his lawyer. The Vatican sought Mr. Grein’s testimony, which was vital to the verdict as McCarrick sexually abused him during Confession — a particularly grave crime according to canon law.

Helpful Contrasts with Fr. Carlos

Helpful Contrasts

Today’s beatitudes from St Luke’s Gospel is a shorter list than St Matthew’s Gospel. Another interesting difference is that St Luke accompanies his shorter list of four beatitudes with four corresponding and contrasting woes. I find the contrast interesting. 

Our first reading from Jeremiah also offers us a contrast between the person who trusts in God and the one who trusts in mere human effort. The one is like a bush in the desert, and the latter like a tree with deep roots near a source of water. 

These contrasts in our readings today might help us have some perspective. If we ever experience contentment and adequacy in our own efforts, then perhaps we are settling for less than for what we were made. On the other hand, although we are naturally averse to vulnerable situations, such situations might be a blessing if they open us up to a deeper trust in God. 

In order to let God into our heart, we might need to experience a certain dissatisfaction with this world. That experience might be painful. It might be totally unmerited and unwarranted. Yet such experiences, can become, by the grace of God, windows into the mystery of Christ crucified and risen. 

Our second reading points us in this direction: “Christ has been raised from the dead.” Therefore, if we remain in Him, we know the victory is ours, though we may only glimpse it at times. Yet the centrality of the death and resurrection of Jesus in our life is our reason to proclaim with the responsorial psalm: “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.”

God Bless, Fr. Carlos, OSA.

Sunday, February 17, 2019 — Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Global Identity Crisis

I’ve been intrigued by Francis Fukuyama for some time. He made a big splash back in the day with his The End of History, which most misunderstood. He’s a “big idea” thinker, the type I’m a sucker for—attempting to understand all the strands of our times in terms of one, coherent, controlling theme. I recognize from the beginning that this really isn’t possible, but big ideas do have a way of helping us understand a great deal. The intro to a review of his latest book, which is already on my Kindle, does as good a job as any in summarizing his views and teasing one to read not only the review (a long read well worth it) but also his book:

Dignity, recognition, esteem, respect, and the resentment that arises when they are not accorded—these are the themes of Francis Fukuyama’s new book. Like many political commentators, he was surprised by the results of two elections in 2016: the victories for Brexit and Donald Trump. To understand them, he sought a “master concept,” something that would explain not only these results, but also the many other political movements of this decade, from the rise of populism around the globe to #MeToo and campus protests in America. In Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, he proposes “identity,” a concept that grows “out of a distinction between one’s true inner self and an outer world of social rules and norms that does not adequately recognize that inner self’s worth or dignity.”

… His framing of our present crisis as one of identity politics—which he understands broadly enough to encompass right-wing as well as left-wing versions, the international scene as well as domestic conflicts—is lucid and insightful.

What We Think We Know

As I have discovered especially in editorial writing, one has to not only take into account the facts but what readers imagine the facts are—which are often massively wrong. That’s why I warmed to this review of a book that makes that point in spades. As the reviewer noted:

Producing reactions of chuckles, indignation, anger, and unseeming self-indulgent pride, Duffy takes me on a journey of the sometimes unbelievably large divergence between the state of the world and our polled beliefs about the world. And … we’re almost always talking about objective, uncontroversial measures of things we keep pretty good track of: wealth inequality, share of immigrants in society, medically defined obesity, number of Facebook accounts, murder and unemployment rates. On subject after subject, people guess the most outlandish things: almost 80% of Britons believed that the number of deaths from terrorist attacks between 2002 and 2016 were more or about the same as 1985–2000, when the actual number was a reduction of 81% (p. 131)….

More examples abound. An enjoyable if somewhat troubling read!

Understanding Lines

Speaking of misperceptions—here’s an everyday one. Take this example from John Cook of tellers serving customers at a bank:

“Suppose a small bank has only one teller. Customers take an average of 10 minutes to serve and they arrive at the rate of 5.8 per hour. What will the expected waiting time be? What happens if you add another teller?

“We assume customer arrivals and customer service times are random (details later). With only one teller, customers will have to wait nearly five hours on average before they are served.”

Five hours?! I would not have guessed anywhere close to that, would you? Now, add a second teller into the mix. How long is the average wait now? 2.5 hours? 1 hour? According to Cook, much lower than that:

“But if you add a second teller, the average waiting time is not just cut in half; it goes down to about 3 minutes. The waiting time is reduced by a factor of 93x.”

I don’t claim to understand what’s going on but, like the author of this article on queuing theory, I was amazed.

Cheap Grace Today

Nadia Bolz-Weber has made a big splash as a “foul-mouthed, tattoo-festooned recovering alcoholic and former stand-up comic who founded Denver’s House for All Sinners and Saints, a progressive Lutheran congregation that has become known as a haven for ex-evangelicals and other religious or not-so-religious misfits.” Like most extremists, she has had bursts of insights about the gospel, but in the end she’s peddling a gospel without contrition and genuine absolution. Wesley Hill of Trinity School of Ministry does a marvelous job of reviewing the strengths and weakness of her latest book, as well as prompting us traditionalists to a little self-examination regarding our own sins.

Grace and peace,

Mark Galli Editor-in-Chief, Christianity Today

A year after Parkland, we are all numb

A year after Parkland, we are all numb
Religion News Service: When it comes to shootings in America, we have all become numb. We barely notice them anymore. We have come to accept them as part of everyday life, says Jeffrey Salkin.

Revisiting the legacy of Howard Thurman, the mystic of the civil rights movement
Religion & Politics: This month, local PBS stations will premiere an hour-long documentary about a theological giant of the twentieth century, Howard Thurman.

A new exposé on homosexuality in the Vatican is coming out next week. What can we expect?
America: A new book claiming to expose what the author alleges is hypocrisy from leaders of the Catholic Church over issues of homosexuality will be published next week, coinciding with the start of Vatican summit to discuss the church's ongoing problems in addressing clerical sexual abuse.

Black lives matter to me. Tragically, they mattered little in my segregated upbringing
Baptist News Global: Molly T. Marshall says that ongoing indignities such as using blackface for entertainment (in the not too distant past) call to mind her own segregated and racist upbringing.

Evolution, providence and the Trinity
Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Evolutionary theory posed profound problems for Christian theism. But, Sarah Coakley asks, can we envisage a coherent relation between a good, providential deity and the unfolding created process?

Abortionist Robert Santella has died

Daleiden accusers will be secret: Deputy attorney general confers with abortionist attorneys during hearing breaks

Abortionist Robert Santella has died: “I do have a darkened heart.  I do, I do."

Women in white – more tender politics?: Eleanor McCullen in Boston as role model 

Pope Francis names Cardinal Farrell camerlengo: Duties include managing papal conclave and election of new pontiff

Four Norbertine sisters join St. John the Baptist School in Costa Mesa: Blessed with many vocations

Southern Baptist leaders accused of sex crimes: Sexual misconduct not just in Catholic church

House Churches Threaten Iran’s Islamic Revolution

News

40 Years Later, House Churches Threaten Iran’s Islamic Revolution

Mass crowds celebrate 1979 uprising as Christian watchdogs lament surge in arrests.

Jayson Casper

Read More

I Fled My Country, but Not My Marriage

Immigration I Fled My Country, but Not My Marriage Though extremists separated me from my husband years ago, I know who holds us together. Arooj Nirmal, as told to Bekah McNeel

Two years ago this Valentine’s Day, I arrived in the United States after fleeing persecution in Pakistan. When I describe my journey, I often tell people it was like a journey from hell to heaven. I really do love it here. But the holiday where Americans around me celebrate romantic love is bittersweet. Although I have been married to my husband for seven years, we have only been in the same country for one Valentine’s Day. He has not yet made his journey “from hell to heaven.” ...

Read More

What do United Methodists really believe?

A flourishing United Methodist church considers a way out
Religion News Service: Mt. Horeb United Methodist Church in Lexington, S.C., will be considering its next moves after a special session of the United Methodist Church's legislative assembly later this month.
United Methodist News Service: What do United Methodists really believe?

What the Army can teach the Catholic Church about responding to sexual abuse
America: The path of "I'm sorry, trust me this time" won't work, says retired Army General James M. Dubik. Rather, the church must become trustworthy, and that means taking comprehensive corrective action.

Kentucky bishop says Covington students were not instigators
Associated Press: Investigators hired by a Kentucky diocese have found that Catholic school boys didn't instigate a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial that went viral on social media.

The Pope's top reformer on sexual abuse can't fix the Catholic Church
The Atlantic: Cardinal Seán O'Malley has spent decades cleaning up after pedophile priests. Now he's once again found himself in the middle of a crisis.

Southern Baptists face their #MeToo moment
The New York Times: A report on

Cardinal Mahony Wrecks the REC

When Concerns for Peripheries Eclipse Interest in the Sacred Other

James Kalb
 

Modern ways of thinking lead people to moral views that are different from traditional ones, so it’s not surprising they consider themselves morally superior to people in the past. Whether current moral understandings are actually better is nonetheless dubious and deserves investigation. Modern thought wants to take fewer things into consideration but in a more […]

Read More

Cardinal Mahony Wrecks the REC

Jim Russell
 

“I’m afraid my obedience in that diocese would be absolutely zero. And I hope everybody else’s in that diocese is zero.” ∼ Mother Angelica on EWTN (Nov. 12, 1997) Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Just over two decades ago, EWTN’s foundress Mother Angelica was put back on her heels by the full force of Cardinal […]

Read More