moment of clarity

It's sobering.

Personally I would have preferred to stay silent.

How could I dare to suggest that Judge Yvonne Murphy's report into the Catholic Church's handling of sex abuse cases was a crock?

How could I dare to suggest that Archbishop Diarmuid Martin was corruptly in collusion with media elements wishing to destroy the church?

How could I dare to suggest that Cardinal Sean Brady was failing in his duty to defend his brother Bishops simply because he wants to be liked?

How could I dare to suggest that the Irish Times, Independent Newspapers, the broadcaster RTE, and The Daily Mail, are all of them lying, all of them cravens, all of them utterly completely and opprobriously vile in their manipulation of Yvonne Murphy's report in order to falsely label decent honorable heroic Bishops as concealers of child abuse?

How could I dare to presume that I had a right to oppose wrong doing perpetrated by such seemingly invincible figures, multi million dollar media groups, along with an Archbishop, a Cardinal and sundry Judges?

How could I dare to fight them?

How could I dare to risk being wrong?

How could any of us dare?

 

The Lutheran Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, himself no friend of Catholics, describes the following scene.

 

Once the communists came to power in Romania, they skilfully used the means of seduction towards the Church. The language of love and the language of seduction is the same. The one who wishes a girl for a wife and the one who wishes her for a night in order to throw her away afterwards, both say, "I love you." Jesus has told us to distinguish the language of seduction from the language of love, and to tell the wolves clad in sheepskin from the real sheep.

When the communists came to power, thousands of priests, pastors, and ministers did not know how to distinguish the two voices.

The communists convened a congress of all Christian bodies in our parliament building. There were four thousand priests, pastors, and ministers of all denominations. These four thousand priests and pastors chose Joseph Stalin as honorary president of this congress. At the same time he was president of the World Movement of the Godless and a mass murderer of Christians. One after the other, bishops and pastors arose in our parliament building and declared that communism and Christianity are fundamentally the same and could co-exist. One minister after another said words of praise towards communism and assured the new government of the loyalty of the Church.

My wife and I were present at this congress.

My wife sat near me and told me: "Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They are spitting into His face."

I said to my wife: "If I do so, you lose your husband."

She said: "I don't wish to have a coward as husband."